Arenne did not sleep that night. The whisper lingered in her mind like the aftertaste of lighting.
She sat before the painting until dawn bled through the windows, the light catching on her scattered brushes and the drying shimmer of silver paint. The women on the canvas stood forever joined - one radiant, one cloaked in shadow - and though she had never seen either in waking life, her heart knew them.
When she closed her eyes, the silence spoke.
"Remember."
The word echoed within her chest, deep and warm.
She dreamed, thought she was still awake. She saw the old world - its cathedrals and ruins, its storms of light, the queen who walked among mortals with a grief that made her divine. She saw the goddess who had loved her, and the dawn that had devoured them both.
Then the sea rose, turning all memory to silver,.
When Arenne opened her eyes again, she was crying without knowing why.
Later that day, she left her studio and walked the streets of the city. The air was heavy with salt and the murmur of the tide. People went about their lives, unaware that the world beneath their feet was layered upon ghosts.
At the city' edge the 'Archive of Dreams', a library said to hold fragments of forgotten ages - songs, inscriptions, prophecies written by those who spoke to the stars. Arenne had never dared enter it before. But something inside her now compelled her to.
The archivist was an old woman with skin like parchment and eyes the colour of smoke. She regarded Arenne in silence before speaking. "You've heard her voice, haven't you?"
Arenne froze. " What do you mean?"
The woman smiled faintly. "The Eternal Queen. She calls to those who still dream in her name. Though most forget by morning."
"How do you know that name?" Arenne asked.
The woman turned toward the shelves. "Because I once painted her, too."
From the shadows, she pulled a small canvas wrapped in silk. When she uncovered it, Arenne gasped. The painting was centuries old, but the faces were the same - the goddess of light, the mortal queen of shadow. Only in this one, their hands were not touching. They reached toward one another, separated by a rift of darkness.
"She was real," Arenne whispered.
"She is," the archivist said softly. "She sleeps beneath the sea that remembers her."
Arenne frowned. "Beneath the sea?"
The woman nodded toward the window, where the glass of waters of the coast gleamed under the pale sun. "They say when the sky fell and the new world was born, the queen gave her heart to the ocean, so it would never forget her love. On nights when the moon turns red, her voice rides the tide."
Arenne's pulse quickened. "And if someone were to follow that voice?"
The old woman's expression was unreadable. "Then the sea might answer. But not every answer is meant for the living."
Arenne turned back to the painting one last time. The longer she looked at it, the more it seemed to move - tiny shifts of shadow, the faint shimmer of eyes turning toward her.
She left the archive before dusk.
That night, the moon rose crimson again. The tide sang against the rocks, and far beyond the harbour, a shimmer of silver appeared on the waves.
Arenne stood barefoot at the shore, the cold water biting at her ankles, the wind carrying that single, ancient word again - soft, sorrowful, unending.
"Remember."
And she did.
The sea opened its reflection to her, and beneath the surface, she saw wings of light unfurl once more.