Darkness wasn't empty.
It breathed.
Arianna drifted in sleep, but her mind was pulled somewhere deeper—past thought, past fear, past the thin veil separating her from a life she didn't remember. The sanctuary's cool air faded. The stone beneath her dissolved.
Then she heard it.
A single chime.
Soft. Fragile. Like the echo of a bell submerged in water.
Arianna opened her eyes.
She stood in a vast, white marble corridor veined with gold. Pillars soared upward into a sky made of shimmering light, and silver dust floated gently through the air like falling stars.
But the corridor was cracked.
The marble fractured.
The gold dimmed.
The air trembled, as if holding its breath.
Arianna took a step—and her footsteps didn't echo. The world swallowed the sound.
"This isn't real," she whispered.
But her voice felt distant, someone else's breath moving through her lungs.
A soft wind stirred the air, warm and familiar, brushing across her skin like a memory that had waited centuries to return.
"Arianna."
She jolted.
But the voice didn't belong to Kaelith.
A figure walked toward her from the far end of the corridor—tall, radiant, draped in a cloak of gold and white. His movements were too fluid, too precise, too perfect to belong to something mortal.
Light crowned his brow in a faint, shimmering halo.
Arianna's heart thudded painfully.
Solaryn.
But he wasn't the corrupted, burning presence she'd felt in the present. Here, he was…whole. Serene. His features were soft with warmth, not twisted with fury. He looked like someone who could split the sky with a wave of his hand and still cradle a broken bird with tenderness.
"Ari… sister," he breathed, voice cracking on the last word.
Arianna stepped back instinctively.
Solaryn froze, hurt flickering across his face. "You flinch from me."
Her pulse hammered. "You're not real."
"I am memory," he said gently. "Yours. Not his. Not the shadow king's. Yours."
Arianna swallowed hard. "Why am I remembering this now?"
"Because time is thinning." Solaryn approached slowly, like one would approach a frightened animal. "Because your soul stirs, and with it—the truth."
"What truth?"
He lifted a hand, palm open.
The corridor changed.
Light flared, then melted away, revealing another scene—one Arianna felt in her bones before she fully saw it.
A balcony overlooking an empire of starlight.
Cities carved from crystal.
Rivers of gold threading through a world that felt both infinite and fragile.
And there—leaning against the balcony railing—stood a woman.
Her hair was pale like moon-washed silver.
Her eyes glowed with soft fire.
Her back was straight; her presence was commanding, ethereal, and aching with power.
Arianna's breath left her lungs.
It was her.
Or rather—
the woman she had been.
Elaryndra.
The Queen of the Celestial Courts.
Her past self turned slightly, enough for Arianna to see the delicate crescent mark glowing faintly across her wrist—the same mark Kaelith awakened on Arianna's skin.
Solaryn's voice wavered. "You always loved this view."
Arianna tore her gaze away, staring at him. "Why show me this?"
"Because you forgot everything that mattered."
His voice cracked again, emotion bleeding through.
"Because you forgot me."
Arianna hesitated. "You're trying to manipulate me."
Solaryn's face twisted, a flicker of older pain surfacing. "Is that what he told you?"
He looked away, chest rising sharply.
"Of course. The Fallen King always feared what you would remember."
Kaelith's name wasn't spoken.
But the bitterness wrapped around every syllable.
Arianna steadied her breath. "You're leaving things out."
"Because you're not ready."
"Then let me choose that."
His eyes darkened—not with anger, but sorrow.
"You always said that. In every life."
Arianna's heartbeat stumbled.
He stepped closer. "You were more than a queen. More than a soul of light. You were our anchor. Mine…and his."
Something inside her cracked.
"Our?"
A flash rippled across the balcony scene.
Suddenly, Kaelith stood there—his past self—but not the Kaelith she knew. His hair was bound in strands of obsidian ribbon, his eyes bright with unrestrained silver fire. Shadows curled around him like living silk.
He approached Elaryndra—her past self—with a softness Arianna had never seen on him. He reached out, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
Elaryndra leaned into his touch.
Arianna's chest tightened painfully.
Solaryn watched the memory with a face carved from grief. "You two were bound long before kingdoms fell. He loved you with a devotion that defied realms." He swallowed, something sharp shifting in his expression. "But love can blind. And in the end…it destroyed us."
Arianna turned to him, breath uneven. "Destroyed what, Solaryn?"
The corridor trembled.
The marble cracked further.
Something unseen splintered.
Solaryn exhaled slowly, gaze lowering to the fracture at his feet. "Everything."
Before she could ask again, the world flickered.
The air thickened.
The balcony dissolved.
The corridor shuddered like a dying heartbeat.
"Ari…" Solaryn reached for her, panic flashing through his eyes. "You're waking too soon."
"What do you mean—?"
A sound tore through the dream.
A growl. Low. Ancient. Possessive.
The shadows at the edge of the collapsing corridor stirred like they recognized her.
Then-
"Arianna!"
Kaelith's voice slammed into the world like a blade of night cutting through light.
Solaryn's expression snapped from grief to fury. "Not yet. She's not ready"
The dream was shattered.
Arianna gasped awake.
She bolted upright, breath tearing in ragged pulls, heart pounding a frantic rhythm against her ribs. The sanctuary blurred, then came into focus—the violet runes, the cold stone, the silence.
Night still reigned above them.
Kaelith knelt in front of her, hands gripping her shoulders, silver eyes blazing with raw, frantic worry.
"Arianna—" his voice roughened, "you were convulsing."
She blinked rapidly, tears she didn't remember crying burning her cheeks. "I…I saw him."
Kaelith's jaw locked.
"Solaryn?" he asked softly.
She nodded.
Kaelith's grip tightened, shadows curling around his arms like reacting instinctively to her fear.
"What did he show you?"
Arianna's throat constricted. She wanted to lie. To pretend it was nothing. But the dream still clung to her skin, warm and cold and aching.
She whispered:
"My past."
Kaelith froze.
A tremor passed through him—a near-invisible, devastating crack in his composure.
"What part of it?" he breathed.
Her voice shook. "You. Him. Me. Everything."
Kaelith pulled back as though she'd struck him, eyes widening with a pain so raw she wasn't sure he meant to reveal it.
Arianna looked at him, tears returning unbidden. "Kaelith…what happened to us?"
His voice broke.
"Too much."
A pause.
A silent admission.
A confession centuries old.
"And not enough."
Arianna swallowed. "Solaryn said your love destroyed everything."
Kaelith flinched.
But when he finally met her eyes, the truth in his expression was a storm:
"Arianna… you died because you trusted the wrong person. And because I was too late to save you."
The world seemed to stop.
Arianna's breath caught.
"Who betrayed me?" she whispered.
Kaelith's shadows stilled.
His voice was barely a breath:
"You."
Arianna's heart stopped.
Kaelith closed his eyes.
"You trusted your brother."
And the sanctuary went silent.
So silent she could hear her destiny cracking open.