The Oathbinder chants over fire and stone,
carving runes into Vireon's arms,
binding him to Elóranth's soul
Not to protect her.
But to find her.
Because she's vanishing.
Even as she grows stronger,
Elóranth is slipping.
Merging with the Queen.
Losing names.
Losing memories.
In the throne chamber,
Elóranth hears a voice she hasn't heard in years.
"I never said goodbye."
The words don't echo from the walls.
They echo from her blood.
From her bones.
He appears in the reflection of a shattered mirror.
No longer flesh.
Not yet spirit.
Asher.
The boy she once promised eternity to.
The boy she burned to escape her fate.
The Queen stirs instantly.
"He should be ash.
I turned him to nothing."
"You turned him into fuel," Eristra whispers in the wind.
"I gave him form."
Asher steps forward.
Eyes no longer blue but obsidian.
His presence makes the candles flicker.
The air bleed gold.
"Why didn't you love me enough to stay?" he asks.
"Because loving you made me weak," Elóranth says.
But her voice breaks.
And the Queen is quiet.
For once.
Asher draws a blade her old dagger.
He presses it to his own throat.
"Come closer," he says.
"Tell me I never mattered.
Say it with your hands around this hilt."
She steps forward.
The Queen urges silence.
But Elóranth?
She does something no one expects.
She drops to her knees.
"I killed you because I wanted to live," she whispers.
"But I never wanted to forget you."
Asher lowers the dagger.
A tear not of sorrow,
but release slips down his cheek.
Eristra screams.
She begins to unravel.
Because Elóranth has done something magic cannot withstand,
She turned regret into power.
"This isn't how your story ends," Eristra snarls.
"You are mine."
"No," Elóranth says, rising.
"I'm not the villain.
I'm not the heroine.
I am the final rewrite."
And with that, she lifts Asher's soul into her own heart and becomes whole.