-----
The shadows lunged.
Thorne met them head-on, axe cleaving through the first specter with a snarl. It screamed, dissolving into ash and frost, but more surged forward, dozens, maybe hundreds...rising like smoke from the stone.
Kaelon roared, his magic no longer flickering, but raging. A wave of lightning arced from his hands, illuminating the chamber in stark flashes. Fire and ice followed, crashing into the tide of enemies. His eyes glowed white, his silence now a thunderous storm.
Aelira raised the pendant, its golden fire swirling into her palm but the shadows didn't shy away. Instead, they reached for it, drawn like moths to flame.
"They're not afraid," she gasped. "They're hungry."
"They're not alive!" Oren cried. "They're fragments...memories twisted into form. You can't kill them like beasts. You must outshine them."
But even as he spoke, one shadow slipped past Thorne's defense and lunged at Aelira.
Before it could strike, Lyra moved.....blades flashing in a blur. She spun through the creature like wind through silk, severing it in two.
"Keep your focus," Lyra said sharply. "They're trying to pull your mind apart."
Aelira nodded, gripping the pendant tighter. Its warmth steadied her....but only just. The whispers grew louder, more distinct.
"Aelira… Aelira… You left us…"
The voice wasn't foreign.
It was her own.
A vision crashed through her mind, a flash of white halls, gold-trimmed robes, fire spiraling from her fingertips. A court of robed figures, a trial.
"You will fracture the Veil."
"I have to! They're suffering! Their souls are crying out!"
She staggered.....A shadow wrapped around her wrist like a chain, pulling her toward the well.
"No!" she cried.
Thorne hacked the tendril free. "Stay with us!" But another memory struck her: an ancient citadel burning, her own voice again, older, colder.
"Let them fall, It's the only way to seal it."
Lyra was suddenly beside her. "What are you seeing?"
"Me," Aelira said hoarsely "But not this me. Another…...older. I tried to stop the Queen, but I think…I helped her, too."
The shadows reacted violently. The well erupted, cracks splintering across the floor. And from it rose a towering form, stitched together from darkness and shards of broken light.
A shadow-woman.
The Hollow Queen's echo.
Her voice was layered, hundreds of voices in one. "You left us to die, you swore you'd remember...you promised."
Aelira stepped forward, flame dancing at her shoulders.
"I came back."
The shadow-queen raised an arm, and Aelira was pulled into her light, a vision that wasn't memory, but truth.
-----
She stood in a grand chamber of glass and stars. Every wall shimmered with visions of other lives. Some were familiar, others felt alien.....one where she rode a phoenix, another where she ruled with a crown of iron and fire.
And there, in the center, stood herself....another Aelira, taller, older....wearing robes lined in gold, her eyes burning like twin suns.
"You crossed the Veil," the older self said. "And I shattered the gate behind you."
"Why?" Aelira whispered.
"To give us another chance."
The elder Aelira touched the pendant. "The Hollow Queen was one of us....our shadow....our sorrow, and she still lives… in the broken places of our soul."
-----
RETURN TO THE PRESENT...
Aelira gasped as the vision ended. She understood now.
The Hollow Queen was her, or a fragment of a past version of herself....cast away, unhealed.
"She's not just a villain," Aelira said aloud. "She's a wound, a wound I left behind."
And you cannot destroy a wound, you must heal it.
But the echo of the Queen struck again, blasting Kaelon off his feet. Thorne grunted, staggering back, bleeding from a cut to the ribs.
Lyra yelled, "Do something!"
Aelira stepped into the center of the battle, raising the pendant high.
Golden flame erupted from her like wings, enveloping the chamber in a radiance so pure, the shadows screamed in pain. But instead of fleeing, the Hollow Queen's form surged toward her.
Their magic met....dark and light, grief and hope, clashing in a vortex of energy that shook the ruin to its foundation.
As the energies collided, a massive blast knocked everyone backward. When the dust cleared.....
Aelira was gone.
So was the pendant.
And in the well, something stirred again.
But it wasn't a memory.
It was waking up.
------