The moment Aelia stepped through the stone archway, the world fell away.
Not gently.
The ground cracked beneath her boots. The wind howled backward — not like air, but like voices screaming in reverse. Her body twisted, weightless, caught in something deeper than magic. Older than memory.
She tried to cry out — but her voice was swallowed.
Light shattered around her like glass, and then...
She was elsewhere.
---
✧
She opened her eyes to sunlight.
Real sunlight.
Warm. Golden. Soft enough to make her blink.
She was standing in a courtyard filled with lavender and red lilies, the air thick with perfume and birdsong. Marble columns spiraled above her, and fountains danced in the corners of her vision.
But it wasn't just the place.
It was her body.
She wasn't wearing the travel cloak or her worn boots. She was in gilded silk, her wrists dripping with bangles, her hair woven into dark braids laced with rubies.
And in the mirror across the garden wall...
She saw Lysara.
Not a vision.
Not a ghost.
She was Lysara.
---
Aelia—Lysara—staggered back from her reflection.
No. No, this isn't right.
She gripped the fountain's edge, trembling.
But her body moved with purpose, as if it remembered the steps.
And then, a voice — deep, smooth, laced with fire:
> "You're early, my queen."
She turned.
And saw him.
Kael. But not quite.
Younger. Sharper. Eyes still soft, not yet turned to ice.
Azrik.
He crossed the courtyard, all in black with red embroidery on his cuffs. He moved like a storm in human form — quiet and dangerous, but beautiful in the way falling stars are beautiful right before they burn.
He stopped in front of her.
"I wasn't expecting you until the dusk meeting," he said. "Unless you're here to seduce me out of strategy again."
Aelia didn't respond.
Couldn't.
Because Lysara's lips were already curling into a smile.
"I could be," she said, but the voice was not hers.
Azrik leaned close.
And kissed her.
---
Aelia was pulled under.
Not by the kiss — but by the memory it unlocked.
Dozens of them.
A flash of hands stained with blood.
A mirror cracking as she screamed.
A woman sobbing at a cradle — empty.
A knife in the dark.
A crown falling into fire.
---
The memory around her shifted.
The courtyard vanished.
Now she stood in the war room, a map stretched before her. Generals. Mages. And Azrik, furious.
"You told them?" he growled.
"They deserved to know," Lysara's voice snapped from her mouth.
"They'll turn on us."
"Let them," she said. "You made a deal with the underrealm, Azrik. You sold our future for power. You made me part of that contract."
He slammed a fist on the table. "I did it to save us."
"No," she whispered. "You did it to become king."
---
The memory twisted again.
Now it was a bedchamber, lit only by moonlight.
Azrik sat at the edge of the bed, his shirt open, his hand bandaged — bleeding from a blade not long ago.
Lysara—Aelia—stood by the window, holding something wrapped in cloth.
It pulsed faintly with light.
A relic.
A heartstone.
"The council can't know I have this," she said. "They'd see it as treason."
He looked at her. "It is treason."
She met his eyes. "Then kill me."
He didn't move.
Didn't blink.
Because he couldn't.
Because he wouldn't.
---
The chamber blurred.
Again.
And now...
The throne room.
Blood on the floor.
Screaming.
Lysara — wild-eyed, unhinged, cornered by seven guards.
Azrik standing at the top of the dais.
His voice shaking.
> "I command you, Lysara — drop the blade."
> "You gave me the curse," she spat. "Now I'll finish it."
> "Lysara—"
> "You lied to me. You lied to them. And you still expect me to kneel?"
> "I still love you."
> "Then burn with me."
She turned the blade inward.
Stabbed her chest.
And everything — everyone — screamed.
---
✧
Aelia fell backward.
Back into her own skin.
Back into her mind.
Gasping, crying, shaking.
The vision vanished.
The archway was gone.
Only a mirror stood in its place — tall, cracked, flickering between her face and Lysara's.
And a voice whispered:
> "Now you understand."
---
Aelia crawled back, chest heaving.
She wasn't just her.
She had been her.
And Lysara hadn't been a villain.
She had been a queen betrayed.
A weapon. A sacrifice. A woman who chose her own end before anyone else could.
And Kael...
Kael had loved her.
But he let her die.
---
The wind stirred the leaves as she stumbled to her feet, clutching her chest.
Her fingers came away sticky with blood — not much, just a line across the skin where memory had bled into flesh.
And on the ground, scrawled in ash:
> Come home, little flame.
Before you become her again.
---