As the tavern fire below still crackled, casting gold light over Kael, Lirael and Ezryn’s quiet silhouettes. But above them, the warmth could not reach the ache curling beneath Liz’s ribs.

She stirred awake, the blankets unfamiliar. The smell of herbs still clung to her—Lirael had helped clean her up, wrapping her wounds with gentle hands and soft words. But Liz had said nothing in return. Her voice had frayed to ash after the forest, after the sanctuary burned, after Martha was gone.

She couldn’t sleep. Not in that bed, not in that room.

So she moved.

Across the hall, Kael’s room door left slightly opened. She noticed his silhouette, She didn’t remember knocking. 

When she entered moments later, she noticed sweat still clinging to his collar from sparring, he stopped dead.

“…Liz?”

He stared, flustered. “This… is my room.”

“I know.”

A beat of silence.

“Do you… want me to leave?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered, gaze distant. “Just didn’t want to be alone.”

Kael stood frozen, jaw tight, as she walked in, and drop herself on the bed like she owned it, unsure what to do with the fragile knot in his chest. “You’re healing,” he said instead.

“You are too.” She nodded toward the bruises across his ribs. “You’ve been pushing yourself again.”

He looked away. “What happened in the forest…he paused, I was not strong enough.”

Liz’s gaze down to the hand on the bed, clinching. “Sit,” she said simply.

He obeyed.

There wasn’t much talk after that.

Just the quiet space between two people who had crossed fire together and hadn’t yet found language for what remained.

She reached out with warm fingers, brushing lightly against his skin. The healing spell hummed low between her palms as golden light pooled against his side. Kael winced, then stilled as her magic seeped through torn muscle.

“…You don’t have to do that,” he murmured.

“I know.”

She finished, letting the light fade. Her hand lingered for a moment longer than it should have.

« I am just using you to practice my spell ». 

Then she lay back, curling under the blanket, leaving half the bed open beside her.

He stared.

“Are you alright?“

Liz, “I don’t know. Maybe not“

“Are you… staying?” He asked. 

“If I can, Just for tonight.”, she continue curled in the cover.

“Why?”

She exhaled slowly, not quite meeting his eyes. “You’re always just… there. When I wake up. Even when you act annoyed. Even when you tease me. You never left.”

Kael said nothing.

He moved quietly, slipping beneath the covers beside her. She shifted once—and then her head rested against his shoulder, soft as breath, the crown of her hair brushing his neck.

Neither of them said another word.

In the stillness, his hand hovered near hers. Almost touching. But not yet.

And finally, wrapped in warmth she hadn’t known she missed, Liz closed her eyes.

And the world pulled away.

There was no beginning. Only sensation.

The scent of ash. The sting of heat. The hollow silence that follows screams.

She opened her eyes—

—and was no longer herself.

She was floating, suspended in the center of a vast, scorched chamber. The world burned beneath her. Stone walls cracked. Fire danced violently across the remnants of what might once have been a throne room.

Below, two bodies lay shattered by fate.

A woman in a torn gown of soft green silk, hair fanned like withering petals. Her arms lay open, as if she had died reaching out to someone.

Near her, a man crawled, skin seared and blackened, a trail of blood marking his path toward her. His mouth opened—but only a whisper of her name escaped before his charred body stilled.

Liz’s heart twisted.

And then—the voice.

“Aelira… Aeli…”

A child. Crying. Crawling. Bloody and broken, a little girl with tear-streaked cheeks and a long wound trailing down her temple and two legs. Reaching out with trembling arms across the burning floor.

“Kaeyla…” Liz whispered, as if the name had been sleeping on her tongue all along.

Then the words followed—foreign yet familiar, a child’s voice from her lips:

“Mother… Father… Kaeyla…”

She blinked, startled. The body she occupied was not her own.

Small hands. Small feet. A trembling child, glowing faintly with magic so volatile it cracked the air around her.

Aelira.

Not a memory she watched. A life she relived.

The golden energy that cocooned her began to flicker. Her small form sank slowly toward the ground, the storm of power waning.

Kaeyla, still crawling, reached out her hand one last time before collapsing into slumber.

Silence reclaimed the ruins. A silence that made Liz’s small body quake—not with fear, but with grief she didn’t yet understand.

Then—

A shadow stepped forward.

“Princess Aelira,” a voice said, calm, clipped, and ice-bound. “You must come with me. Now.”

She turned her head—and her eyes widened.

She knew that face.

The man from the vision. The one who spoke in starlight and silence. The one who had warned her, feared her.

Here, he looked younger, though not by much. Lines were carved deep into his expression, even now. Silver hair framed sharp features, and a long dark coat whispered behind him, its embroidered stars catching the firelight like constellations in motion.

Vaelen.

The moment her eyes met his, Liz felt the world shift.

This was the beginning. The true beginning.

This was the moment when everything shattered.

