-----
The veil
Silence.....then stars, blinking into existence.
Aelira floated, weightless, in a void that shimmered like a dream unraveling. Starlight and shadow spiraled around her, memories, possibilities, echoes of lives unlived. Her body felt distant, and her thoughts came like whispers from underwater.
The pendant is gone.
Her magic....distant, but not gone.
"I know this place," she whispered.
The Veil.
The realm between life and memory, between selves.
And then….a voice echoed, not hers.
"We are many and we are you."
Figures formed around her, versions of herself. Aelira as a child, as a queen, as a warrior cloaked in flame, as a broken soul kneeling before a pyre. Each one wore the pendant. Each one bore a wound.
"You locked us away to forget, but forgetting doesn't heal."
One stepped forward. The first Aelira, golden eyes, robe-tattered, hands stained with old magic. The one who sealed the Hollow Queen. "To move forward, you must remember us. Not as burdens….but as roots."
Suddenly, a storm surged around them, shards of the Hollow Queen's magic, trying to twist the space between memories.
Aelira reached for the light within.
Not to fight.
But to reclaim herself.
-----
Back in the ruin, the blast had left the chamber in disarray.
Aelira was gone.
The pendant's magic had scorched a spiral into the stone. The well still pulsed, darker now, thicker, as if reality around it had grown thin.
Kaelon knelt beside it, eyes flickering with erratic elemental pulses. His magic responded to Aelira's absence like a compass off-balance.
"She's not dead," Thorne said. "I'd feel it."
"How?" Lyra asked sharply, pacing the perimeter. "How would you know that?"
Thorne hesitated, then said, "Because I trust her, and I've seen death. That… wasn't it."
Oren flapped into view, scorched but alive. "This isn't over, the Veil opened and she's inside it, not lost....Yet."
Kaelon raised a trembling hand. In the air above the well, a ripple formed, images flickering like reflections in broken glass. They caught glimpses:
....Aelira standing in an endless void of light....shadows converging on her....the pendant glowing once more.
Lyra stepped closer, her voice low. "We're not going to leave her, right?"
Thorne met her gaze. "Never."
Oren circled the well. "There's a way, but we'll need the final shard."
"The last fragment of the Hollow Queen's soul," Lyra murmured.
Oren nodded. "Hidden in the Temple of Mirrors, far to the west, guarded by wards older than war."
"And if we don't find it?" Thorne asked.
"She'll remain trapped in the Veil until the Queen takes her or until the Veil collapses under the weight of her fractured selves."
Kaelon stood abruptly. His eyes glowed a deep sapphire.
He pointed toward the west.
The choice was made.
----
Aelira
The storm had passed.
Now only she remained, in a vast chamber of mirrors that floated in a sea of light. Each mirror showed a moment of her life. One from Earth, curled under a blanket with a book. One as Aelira, defying death with golden fire. One, broken, kneeling before a burning city.
And behind one… the Hollow Queen.
Not monstrous now.
Just tired....watching.
"I was you.....the part you hated, the part you buried."
Aelira stepped toward her.
"I know," she said. "But I don't hate you anymore."
The Queen blinked, the darkness faltered.
Aelira reached through the mirror.
And took her own hand.
-----
Back in the ruin, the image in the well flared.
Kaelon dropped to his knees....Oren shouted.
Aelira's reflection looked up....
And opened her eyes.
But something else came through the Veil with her.
Something older.
Something still hungry.
-----