It was the year 997 of the New Era, long after the last cathedral of Elarion had fallen to dust.
The Eternal Queen was a myth now—told only in children's whispers and old folk songs sung to lull babies into dreams.
But the world still turned beneath the same moon.
And one night, when that moon began to blush red again for the first time in centuries, a young scholar awoke to the sound of his own heartbeat echoing like a bell.
His name was Lysander.
He was quiet, curious, a collector of lost words. His work had brought him deep into the ruins of the old kingdoms, following fragments of poetry that no one else bothered to read anymore.
He'd been cataloguing the last of the moonlit archives when he found it—
a single leather-bound book sealed beneath melted glass, untouched by age.
The title was pressed faintly in silver across the cover:
The Eternal Queen.
Lysander turned the pages carefully.
At first, it was only fragments: verses, letters, half-remembered names. Then came longer passages—tales of a queen who ruled the Veil between worlds, who loved a mortal woman and shattered eternity for her.
He smiled faintly. "Romantic myth," he murmured, brushing dust from the ink. "Tragic and beautiful. Too well-written for truth."
But as he read deeper, he noticed something strange.
The handwriting changed—softened—as if more than one hand had shaped the story. And at the bottom of one page, written in a script no scholar could date, he found a line that chilled him:
If you are reading this, then the moon has bled again. Remember her.
Lysander's pulse quickened. He looked toward the window. The night sky burned crimson.
For days afterward, he couldn't sleep.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw flashes of silver wings, a balcony of living stone, and a woman whose eyes were neither gold nor violet but a luminous white.
He began to hear whispers—soft, familiar, always at the edge of thought.
Remember her.
The phrase repeated until it became part of his breath.
He brought the manuscript to the library of Aeryth, the last surviving institution of the old world's scholars.
The archivist, a sharp-eyed woman named Kaelith, frowned as she examined it. "It's impossible. The material predates the kingdoms themselves. No ink like this exists in the world."
"Maybe it's divine," Lysander said half-jokingly.
Kaelith looked up, serious. "Don't speak lightly of the divine. There are old things that once ruled the moon, and their names are best forgotten."
Lysander hesitated. "You mean the Eternal Queen?"
Kaelith closed the book sharply. "Don't say it."
That night, Lysander took the book home despite her warning. He placed it on his desk beside the candlelight.
And as the crimson moon reached its zenith, the air in his room thickened—like breath held too long.
The pages began to turn themselves.
The ink shimmered.
And words appeared that hadn't been there before:
To the one who finds this, the world has begun to remember. My name was Arenne once. I lived too long. I loved too deeply. And now the moon remembers for me.
Lysander's hand trembled.
If you wish to know why the moon bleeds, follow the river north until it forgets your name.
The candle went out.
When dawn came, the book was gone.
All that remained on Lysander's desk was a single white feather—soft as moonlight, warm as breath.
And beyond the horizon, the red moon still hung, watching.
In the weeks that followed, strange phenomena began to ripple through the world. Rivers changed direction. Statues wept silver. People began dreaming of a woman's voice—gentle, distant, asking them to remember a name they could no longer pronounce.
Kaelith found Lysander's study empty, his belongings untouched.
Only one thing was left behind: a note written in hurried ink.
I think I've found her.
Far to the north, under the rising light of a crimson dawn, a figure stood at the edge of a mirror-lake.
Her hair shimmered faintly white. Her reflection smiled before she did.
And when she spoke, her voice was neither divine nor mortal—but something reborn between the two.
"It seems even time cannot forget love forever."
The wind stirred, carrying with it a thousand soft whispers.
The moon's reflection rippled—and two silhouettes appeared in its glow, one reaching toward the other.
The Eternal Queen had been forgotten.
But remembrance, at last, had remembered her.