The shrine pulsed with ancient energy as the sisters stood hand in hand. The wind stirred around them, carrying scents of ash, rain, and something old—something sacred.
For a long moment, no one moved.
Then Lyra pulled her hand away, not in anger, but with quiet restraint. "This doesn't change what's happened," she said, voice low. "The Revenant still speaks to me. His power still burns in my blood."
Kael stepped forward, guarded. "Then let us burn it out."
Lyra didn't flinch. "You think it's that simple? You didn't see what I saw. You didn't feel the silence in those tunnels… the way the dark waited for me when no one else did."
Melissa's voice was soft. "I should have been there."
"You weren't," Lyra said flatly. "But maybe… you are now."
A pause stretched between them. The silence wasn't empty—it was layered with years of pain and memory, wounds still bleeding beneath the surface.
Selene moved to the altar, placing a crystal shard at its center. It shimmered, revealing a flickering image: a memory trapped in time.
A golden-haired child holding a younger girl's hand, guiding her through the palace halls. Lyra and Melissa. Before the fall. Before the fire.
Lyra looked away, but not fast enough to hide the tears. "That day, you told me we'd always stay together."
Melissa reached for her sister again. "I meant it then. I mean it now."
The memory faded, replaced by another—a vision of the Revenant, draped in shadow, whispering to Lyra in the dark.
"She abandoned you. Let me give you a purpose."
"Your pain is your power."
Lyra gritted her teeth. "He fed me lies, but they felt like the truth."
"You don't need him anymore," Melissa said. "You never did."
Lyra looked at her. "Then prove it. Prove I'm more than what he made me."
Melissa nodded slowly. "Come with us to the Queen's Tomb. There's a memory locked inside it—one that belongs to both of us. Maybe it's the one that changes everything."
Lyra hesitated. "If I lose control…"
"We won't let you," Kael said, stepping beside Melissa. "Not again."
Selene offered her hand. "You're not the shadow, Lyra. You're half the light."
The wind stirred again, and Lyra finally nodded. "Alright. One chance."
As they left the shrine and stepped into the fading twilight, the four of them walked as something almost whole.
Sisters. Friends. Strangers learning to hope again.
The Queen's Tomb awaited.
And with it, the truth.The road to the Queen's Tomb was choked with mist, thick as breath in winter. The path wound through a forgotten forest, trees gnarled and whispering, branches bending like they recognized the ones who passed.
Kael walked ahead, blade in hand. Selene murmured protective runes under her breath. Melissa and Lyra followed side by side, quiet, each wrapped in the fragile warmth of their uneasy truce.
Just before dawn, they reached the cliff's edge—where the Tomb lay carved into the mountain face. Once a place of pilgrimage, it now slumbered beneath vines and stone, forgotten by time.
But someone else had been here.
Fresh tracks marked the dirt. Not wolves. Not Revenant. Something else.
Melissa stepped forward, a knot of dread forming. "We're not alone."
Then a figure stepped from the fog.
A young man, no older than Melissa, cloaked in slate-gray robes. His eyes were silver—bright, ancient. And yet, human. Almost.
Lyra's hand went to her blade, but the man raised his empty palms.
"I come in peace," he said. His voice was quiet, but it struck something deep in them, like a chord.
Kael narrowed his eyes. "Who are you?"
The stranger tilted his head. "My name is Aeron. I'm a Seer."
Selene stiffened. "The Seers are extinct. They vanished after the fall of the Eastern Gate."
Aeron gave a wry smile. "That's what we wanted everyone to believe."
Melissa stepped closer, heart racing. "Why reveal yourself now?"
"Because what sleeps in the Tomb," Aeron said, looking directly at her, "should not be woken without a warning."
Lyra narrowed her eyes. "You mean the memory?"
"I mean what's buried beneath it."
Silence fell. The wind held its breath.
Kael's grip tightened on his sword. "Explain."
Aeron's gaze didn't waver. "Your mother—the Queen—was not just a ruler. She was a vessel. A prison, of sorts."
"For what?" Melissa asked.
Aeron glanced at the tomb door, carved with ancient sigils of moon and flame.
"For something older than the Revenant. Something neither light nor dark. The God Between Worlds."
Selene gasped. Even Lyra faltered.
Melissa felt the dreamstone at her chest pulse with heat.
Aeron continued, "When she died, the seal fractured. That's why your powers returned, Melissa. That's why Lyra hears whispers not just from the Revenant—but from something deeper. More dangerous."
Lyra looked at him sharply. "You're saying I'm linked to… that?"
"I'm saying you both are," Aeron replied. "The prophecy speaks of two thrones—but the truth is, only one survives."
Kael stepped forward. "Why should we trust you?"
Aeron didn't flinch. "Because I've seen what happens if you fail. This world burns—not in shadow, but in silence. Erased."
Melissa whispered, "Then help us stop it."
Aeron looked at her, eyes softening. "That's why I came."
From behind them, the stone doors of the Tomb creaked open—on their own.
The mountain groaned.
The past was waking.
And it would not go quietly.
The doors of the Queen's Tomb yawned open, revealing a corridor lit by cold, blue flame. The air was thick—ancient, sacred. Melissa stepped forward, dreamstone pulsing, Lyra at her side. Aeron followed silently, eyes scanning every rune as if reading a familiar story written in grief.
They moved slowly through the corridor, past faded murals of the old kingdom: wolves bowing to twin thrones, the Queen in silver flame, and two children—one with a crown, the other with a blade.
They stopped at the final chamber.
A circular room of stone and crystal, and at its heart, the Queen's sarcophagus. White marble. Wrapped in silver chains. Moonlight poured from a broken skylight above, dust dancing in the glow.
