Dawn did not come to Elarion. It never had - not truly. But on that strange morning after Lyssara's visit, the eternal night felt different. The silver hue of the air had dimmed, and faint tremors of colour - forgotten shades of rose and gold - bled briefly across the horizon before vanishing again.
The palace felt it first. The marble sighed. The moonlight that once obeyed Seraphyne's will now flickered like a dying flame.
Something in her was changing.
She stood upon her balcony, barefoot, her hands resting on the railing of cold stone.
From here she could see the whole city: its spires gleaming faintly, its streets glimmering with lanterns that never extinguished. But now the light faltered. Shadows gathered where there had been none.
The people below whispered of omens. Some said the Eternal Queen was grieving again. Others said her tears were blessings.
Neither was entirely wrong.
Within the garden below, Lyssara stood waiting - unafraid to walk among the thorns that no mortal dared to touch. She raised her head, and their eyes, across the distance between mortal and divine.
Seraphyne descended, her cloak of starlight sweeping across the marble stairs.
"You should not be here," the queen said softly. "The palace is no place for those who wish to live long."
Lyssara smiled faintly. "Then it's fortunate that i only wish to live honestly.:
Seraphyne's expression wavered - a flicker of something tender, uncertain. "You speak as if honesty were worth dying for."
"It is," Lyssara said. "Especially when it feels like love."
A silence fell - vast and fragile. The air shimmered faintly around them. The scent of jasmine clung to the night, the same as it had centuries before when the first Lyssara had whispered her vows beneath these very trees.
Seraphyne reached out and brushed a strand of hair from the mortal's face, her skin felt like a miracle - one she had forgotten she could crave.
"You do not understand what you awaken," she said. "When I feel, the balance of this world begins to break."
Lyssara looked at her, unflinching. "Then let it break. The stars can burn again after."
Those words - mortal, reckless, alive - struck through the queen's heart like the first breath after drowning. Around them, the air grew thick, alive with energy. Flowers that had been frozen in bloom for decades began to open, bleeding colour into the moonlit garden.
The shadows deepened. The marble cracked. In the distance, bells tolled - a low, ominous sound that rolled across the city like thunder.
Seraphyne turned, sensing the surge. "The Wane," She whispered. "It has begun."
From the palace ramparts, High Inquisitor Valen Thorne watched as the stars flickered violently overhead. His armour gleamed with sacred sigils, his eyes fever-bright.
"The queen falters," he said to the priest beside him. "Her emotions corrupt the light itself. We must act before her heart unravels the world."
"But she is divine," the priest stammered. "She cannot-"
Valen's voice cut through him. "She can, and she will. Love is her weakness. Always has been."
He turned his gaze toward the garden, where two figures stood bathed in trembling light. "And that mortal will be her ruin."
In the garden below, Lyssara took Seraphyne's hand, defying the trembling of the ground beneath them. "If your sorrow created this darkness," she said, "then let your love be its light."
The queen closed her eyes. " Love cannot save me."
"Maybe not," Lyssara whispered, stepping closer, "but it can make you human."
And for the briefest moment, The Eternal Queen smiled - not as a goddess, not as a monarch, but as a soul who remembered what it was to hope.
That night, the Wane spread across Elarion - gentle at first, then unstoppable. The immortal city, began to breathe like something alive, uncertain, and afraid.
But in the heart of it all, beneath a trembling moon, two souls stood together - one bound to eternity, the other to the brief flame of life - and for the first time, the night itself seemed to hold its breath.