She floats above the broken throne.
Eyes silver.
Voice sharp enough to cut time itself.
Eristra.
No longer wearing flesh.
Now a storm of what Elóranth could have been,
if she had chosen power over pain.
"I am you without the scars," she says.
"Then you are nothing," Elóranth replies.
The world bends around them.
Sky bleeding stars.
Mountains collapsing into ash.
Reality rewriting itself every heartbeat.
They stand in the last space untouched by time a fragment of the first spell ever cast.
Elóranth lifts her hand.
But no spell comes.
Because here, magic isn't cast with words.
It's cast with truth.
"You could be immortal," Eristra says.
"You could never bleed again.
You could rule every ending."
"I don't want every ending," Elóranth answers.
"I want one ending worth dying for."
Eristra strikes first.
She speaks Elóranth's name backwards
to unravel her soul.
But Elóranth smiles.
Because she no longer has a single name.
She is Queen.
She is Silence.
She is Ash.
She is Fire.
She is Hope, whispered in the dark.
She is unspellable.
Their hands meet mid-air.
No blades.
No magic.
Just choice.
And Elóranth chooses to let go.
She releases every life she could've lived.
Every mistake.
Every love.
Every lie.
And what's left?
Is just her.
Eristra screams because she cannot exist without those broken futures.
And in that scream, she shatters.
Not destroyed.
But forgiven.
The world settles.
Time exhales.
And Elóranth opens her eyes.
A throne is gone.
A crown forgotten.
But in her hand?
A single petal.
Blue. Soft. Alive.
And behind her
Vireon.
Silent.
Smiling.
"You came back," he says.
"No," Elóranth replies, stepping into the dawn.
"I never left. I was just rewriting."