And yet—Vaelen did not look at her with rage.

Nor did he kneel, nor weep. His face was a mask, and behind it lived regret too old to show.

He had foreseen this. Tried to prevent it. And failed.

Now he stood among the wreckage of his prophecy—his sister’s corpse, his brother-in-law’s burnt flesh, his niece unconscious—and the child who had brought it all down, floating before him in sorrow and confusion.

Yet he did not strike her. Did not raise his voice.

He stepped forward, steady, deliberate.

“We don’t have time,” he said again. “The court will not show mercy. You must come.”

Liz’s body—Aelira’s body—took a step back, shaking.

“I… I didn’t mean—”

His jaw clenched. That was the most emotion she saw. Not anger—restraint.

“You’ve seen enough,” he said, quieter now. “Come.”

He reached down and picked her up—not tenderly, but carefully, as if she were both precious and dangerous. He turned without another glance at the dead, at Kaeyla, or at the still-burning hall.

Liz stared over his shoulder as they walked through the embers.

This is how I vanished, she realized.

This was the moment she stopped being Aelira.

And the world would forget her.

Warm breath, slow and shallow.

Liz stirred—no, Aelira stirred. Her limbs were smaller, her skin unmarked, her body a vessel for something she only now began to understand.

—- 

She did not know how long the time has passed. She blinked once.

The chamber she lay in was quiet. Elegant in its design—tall bookshelves lined with scrolls and tomes, golden trim etched into polished wood. A crystal lamp flickered softly beside the bed. Yet despite its beauty, the air hung heavy. Cold. Lifeless. It wasn’t the chill of winter—but something deeper, something that wrapped the walls in silence and steel.

Her fingers curled against the silk sheets.

“You’re finally awake.”

Aelira flinched.

The voice didn’t belong to the old man from before—it was younger, smoother, but no less sharp.

She turned her head.

By her bedside stood a boy, not much older than fourteen. His silver hair fell in neat layers over his ears and forehead, catching the lamp’s light like moonlit steel. His posture was strict, back straight, hands resting on a longsword strapped across his back. His tunic was dark, fitted precisely to a frame both slender and honed. Not a trace of warmth showed on his face.

His eyes were the kind that had seen too much for someone his age—clear and pale, like frost over still water.

He glanced at her with those eyes, unreadable.

“Stay here,” he said, almost mechanically. “I need to inform the master.”

Before he could move away, her small voice piped up, “W-wait… Who are you?”

He paused, gaze flicking down to meet hers again. No softness. No anger. Just detachment.

“Yuan,” he said after a breath. “My master calls me Yuan.”

Aelira’s heart jumped.

Yuan.

The name echoed like thunder inside her.

She remembered. Not fully. But enough.

The general. The water mage. The man who once saved lives only to end another with frozen calm.

And now he stood before her—a boy with the same silver hair, the same quiet rage hiding beneath the skin.

So this is what he looked like when he was younger.

She swallowed her fear. “What are you doing here?”

This time, he said nothing. His lips pressed into a thin line.

She waited—but silence was his answer.

Still, she was a child. Innocent. Unyielding.

She sat up slowly, her hands trembling. “Why won’t you tell me?”

Yuan exhaled softly—whether from irritation or patience, she couldn’t tell. Then, with one fluid movement, he drew his sword and pointed it—not with aggression, but with warning—its cold edge glinting inches from her neck.

“To kill you,” he said flatly.

Aelira froze.

Her breath caught in her throat.

Yuan stared without emotion. “That was the master’s order. If there’s another magical surge from you—if you lose control again—I’m to end it before it happens.”

His hand didn’t tremble. Not even slightly.

It wasn’t bravado.

It was certainty.

“But,” he added after a moment, withdrawing the sword and turning away, “you haven’t. So you’re still alive.”

She watched as he walked to a nearby table and picked up a silver plate. Steam curled from a small bowl and a few slices of bread. He returned to her side and set it down with an unceremonious thud.

“Eat,” he said without looking at her. “You’ve slept for two days. Better not starve on top of everything else.”

Aelira blinked again, hands still shaking slightly.

“You were… ordered to kill me…” she whispered.

Yuan pulled up a chair and sat down beside the bed, arms crossed. “Only if necessary. I’m not a mindless killer.”

He didn’t sound defensive. Just factual.

She stared at the food. Her hands moved hesitantly toward it.

Then, in the tiny voice of a child who knew nothing of subtlety, she mumbled, “You’re too beautiful to kill someone.”

Yuan’s head twitched, just slightly. His eyes widened—barely—and a faint color crept up his neck before he turned away, quickly and rigidly.

“Eat,” he said again, more forceful this time, pushing the plate a little closer. “Don’t say dumb things.”

Aelira stifled a giggle, despite the ache in her chest.

For a moment, just a moment, the chamber didn’t feel so cold.

And she began to eat.