The sun had risen and set three times since the ball.
Seraphina had not spoken to anyone.
Her chambers remained pristine: gowns arranged by color and occasion, books stacked by memory, not alphabet. The rose-shaped combs on her vanity glittered in perfect rows untouched. Her bed remained made, the blankets unslept in.
But Seraphina wasn't in the room.
She was in the old rose garden beneath the east wall forgotten, overgrown, and off-limits since the frost took the last royal gardener. No guards dared follow her here. No advisors wandered past the thorn-arched gate.
She stood barefoot on the moss-wet stone, dressed in a midnight shift. Dew clung to her legs. Her fingers were ink-stained, trembling.
She knelt beside the crumbling sundial and opened her journal.
The pages were chaos.
Not poetry. Not prayers. Just names.
Maria.
Elysia.
The girl.
The goddess.
The flame.
Each name slashed out with a trembling hand.
And then, her own name.
Scratched. Torn through. A line driven so deep into the paper it scored the page beneath.
She stared at the void she had made.
"I was supposed to be the heir," she whispered to no one. "I was the firstborn. I was the light."
But no stars had wept for her.
The moon hadn't sung her name.
She pressed her pen to the next blank line but no ink flowed.
Somewhere behind her, wind stirred the branches. The roses trembled.
She had come here to think. But lately, when she was alone too long, her thoughts bloomed like mold in a sealed jar. Unnatural. Rancid.
And sometimes...
they weren't hers.
A thought brushed the back of her skull.
You are not enough.
But you could be.
She froze.
"Who's there?" she called out, standing sharply, breath misting in the cold.
No one answered.
But the idea stayed. Heavier than sound. Like it had always been there. Like it wore her skin.
Later that night, she stood at her window.
From here, she could see the towers of the Academy, the distant glow of the Astral Library, the starlit gardens where Maria had collapsed where the goddess had bloomed.
The people still whispered.
Did you hear about the girl? The one with the light in her veins?
They didn't whisper about Seraphina anymore.
A knock at the door broke the silence.
She didn't answer.
It creaked open anyway.
Eleanor stepped in, her robes a shade of grief-dark lavender. Her crown was off. Her voice was soft.
"You haven't come down. You haven't spoken."
"I have nothing to say," Seraphina replied without turning.
Eleanor approached carefully, as if Seraphina might vanish if she came too close.
"I remember when you were little," she said. "You used to write your name on every page you could find. Seraphina the Brave. Seraphina the Bright."
Silence.
"I loved that about you. You weren't waiting to be told who you were. You decided."
"I thought I was the sun," Seraphina said flatly.
"And now?" Eleanor asked.
Seraphina turned. Her eyes were red not from tears, but from holding them back too long.
"Now I'm a shadow of someone else's prophecy."
Eleanor reached for her hand. But stopped. Fingers hovered in the space between them then slowly withdrew.
It was a small thing.
But Seraphina saw it.
And it broke something.
"I'm not asking for your crown," she said, voice trembling. "Or your adoration. But I'm still your daughter. Still yours."
Eleanor's face softened.
"I know you are."
"Then why," Seraphina choked, "do I feel like I'm being erased?"
The Queen stepped forward at last and pulled her close.
They stood there, together, for the first time in days.
But as Seraphina buried her face in her mother's shoulder, her gaze drifted back to the garden gate.
Where a woman in gray robes now stood, just beyond the thorn-arch.
Not moving. Not speaking.
Only watching.
And Seraphina, even as warmth returned to her limbs, felt a sliver of cold coil through her spine.
Later, when the Queen had gone and the fire had died, Seraphina returned to her journal.
She turned to a new page.
She did not write her name.
She simply drew a spiral.
Small. Violet. Endless.
And the voice in her head whispered:
"She is not your sister. She is your end."
The cottage by the sea hadn't changed.
But the silence had.
Serene moved through it like a ghost: setting the kettle, lighting the lamps, counting herbs she didn't need. Routine wrapped around her like gauze thin, familiar, useless.
But the sea... the sea was whispering.
She paused at the window.
A gust tore across the cliffs, sharp and mourning, and beneath it a sound she hadn't heard in years.
Not a cry of pain.
A cry of soul.
Her hands shook.
The teacup slipped.
Porcelain shattered. Hot water licked her skirts.
She didn't flinch.
She stumbled to the hearth. Dropped to her knees before the wooden chest she hadn't touched since the night the sea gave her a daughter.
Maria.
Her trembling fingers opened it.
