No Happiness Guaranteed

Previously

…Phetheni squeezed his hand, her gaze meeting his. The unspoken question in her eyes was met with a quiet understanding. Their journey wasn’t over, but the nature of it had fundamentally changed. The compass had led him not to a destination, but to a profound truth: that the greatest adventure, the truest happiness, lay not in a place, but in the shared journey, in the hands held tightly in the darkness. And as the light of the hidden realm fully returned, Elias knew, with a certainty that settled deep in his soul, that he was no longer adrift. He was, finally, on his way.