The plains stretched wide under a sky bruised with dusk, a sea of amber grass bending in the wind that swept down from the peaks. Ten years had passed since the canyon burned, since Darius Vane’s blood stained the dust and the orbs melted into the earth—ten years since Kade Shen walked away from the crater, the saber’s steel a memory fused with Starfall’s end. The frontier had shifted in that decade—towns sprouted where trails once ran wild, rails snaked through the wildlands, and the echoes of Red Talon faded to ghost stories told over campfires. But Kade remained, a shadow on the edge, a man unmoored yet rooted deep.

He stood now on a low rise, his coat weathered to a dull gray, patched at the elbows from years of wandering. His hair hung longer, streaked with silver at the temples, and his face bore new lines—etched by sun, wind, and the weight of a past carried light but never shed. No saber hung at his hip—its loss a scar healed over—but a stout staff rested in his hand, carved from oak, its surface worn smooth by calloused palms. K.S. was etched into its grain, a quiet vow kept alive.

The years had honed him—hands tougher, stride surer, a body forged in the wilds after Vane’s fall. He’d drifted west as he’d told Lila, through deserts and forests, over rivers and ridges, chasing no map but the one in his blood. The ranch’s ashes were a memory he’d buried deep—Jian’s steady hands, Lin’s hum, Mara’s laugh—avenged in Vane’s end, freed in the orbs’ fire. Starfall was dust, its power gone, but Kade carried its echo—not as guardian, not as hero, but as a man who’d faced the dark and walked out whole.

Townsfolk whispered of him now—the Starman, they called him, a name born from half-truths and campfire tales. A drifter who’d felled a warlord, who’d burned a relic to save the land, who appeared when trouble brewed and vanished when it passed. He’d stopped a raid in Dust Hollow three summers back—staff cracking skulls, no blood spilled beyond need. Helped a widow rebuild her barn near Sage Creek, hands steady as Jian’s, then left with dawn. Word spread—Kade Shen, the lone blade, a ghost with no home but the road.

He didn’t seek the tales—didn’t deny them either. They grew like weeds, twisting his fight into myth: the eclipse duel, the fallen star, a saber that blazed before it burned. Some said he carried Starfall’s light still, hidden in his staff; others swore he’d died with Vane, a spirit haunting the peaks. Kade let them talk—truth was simpler, harder, his own.

The rise overlooked a small settlement—huts and a saloon, smoke curling from chimneys, a speck of life in the vastness. A child’s shout drew his eye—a girl, no older than Mara’d been, chasing a hoop with a stick, her braid bouncing. She tripped, hoop rolling free, and Kade stepped down, staff tapping the dirt, retrieving it before the wind took it.

“Here,” he said, voice rough but soft, handing it back. Her eyes—bright, brown—widened, a grin breaking through.

“Thanks, mister!” she chirped, clutching the hoop. She squinted, curious. “You the Starman? Pa says you fought a monster with a sword of light.”

Kade’s lips twitched—a smile, faint but real. “No sword,” he said, lifting the staff. “Just this. No monsters either—just men who lost their way.”

She frowned, unconvinced, then thrust something at him—a wooden blade, whittled crude, painted with stars. “Made it for you—Pa says you’re good. Keep it.”

He took it, the weight light in his hand, stars chipped but bold. “Thanks, kid,” he said, tucking it into his coat. “Keep that hoop rolling.”

She grinned, darting off, and Kade watched her go—Mara’s echo, but alive, free. The settlement hummed, folk moving through dusk—peaceful, for now—and he turned away, staff steady, the road calling west again.

Lila crossed his mind—her path split that night, her grin fading into dawn. He’d heard whispers—her in a border town, running a saloon, scars traded for stories, or dead in a brawl, depending who told it. He hoped the first—hoped she’d found her dust to settle—but left it there, a thread untied, her choice her own.

The wind carried a chill as night fell, stars blazing—sharp, countless, a sky Jian might’ve watched. Kade walked, staff tapping a rhythm, the wooden blade a quiet weight in his pocket. No saber, no orbs—just him, remade in the wild, a protector unnamed but known. The plains stretched endless, the peaks a jagged memory, and somewhere, a fire crackled—another tale of the Fallen Star, growing with the years.

Kade Shen moved on—legend whispered, man unbroken.