Once each century, the kingdom of Elarion celebrates the festival of Veils - a night when mortals were permitted to gather beneath the palace of Veil and lift their eyes to the heavens. They danced beneath banners of starlight, offered songs to the queen they would never touch, and prayed that she might look upon them with mercy.
For a hundred years Seraphyne has watched from her balcony, unseen. But this night, she felt the pull of the mortal air, the pulse of distant laughter, and the echo of a face she could not banish from her mind.
so she cloaked her radiance in shadow and descended.
The streets glimmered with moon-dust lanterns. Perfume and incense swirled in the air - lilac, myrrh, and the faint, metallic scent of rain. Children wore silver masks, lovers exchanged fragments of mirrored glass as tokens of faith, and everywhere music rose like a prayer: wistful, half in mourning, half in wonder.
Seraphyne moved among them unseen, the folds of her gown trailing mist. Her presence bent the air; mortals brushed past her, shivering without knowing why. The veil between heaven and flesh thinned around her like a sigh.
And then- she saw her.
The woman from the garden stood beside a fountain of crystal water, her cloak drawn back. In the sift spill of moonlight, her face came clear: sharp and gentle all at once, eyes the colour of storm-light on the sea, hair dark as the feathers of a crow. She wore no jewels, no finery, only a silver thread around her wrist - the ancient sign of devotion to the Eternal Queen.
Seraphyne's breath caught.
"lyssara..." she whispered, the name slipping from her lips like a forgotten prayer.
The woman turned. Their eyes met.
The world fell away.
For a heartbeat, the mortals gaze did not waver - calm, questioning, almost knowing. There was recognition there, impossible and absolute. Then she smiled, a quiet, human smile that pierced the queens immortal composure.
"You know my name?" the woman asked softly. Her voice low, with the cadence of mortal warmth - a voice that carried sunlight into the queens cold night.
Seraphyne faltered. " You remind me of someone i once loved."
The womans brow furrowed, then eased into a wistful curiosity." Then she must have been someone rare."
"She was," Seraphyne said " And so are you."
They stood in silence as the festival swelled around them - laughter, music, the murmurs of devotion. The air between them shimmered with something unspoken, fragile, alive. For the first time in centuries, Seraphyne felt her power stir not as command, but as yearning.
" What is your name?" the queen asked.
"Lyssara", she said with a smile that carried a strange sorrow. "It was my mothers choice. She said it came to her in a dream."
Seraphyne's heart faltered - that immortal, unmoving heart - and for a moment, she could not breathe. Fate, it seemed, was not finished with her.
When the night deepened and the lanterns dimmed, the two found themselves walking together through the silent gardens beyond the square. The air trembled with the scent of jasmine and frost.
"You speak like someone who has known many worlds," Lyssara said softly. "And yet you look as if you belong to none of them".
Seraphyne's lips curved faintly. " Perhaps I do not"."
"Then stay here," Lyssara said, glancing up toward the eternal moon. "Just for tonight. Be one of us."
A mortals invitation - fragile, reckless, human. It stuck through Seraphyne's centuries of silence like a blade of light.
She reached out - hesitant, trembling - and brushed her fingers against Lyssara's hand. The touch was brief, but enough to make the air shimmer. The queen felt warmth flood her veins, terrifying and beautiful. The stars above flickered, as if startled by her defiance.
"Only tonight," Seraphyne whispered. "Before dawn, I must vanish again."
Lyssara looked at her, and something ancient stirred in her gaze - the echo of another life, another ending.
" Then I'll make you remember it," she said quietly. "Even if the heavens try to make you forget."
High above, unseen, the High Inquisitor Valen Thorne watched from a shadowed parapet. His eyes burned with a fanatics light.
"So," he murmured, voice sharp as cold steel. "The queen begins to feel again. Then the Wane will grow - and the end will come."