The white void was no longer a silent prison, it was a prison memory.
Verona remained on her knees, the phantom sensation of Eraz's calloused hands still warming her shoulders. The tears that fell from her eyes didn't vanish into the white floor, they shimmered like fallen stars, each one a drop of a thousand years of suppressed longing.
"Eraz," she whispered, the name vibrating with a frequency that made the very air of the sub-dimension hum. "It was always him. In the carriage... in the High Pass... even when he looked at me with those cold, distant eyes, he was just waiting for me to see him."
Iora stood before her, her indigo robes rippling like a calm sea. She watched Verona with a mixture of maternal pride and ancient sorrow. She did not reach out to comfort her; she knew that the merging of two souls was a process that required the fire of one's own realization.
