The party continued, a blur of color, music, and relentless curiosity.
Chandeliers burned low and warm, gilding the crowd in molten gold as laughter braided itself with the clink of crystal.
My eyes kept finding Sansir and Veronica as they moved, a duet that felt less like performance and more like confession.
His steps were precise, hers fluid and unguarded, each motion flowing like ink on water.
When his hand traced the curve of her waist and guided her into a spin that caught every flicker of candlelight, the air itself seemed to still.
It was not seduction but revelation, art made flesh, an intimacy woven through form and grace.
Mirabel leaned close, her lips brushing my ear. "I am hiring her to teach me that."
Her tone was light, but her gaze carried the sharpness of a challenge. It was gnawing to say the least.
"I will be looking forward to that," I murmured, meaning every word.
The crowd's curiosity rippled like a tide.
Voices swelled and faded with questions about the wings, about the power that had manifested, about meaning and origin.
Whispers of awe and unease slipped between polished smiles.
We answered with practiced calm, words wrapped in both truth and mystery.
We spoke of politics, of shifting alliances, of love and ambition knotted together until neither could be told apart.
Beneath the laughter, I felt the tension of the room, the quiet, watchful kind that grows when certainty begins to crumble.
The music softened. The hour grew late. The nobles began to depart, their bows courteous but their eyes calculating.
When the last of them vanished into shadow, the hall fell into silence, a cathedral of dying light.
Mirabel's hand found mine as we walked down the corridor toward our chambers.
Her voice came low, tired but thoughtful. "So do you have any idea what that was?"
"It is the result of perseverance," I said. "The ritual, and the cost of bearing these crowns."
She studied me, eyes dark and searching. "Is that why you waited until the end of the year? Why you refused to act until now?"
I nodded. "That power you feel is every past queen's knowledge and mastery flowing into you all at once."
Her lips parted. "So that is why the world feels…"
"Slow," I finished quietly. "Yes. For me, it feels the same."
When we entered our chamber, it was not as we had left it.
Black carpet muted our steps, and obsidian curtains draped the windows like night itself.
The bed stood vast beneath soft candlelight, sheets of white and silver glimmering faintly, like moonlight caught in water.
Mirabel paused near my old desk and tugged lightly at my hand. "They kept that?"
Before I could answer, she turned toward me, and everything stilled.
Her hair, once crimson, had deepened to near black, threaded with strands of silver that gleamed like stars woven through shadow.
Her skin carried the faint shimmer of the Regalia's afterglow, her breath slow and deliberate.
The change was more than physical.
There was an air around her now, something both divine and achingly human, like a goddess remembering what it meant to feel.
"That is better," she whispered as the door closed behind us.
I caught my reflection in the glass. A streak of white ran through my hair, a quiet mark of what we had endured. "So it is like that?" I asked softly.
She smiled, calm but radiant. "I have learned to hold it. Though I doubt this grace will last long."
Without another word, she began to undress.
The fabric fell from her shoulders with fluid grace, sliding over her skin before pooling at her feet.
She folded it carefully, setting it aside as though performing a ritual.
For a moment, I forgot how to breathe.
The candlelight traced her in strokes of gold and shadow.
Every curve, every subtle motion seemed alive with quiet power, an unspoken story written in flesh and silence.
Her body was not an invitation, it was a declaration, an unguarded truth that carried the same reverence as prayer.
My chest tightened. I had seen her fight, command, bleed, and break, but never like this, never so unshielded, so entirely herself.
It was as though every layer of armor she had ever worn had been peeled away, and what remained was raw, luminous, and unbearably real.
My heart beat faster, not from lust but from something heavier, something that felt like longing sharpened by reverence.
I had lived through battlefields and nightmares, but nothing in those moments had undone me the way her quiet vulnerability did now.
She lifted her gaze to mine, steady and knowing. "Well?" she asked, her voice soft, half-teasing, half-uncertain. "What are you waiting for?"
I laughed, the sound rough and quiet. "I see you have gone wild."
Her smile deepened, a mix of pride and something gentler.
She crossed the room, her fingertips brushing my chest in a motion so light it sent a tremor through me.
Her touch was patient, reverent, like she was learning me anew.
We stood in silence, the air thick with warmth and memory.
The closeness between us was electric yet tender, every breath shared, every motion deliberate.
When her forehead touched mine, the world seemed to narrow into a single point of stillness.
There were no words left to speak.
We moved together, not in urgency but in understanding, our bodies finding rhythm in quiet communion.
The night did not blaze; it glowed. It breathed. It whispered.
The candles burned low, their light softening into gold. The silence that followed was full, not empty.
Morning arrived like a slow exhale, sunlight spilling through the curtains and painting her skin in gold.
I woke to the weight of her resting against me, her breathing steady and serene.
The air was warm, scented faintly of wax and dust and something that could only be called peace.
"I have made it this far," I whispered, more to myself than to her.
The words carried the weight of every loss, every moment survived, every reason I still had to move forward.
Beyond these walls, danger waited, the Golden Authority, the remnants of fate, the ghosts I had yet to face. But for now, the world was still.
I raised my hand to the morning light.
A faint mark bloomed on the back of it, delicate and strange, a small sloth curled lazily around my finger, its tiny face caught somewhere between amusement and affection.
Mirabel stirred beside me, her voice a soft hum. "Something wrong?"
I brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. "No. Everything is perfect."
She smiled faintly and stretched beneath the sheets, unhurried, graceful. "It is the start of a new year," she murmured. "Are you sure about this?"
I met her gaze. "It is time. I must grow stronger and slaughter those who killed my sister."
Her expression tightened, the light in her eyes dimming. After a long pause, she whispered, "Will you miss this face?"
I kissed her gently, the touch light as breath. "If I didn't know any better, I might think you were trying to make me stay."
Her voice faltered, and I heard the truth she did not say.
"I do not want to leave," I told her quietly. "But I have to."
Across the western sea, my old master waited, the man who had believed in me when I had stopped believing in myself.
I lifted Mirabel into my arms and spun her once. Her laughter filled the room, bright and fleeting as starlight through storm clouds.
"Besides," I said softly, "we still have time before I go."
Her lips curved into a half-smile, playful and fragile. "Careful, or you will lose track of it."
I kissed her shoulder and whispered, "I am punctual."