The Queen of Silence dreams but her dreams are not her own.
She walks through burning tapestries of Elóranth's past:
a girl in chains,
a hand reaching for forbidden power,
a kiss traded for a crown,
a betrayal etched in flame.
Eristra has found the cracks.
Not in the palace.
Not in the wards.
But in me.
She slithers through the fault lines of memory,
sinking her claws into the softest, most fragile places.
"You should have killed Vireon when he broke the oath,"
the Queen murmurs as a memory replays:
Elóranth sobbing, the world collapsing,
Vireon's blade trembling inches from her throat.
"He didn't strike," the younger Elóranth whispers.
"He loved me."
"He feared you," the Queen replies.
"And that is why he lived."
The war isn't outside.
It's within.
The Queen of Silence stalks through Elóranth's old selves,
The girl who believed in destiny.
The woman who begged for peace.
The child who cried alone behind iron doors.
Each self fights back
Not with swords.
But hope.
In one memory, Elóranth stands in a storm,
wounded and trembling.
But when the Queen reaches to erase her
Elóranth looks up.
"You're strong," she says.
"But I'm still here."
Eristra appears in that moment.
Not as a monster.
But as a shadow in a crown of salt and smoke.
"Your soul is a banquet," she whispers.
"Let me in."
But before she can move,
the Queen of Silence turns and attacks.
Magic explodes.
Not light. Not fire.
But a storm of memory forged into weaponry.
Eristra shrieks and retreats.
And the Queen?
She looks at Elóranth
not with hatred.
But with something worse.
"You are the weakness," she says.
"But you are also the key."
Vireon jolts awake in the real world.
The walls of the palace tremble.
And far away—deep inside Elóranth
two voices rise together in a single breath:
"We are not one or the other."
"We are both."