The palace had grown restless. Servants whispered of strange sounds behind the walls - of whispers like sighs and footsteps that left no prints. The moonlight through the high windows had taken on a reddish hue, as though the sky itself had begun to bleed.
And in the silence between the tolling of the bells, the queen wandered.
Seraphyne's bare feet touched the cold marble floors of the Hall of Memory, a place few dared to enter. This was where the histories of Elarion were kept in painted silence: portraits of Kings, Saints, and Celestial beings long since dissolved into legend.
Each faced was rendered in brushstrokes of silver and dusk. Most had been forgotten. But one caught her eye - a portrait that had not been there for the last time she walked these halls.
The frame was simple. gilded in moonlight rather than gold. The paint still shimmered faintly as if it had never quite dried. The subject was a woman - dark hair, pale skin, eyes of storm light and sorrow. Around her wrist, a thread of silver.
Lyssara.
Seraphyne stood before it, motionless. The resemblance was perfect - but this painting was old, older than any mortal memory. In the corner of the canvas, barely visible, a single rune glowed faintly in celestial script.
It was her own seal - the mark of the Eternal Queen. Her signature.
"I painted this," she whispered. "A thousand years ago."
The realisation sank through her like ice. She had painted this face before she ever met Lyssara. Before the woman had even been born. The memory flickered - a dream half forgotten - a mortal who had come to her court in another age, whose laughter had sounded like wind through glass, whose touch had undone her composure.
Seraphyne's hand trembled as she touched the canvas. The paint warmed beneath her fingers, and for an instant, she saw movement - the painted eyes blinking, the lips parting as if to speak.
"You promised ," the painted Lyssara whispered, voice soft as breath. "You swore to remember."
Seraphyne staggered back. The air thickened. The hall darkened, shadows bending toward her as if drawn by her guilt.
"I did remember," she said. "But the centuries took it away from me."
"Then why do you still search for what you already lost?" the painted voice murmured.
The portrait flickered and fell silent, returning to stillness. But the echo lingered - you already lost - until the words seemed to fill the entire hall.
Later, in the quiet of the queen's chambers, Lyssara came. Her cloak was damp with the mist of the eternal night, her hair glinting faintly in the moonlight.
"You send for me?" she asked softly.
Seraphyne turned toward her. There was weariness in her eyes, but also wonder - as if she were looking upon a miracle and a wound at once.
"There is something you should see," the queen said. She led her to the hall of Memory. When Lyssara beheld the portrait, she froze.
"It's me," she whispered. "But it can't be."
"It is," Seraphyne said. "I painted you long before you ever lived. I think... you have always been with me."
Lyssara reached toward the painting, her fingers brushing the air above its surface. "Then maybe I was never meant to escape you."
The words were simple, but they carried the weight of centuries.
Seraphyne lowered her head. "If the heavens bound you to me, they did it as punishment - not mercy. Every life you've lived ended in my arms. Every time, I swore I would not love you again. Every time, I failed."
Lyssara stepped closer, until they stood so near that the queen could feel her heartbeat - steady, human, alive.
"Then fail again," she whispered. "If it's the only way we find each other."
The queen's composure faltered. The ancient strength in her voice softened into something fragile. "You would die for me."
"I already have," Lyssara said. "Many times."
The queen's hand rose - hesitant, trembling - and she touched Lyssara's cheek, her thumb tracing the mortal's jawline. "And i would die for you," she said "If only i knew how."
Their foreheads touched, light against light, shadow against shadow . The air shimmered faintly with the pulse of celestial energy - not violent, not divine, but human.
For the first time, The Eternal Queen allowed her to close her eyes.
Far above them, thunder rolled across the Veil. The light of the moon flickered, and in the depths of the sky, something vast began to stir - a darkness shaped like wings, waiting for the moment when love would tip the balance completely.