[Mirabel Anstalionah.]
This woman was fascinating.
Her long pink hair curled in soft, deliberate waves that fell around her waist like threads of living silk.
A tight black dress clung to her frame, emphasizing her composed poise and quiet command.
Her skin carried a pale, muted luster, almost like porcelain, and her almond-shaped pink eyes glimmered with a sharp, deliberate precision.
Her mind was every bit as beautiful as her appearance.
We had just finished a brief conversation about the nature of the Great Old Ones.
A pleasant, if fleeting, exchange, before the topic shifted, as it always did, to something heavier. Something more pressing.
She leaned back in the chair, sighing softly, lifting a crystal glass of red wine to her lips. She sipped slowly before speaking.
"The Golden Authority will make its move soon," she murmured, her voice low and thoughtful. "We should all be prepared."
I nodded at her words and lowered myself into the seat beside her. "I want revenge. Not just for the betrayal. But for the insult."
I crossed my legs under my dress and leaned back, allowing myself a moment of composure. "Nicole was just starting to become a little better."
Stella turned her head and offered a faint smile. "I heard she defeated Saint Satire. That woman was no pushover."
I chuckled quietly. "Nicole wasn't either. She was a skilled young woman… far more than most ever gave her credit for."
Stella tilted her head slightly, studying me. "You cared for her, didn't you? Despite everything."
"She once attempted to steal from me," I said, "now I beg the question, why?"
She looked away, her gaze distant. "The Golden Authority won't let this go unanswered."
"Let them come," I said. "Let them bring their banners, their Saints, their hollow doctrines. I will not bend. And I will not forget what they did."
Stella set her glass down gently, her fingers lingering on the stem. "You know what they're planning, don't you?"
I met her eyes. "They want control. Order through obedience. Faith as a leash. That entire system is a monument to pride dressed as salvation."
"And what do you want, Mirabel?"
"I want to reshape the world so that no one like Nicole ever dies again without cause," I said. "And I want to burn their idea of justice down to its very roots."
Stella smiled again, colder now. "Then you and Nicholas are truly alike."
Before I could respond, the sound of a spoon tapping gently against a glass echoed through the hall.
Nicholas had risen. Everyone turned to look as a ceremonial cart rolled into view, carrying the crowns.
I stood as he began to speak.
"My father and mother believed that Mirabel would free me from my darkness and grant me light."
His voice rang clearly throughout the chamber.
I stepped forward, moving toward the staircase as the knights began to form a silent circle around us.
Their blades rose in unison, glinting beneath the chandeliers as a maid approached and knelt at our feet.
She opened a velvet-lined case.
Nicholas's crown appeared first, heavy with dark gold, shaped like intertwining thorns, with a single black jewel at its center.
It radiated the solemnity of a burden, a sovereign's weight made manifest.
Mine followed, delicate yet radiant, shaped like a blooming rose, its petals adorned with white jewels.
The gems shimmered like captured light, casting pale reflections that danced across the room.
He smiled faintly, and his eyes found mine.
"And for that, I say to them," he continued. "My darkness has not vanished. No — in fact, it has only grown stronger. However, with her beside me, I believe…"
He reached for my crown.
Gently, reverently, he lifted it and placed it atop my head. I bowed slightly, allowing it to settle.
Then I reached for his. "And for this kingdom to thrive," he said, as I placed the crown upon him.
"My darkness must become eternal. And she must be the guiding light. My guiding light."
The chamber stirred. The knights around us fell to one knee.
The room filled with rising power that poured into me like a storm breaking through flesh and bone.
It warped me. Shaped me. Burned away every doubt, every chain, every hesitation.
Retribution, oath, and dominion coursed through my veins like wildfire.
My body trembled beneath the weight of it. My soul was struck clean and then rebuilt.
I became a queen not in name but in truth. Through all of it, I was reborn.
"For the rest of eternity, we shall be together," Nicholas said, voice clear as crystal. "One as darkness."
I turned to him and smiled, the crown on my head still humming with light. "One as light."
And then something irreversible happened.
It was not the simple union of two halves. It was not opposition made whole.
It was the meeting of two pillars, rising from the same earth, leaning against one another to hold up a sky too heavy for either alone.
We were not reflections in a mirror. We were foundations. Unshakable.
A convergence of will.
I felt him.
We stood no longer in the castle, nor anywhere bound by space or time. We had stepped outside of it all.
Floating in a blank white canvas, where even silence had no voice, he looked upon me.
And I smiled.
I could see past the shell, past the mortal frame, past the mask he wore before the world.
Behind him, rising like a celestial ghost, stood his true form.
A creature sculpted from black and white, with a long, upright humanoid body draped in flowing threads of starlight.
It moved with impossible grace, its skin like woven ink and snowfall.
Stretching out behind it were massive black wings that devoured all light, regal and terrifying.
At the center of its chest bloomed a single white rose, slow and pulsating like a dying star.
Petal by petal it opened, each breath a heartbeat, each heartbeat a quiet prophecy.
[Nicholas Anstalionah.]
And within me, her true form rose as well.
A beast of haunting beauty and terrible grace.
Its long red body shimmered like molten gold turned to blood, lined with many arms that floated loosely around it like petals in water.
Wings, pastel white and impossibly soft, curved around its frame, shielding it like a mother shielding a child.
Above its head hovered a burning red star, shedding no heat but lighting the void with its presence.
She flew forward.
And so did I.
Our beasts moved in tandem, not as opposites but as twin supports. Not as rivals but as co-architects.
As we met, our souls collided, then merged. Mind, body, and heart. Flesh, fear, and will.
I embraced her. She accepted me. In that embrace, we became one.
Not light and dark wrestling for dominance, but strength and strength interlocked. Two pillars leaning into each other so the structure stands forever.
I was the end. Her end. She was the beginning. My beginning.
And for a moment, there was nothing.
A primordial silence. An endless embrace that neither screamed nor wept, but simply was.
It transcended definition. Time, memory, and meaning were all swallowed.
Two concepts made whole, but not as one, as two forces upholding the same Heaven.
Then I stood, shaking with an infinite fear.
She held my hand, warm and steady, the last echo of that divine convergence.
The shaking stopped.
I looked outward, my eyes adjusting to the throne hall where we had once stood. Yet now it was something else entirely.
Around us stood kings and queens, ancient dragons and divine spirits, all with their heads bowed. Their eyes were wide. Their faces filled with awe.
From my back unfurled wings as black as a collapsed sun, each feather sharp as thought.
From hers, wings as white as dawn. Soft. Boundless.
I smirked and raised my voice, not loud, but absolute. "This is the will we have inherited from our predecessors."
The world listened. "I greet you as the King and Queen of Anstalionah."