Inside, wrapped in velvet, lay a rose-shaped crystal.
It pulsed.
Not soft.
Not idle.
It burned.
Faster.
Hotter.
The last time it pulsed was the night Serene pulled a glowing child from the sea.
Now it thrummed like a second heart and Serene felt it in her own chest.
"She's in pain," she whispered. "And I can't reach her."
She stood, legs stiff, grief rising.
The apothecary shelves held no answers. Bottles marked soothe, calm, griefroot sat useless.
She stepped outside. Wind tearing at her braid.
She walked to the edge of the cliff.
The place where magic first delivered her a miracle.
She knelt.
No spells.
No circles.
No rituals.
Just a mother.
"Please," she whispered, voice breaking. "Please bring her back."
The wind curled around her.
Not as answer.
As echo.
And Serene bowed her head and wept into the sea, her tears falling beside the crystal which pulsed once more...
...before fading.
Above, the stars blinked.
Not shining.
But trembling.
The chamber was cold.
Not from air but weight.
Walls of gold-veined stone stretched upward, crystal inlays catching sunlight but casting no warmth. Tall windows opened to the sky, but no breeze stirred.
At the council table sat the kingdom's power:
Nobles cloaked in velvet and suspicion
Scholars of Celestia in silver and ink
Clerics of the Starfold in veils that shimmered like dying stars
At the head stood Queen Eleanor.
She did not sit on the throne.
She rested one hand upon it as if bracing herself against history.
At her side, silent and severe, stood King Alaric.
He had not spoken since the chamber was sealed.
But when he did, the kingdom would move.
Maria was not here.
She had been sealed in the Starlight Chamber not guarded by soldiers, but by woven wards of ancient magic. No one could approach without Eleanor's command.
And already... the wolves were circling.
Whispers. Glances. Thinly veiled accusations wrapped in protocol.
"Has she awakened?"
"Is she a threat?"
"Or a weapon?"
The Queen's grip on the throne tightened.
She did not answer.
But her silence was not surrender.
It was war brewing beneath etiquette.
Lady Revienne, head of the Noble Judiciary, rose first.
"She should be sealed," she said coldly. "For her safety and ours."
Elder Morrow of the Scholar's Hall shook his head.
"She's divine! We should be learning from her, not fearing her."
Lord Fenric slammed his fist on the table.
"She collapsed a ballroom! She's unstable. And if she remembers she's a goddess, do you think she'll follow our laws? Or break them as easily as snapping a reed?"
The nobles murmured in agreement.
The scholars murmured in dissent.
The clerics murmured in prayer.
Queen Eleanor raised her voice, steel-edged.
"She is my daughter."
The room stilled.
Silence fell like frost.
Her eyes burned; her jaw tight.
"She is not a weapon. Not a threat. She is a child who has suffered more than any of us ever dared.
And she will not be caged."
King Alaric, silent until now, finally straightened.
His voice was low, quiet
but every person in the room leaned forward.
"Eleanor... she is not only your daughter. She is mine as well."
He let the words hang.
Then, sharper:
"But I will not risk the kingdom for a father's heart."
Queen Eleanor's eyes flashed.
"Alaric"
"I will protect her," the king said firmly.
"But I will protect our people first."
His eyes swept the council.
"If she becomes unstable, we act. Not with cruelty. Not with hate.
But with control."
He looked at the scholars.
"Study her."
He looked at the nobles.
"Guard her."
He looked at the clerics.
"Pray for her."
Then, his voice softened.
"And if she is what I fear she is...
pray for all of us."
The library's oldest wing hadn't been entered in over a century.
Not without permission.
Not without purpose.
Seraphina entered anyway.
The air was cold, dry, laced with the scent of ash and forgotten spells.
Scrolls lined the marble shelves like sleeping serpents.
She moved without hesitation gliding, almost until she reached the farthest case.
It wasn't locked.
It was sealed.
With starlight.
Seraphina didn't touch it.
She just stood there, staring.
And then...
It opened.
Not gently.
Not with reverence.
It burst apart
and words, molten and gold, bled across the floor.
"One must rise.
One must burn.
Only one crown may remain."
Her breath hitched.
Her hand trembled just once.
Then her eyes sharpened.
She pulled a silk handkerchief from her robe and wiped the glowing words away like spilled wine.
Without hesitation, she set the cloth alight in her palm.
It burned to smoke.
Vanished into the air.
Seraphina didn't flinch.
Didn't smile.
Didn't whisper a single word.
She simply turned, her face cold and clear.
And walked away.
She had made her choice.