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She had only ever loved one person in her life. Once. Before the mask, before the rites, before she was Selene Mirthvale, she had lain under a blood-red sky, whispering a name she swore she'd never say again.
And the woman who held her had replied, "Even the moon lies. But I won't."
That was a lie too.
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The library beneath Ashengar Cathedral was sealed behind stone and sigils. No torches burned here—only the cold light of memory pools, drifting between rows of chained tomes and suspended relics.
Selene moved between them like a shadow born of ice. Her silvery cloak whispered across the marble floor. In her hand, a strip of black lace trembled between her fingers.
It was Lysara's.
She didn't need magic to know it. The scent of iron and violets clung to it, delicate and cruel. Just like the woman herself.
"You shouldn't be here," came Erydon Vale's voice from the mezzanine above. He stepped into view, still draped in his half-paladin robes, one gauntlet missing.
Selene didn't flinch. "Neither should you."
"Lysara sent me. She said you've been... acting strange." He descended the steps slowly. "You vanished for two days."
Selene turned toward him, eyes like opals. "You of all people should know what happens to seers when the veil thins."
"You Saw something?" he asked, quieter now.
She nodded once. "I Saw everything."
She walked to a relic suspended in a glass chamber—the broken circlet of the Pale Matron. The artifact pulsed with dormant magic, so old it made her teeth ache. In its reflection, her face flickered—once her own, then not.
"What did you See?" Erydon asked, stepping closer.
Selene's voice was a whisper. "A memory that was never mine. Dren in the mirror. Naeven burning. And Lysara... crying over a grave that hasn't been dug yet."
Erydon's eyes darkened. "Whose grave?"
Selene didn't answer.
Instead, she turned and faced him fully. "Tell me, Erydon. Do you think she still loves him?"
He didn't ask who she was. "Yes."
"And if that love damns her?"
"Then she'll go to Hell smiling."
A flicker of something—sorrow, maybe—crossed Selene's face.
She reached into her robes and pulled free a sealed envelope, stained with wax and something darker.
"She asked me to give this to you. If anything happens to her."
Erydon took it slowly, heart tight.
"I don't know what she's planning," Selene said. "But I know where she's going."
"Where?"
Selene turned toward the relic again, her voice distant. "To find the Mirrorwell. The place where truths go to drown."
Meanwhile, at the edges of the Bleeding Coast…
Dren Talovar stood alone on the clifftop, the wind clawing at his cloak. He looked out across the black sea, where a ship burned in the distance—a fire he hadn't started, for once.
Behind him, Valcian Myrrh spoke quietly.
"She's unraveling."
"I know."
"Caldus is too close. Kaelen too unstable. And Naeven…"
"She won't forgive me."
"No," Valcian agreed. "But she might still save you. That's what scares you most, isn't it?"
Dren didn't answer. His eyes narrowed on the burning ship.
"I once told her to forget me," he said. "But the truth is... I never forgot her."
He touched the twin scars at his chest—where Naeven's flames had once kissed bone.
Valcian leaned against a rock, arms folded. "You still don't understand, do you?"
"Understand what?"
Valcian smiled. "That the people we break... break us in return."
Back beneath Ashengar…
Selene approached a forbidden alcove.
Inside lay the Mirrorwell—a rippling, silver pool that reflected no light and whispered with thousands of voices. It was a relic of the Old Moon Cult, sealed for centuries.
She stood at the edge.
And as her reflection formed, it wasn't hers.
It was the woman from the memory. The one who once said, "Even the moon lies."
Selene knelt.
"I've broken the oath," she whispered. "And I think… I'm ready to pay the price."
The Mirrorwell pulsed once, and her reflection smiled.
Then it opened its mouth and screamed.