The morning after the people bowed to her, Arenne wandered the empty corridors of the citadel. The halls were lined with mirrors that reflected more light than they should have. She saw herself over and over—each reflection slightly different, as though every version of her carried a different memory, a different age.
In one, her eyes were mortal brown. In another, they gleamed silver, endless and cold. One smiled faintly. Another wept. All of them looked back at her.
She stopped before the largest mirror and whispered, "Who am I now?"
The glass rippled, not breaking but shifting like water disturbed by a soft breeze. A voice came from within—not loud, not commanding, just present.
"You are what we became."
Arenne's breath caught. "Seraphyne?"
The reflection nodded, though the lips didn't move. "And you. And all the selves between."
"I don't understand," Arenne said. "You're gone. I saw you dissolve."
"You saw what you could bear to see," the voice answered gently. "Immortality doesn't vanish; it changes shape. I am the breath between your heartbeats now. The silver in your eyes. You carry me, as I once carried you."
Arenne pressed a trembling hand against the mirror. "Then I'm not mortal anymore."
"No," said the voice. "And not divine either. You are what the world needed—half dream, half memory. You are the queen who dreamed herself into being."
The mirror stilled, her reflection returning to ordinary glass. But something within her had shifted—a deep, still certainty that she had never truly lost Seraphyne. She had become her, without ceasing to be herself.
The air around her shimmered faintly. The dawn outside the windows turned softer, warmer, and the scent of the sea drifted through the halls.
Arenne left the mirror behind and stepped onto the balcony. Below her, the people of the new Elarion were rebuilding, their laughter beginning to fill the silence. It was fragile laughter, the kind that follows fear. But it was real.
She raised her hand, palm upward. Threads of light gathered there—dreams drawn from the air itself, each glowing with faint color. She closed her fingers and felt them merge into her skin.
"This is my crown," she whispered. "Not of gold, but of remembrance."
The wind answered with a soft hum, the echo of Seraphyne's voice hidden within it. "Then rule, my queen. Dream gently, for what you dream will live."
Arenne smiled through her tears. "I will."
She looked out over the dawn, her heart neither mortal nor divine but something wider, deeper—something that belonged entirely to the spaces between.
Far above, the moon lingered pale against the light. For a moment, Arenne thought she saw a pair of wings stretch across it, and she whispered to the fading stars,
"Together, always."
The world breathed in response.