The prison did not rush her.
That was the first mercy.
The Keeper lifted one hand, and the realm obeyed—not with force, but with reverence. The walls softened, stone melting into something like woven night. Light pooled at Elowen's feet, silver and deep-violet threads unfurling in slow spirals.
"This is not possession," the Keeper said quietly. "It is alignment."
Elowen swallowed. Her heart felt too big for her chest, each beat echoing outward like a call.
"I'm afraid," she admitted.
The Keeper inclined its head. "You always were. Courage was never the absence of fear—it was your refusal to let it choose for you."
The light rose.
Not violently. Not painfully.
It wrapped around her ankles, her knees, her waist—warm and cool at once, familiar in a way that made her ache.
Images bled into her mind.
Not memories yet. Foundations.
A vast hall of living crystal. Courts not divided, but braided. Fae standing together—fire beside frost, shadow entwined with green—while at the center stood a woman crowned in light, her hands lifted not in command, but in connection.
Her.
No—the echo of her.
"You were never their ruler," the Keeper said, voice threading through the vision. "That was the lie history told. You were their balance. Their bridge."
The vision shattered.
Another took its place.
Blood on marble. A council screaming. A decree etched into stone by trembling hands.
One bond only. One court only. One truth only.
Fear masquerading as law.
Elowen gasped as the light climbed higher, wrapping her ribs, her shoulders, her throat.
"I died," she whispered, certainty settling cold and clear. "They killed me."
"Yes," the Keeper said. "And no."
Pain flared—not sharp, but deep. The kind that lived in bone and memory both.
"They could not destroy you," it continued. "So they shattered you. Scattered your essence across time. Each life a fragment. Each fragment weaker."
The light reached her chest.
Her heart stuttered.
The bonds—those distant, aching threads—pulled.
Four tugs. Four anchors.
The Shadow King's steady gravity.
The Ember Prince's furious heat.
The Verdant Lord's quiet strength.
The Frost Regent's cold, unwilling vigilance.
"They found you again," the Keeper murmured. "As they always do."
Elowen's breath shook.
"They're hurting because of me."
"They are hurting because they love," it corrected gently. "And because the world taught them love must be singular to be real."
The light surged.
Memory hit her like a wave.
Not fragments now.
Truth.
She stood in another body—taller, radiant, crowned in living sigils—hands stained with blood that was not hers. She remembered screaming as the council turned on her lovers, remembered fire tearing cities apart, ice locking hearts closed forever, roots splitting the world in grief.
She remembered choosing to break herself rather than let them destroy each other.
"I did this," Elowen sobbed. "I broke the world first."
The Keeper stepped closer, shadows folding in sympathy.
"You saved it," it said. "At the cost of yourself."
The final seal shattered.
Light exploded outward, not blinding but clarifying. Magic poured into her—no longer wild, no longer searching. It recognized its home.
Elowen screamed as her spine arched, power roaring through her veins like a river returning to its course.
Threads burst from her chest—brilliant, woven, endless—reaching outward through realms and stone and law itself.
She felt them then.
Fully.
The Shadow King's rage as he tore open forbidden gates.
The Ember Prince's laughter, feral and burning, as he dared the world to stop him.
The Verdant Lord's grief-turned-resolve as forests rose to block armies.
The Frost Regent's horror as ancient ice cracked under truths he could no longer deny.
"They're going to tear everything apart," she gasped.
The Keeper smiled, proud and terrible.
"No," it said. "They're tearing down what should never have stood."
The prison realm shook—not in protest, but in submission.
Chains along the walls dissolved into light. Runes rewrote themselves, no longer containment but conduit.
Elowen lowered her feet to the glowing floor, steady now. Whole.
"What happens if I leave?" she asked.
The Keeper met her gaze.
"Then the Weaver Queen returns," it said simply. "And the courts will have to remember what they tried to forget."
She closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, silver fire burned behind her gaze—soft, controlled, inexhaustible.
"Then open the way," Elowen said.
The Keeper bowed low.
"As you command, my Queen."
The realm split—not downward, but outward—light ripping a path through shadow and stone and fear itself.
Above, far beyond prison walls and ancient lies, the courts screamed as reality answered her call.
And for the first time in centuries—
The Weaver stepped back into the world.