Melissa stepped toward it. Her hands trembled. "This is it."
Kael said nothing, his eyes never leaving the coffin.
Selene began to chant softly, breaking the wards, her magic a quiet hum in the air.
Then the lid shifted—slowly—until it cracked open with a sigh of escaping time.
Inside lay not a body.
But a memory.
A sphere of light hovered above the empty silk, flickering like a heartbeat. It pulsed once, twice—and then surged outward, wrapping the room in living vision.
They were no longer in the Tomb.
They stood on the edge of a battlefield. Fire and lightning. Armies of wolves and shadows. A younger Melissa—Eris—stood at the center, sword blazing with starfire. Beside her, Lyra, screaming her name, was held back by glowing chains.
Then the vision twisted.
They saw the Queen—tall, radiant, eyes burning white. Her hands rose to the heavens as the Revenant was sealed—but not destroyed. And behind her, a shadow older than all of them stirred beneath the mountains.
The Queen turned—to Eris, to Lyra.
"I love you both," she whispered. "But only one may carry the flame. The other must guard the gate."
And then—
She fractured.
The memory ended.
The room returned.
Melissa staggered, breath stolen. "I… I was the Flame."
"And I was the Gate," Lyra said slowly, realization dawning—and fury rising with it.
Aeron's voice cut through. "She wasn't choosing between you. She was trying to save both. But fate doesn't leave room for two endings."
Kael whispered, "If the Gate fails…"
"The God Between Worlds awakens," Aeron finished.
A sharp sound split the chamber.
Lyra's blade scraped free of its sheath.
Melissa turned, heart pounding. "Lyra—"
"I was never meant to be Queen," she said, voice flat. "I was meant to hold the door shut. Alone. While you burned bright in the sun."
"That's not true—"
"I waited for you, Melissa. I broke to protect what you forgot."
Aeron stepped between them. "If we fight now, we lose everything."
Selene's magic sparked. "Something else is coming."
Outside the Tomb, the wind howled—and shadows began to gather like a storm taking form.
Melissa looked at her sister.
"I won't leave you behind again."
But Lyra didn't answer.
Because in the distance, rising from the mist, came the cry of a voice they thought long dead.
A woman's voice.
"…Melissa…"
Kael froze. "That's… that can't be."
Melissa's eyes went wide.
Because the voice wasn't calling from memory.
It was calling from beneath the Tomb.
And it sounded like—
Their mother.
The name hung in the air like a blade over bone.
"…Melissa…"
It echoed again, faint but unmistakable. Older. Fainter. But real.
Melissa stared at the floor beneath the Queen's sarcophagus, heart pounding so hard it hurt. "That's her," she whispered. "That's my mother's voice."
Lyra didn't move. Her expression was unreadable, but her fingers curled tighter around the hilt of her sword.
Aeron stepped forward cautiously. "The Queen died in the Sealing. Her essence was scattered in the skyfire. There was no body…"
"Then who's calling?" Selene asked, her voice low.
The blue flames that lit the tomb guttered suddenly.
Then—one of the runes on the far wall began to glow.
Melissa approached, hand extended. The dreamstone around her neck pulsed in rhythm with the light.
When she touched the rune, the wall trembled—then slowly slid open to reveal a hidden stairwell, spiraling down into darkness.
No one spoke. The air felt thinner now. Older.
Kael was the first to descend. "If this is a trap," he muttered, "it's the most beautifully cruel one I've ever seen."
They followed him down.
The stairwell led into a chamber unlike anything Melissa had seen in Morwynn. It was untouched by ruin. A pool of mirrored water lay at its center, and above it floated a single shard of crystal—fractured, glowing faintly.
As they approached, the shard flared with light.
And then she stepped from the pool's reflection.
Tall. Regal. Eyes like dusk and dawn. A face Melissa barely remembered—but her heart knew immediately.
"Mother…"
The Queen—no, an echo of her—smiled softly. "You've grown into your name, Eris."
Kael dropped to one knee. Selene followed.
Only Lyra remained standing.
The Queen's reflection turned to her. "And you, my shadow. My heart."
Lyra's jaw clenched. "Why didn't you take me with you?"
The Queen's voice cracked. "Because I had to leave the gate guarded. And you were the strongest of us all."
"I was a child."
"I know."
Silence.
Then the Queen looked at them all. "Time is shorter than you know. The Revenant was never the final threat. He was merely the one who opened the veil."
A shiver ran through the floor.
"Something ancient stirs now," the Queen said. "Older than prophecy. Older than fire. The thing I feared most, the one I sealed beneath even this tomb…"
Melissa stepped closer. "What is it?"
The Queen looked at her, sorrow deep in her voice.
"The God Between Worlds."
Lyra blinked. "That's just a myth."
"No," the Queen said. "It's waking. And the only soul who knew how to stop it was lost… until now."
The mirror shimmered.
A new figure appeared in its surface—a young man with ash-blonde hair, a golden tattoo on his throat, and eyes filled with stars.
Aeron gasped. "That's impossible."
Melissa frowned. "You know him?"
"I killed him," Aeron whispered. "Ten years ago."
Selene's breath caught. "He was the heir to the House of Ashfall. He vanished the night the temples burned."
The Queen's echo spoke one last time: "His name is Taren. He walks again. And he carries with him the final key to the Gate."
Then the light winked out.
The reflection was gone.
And the pool went still.
Melissa turned slowly to the others. "We found Taren. Before the God Between Worlds does."
Lyra stepped forward, silent. And for the first time since Morwynn's fall, she didn't look angry.
She looked afraid.