The night fell without warning.
One moment, Lysander walked beneath a pale blue sky; the next, the stars turned red, and the moon bled through them like a wound reopening after ages of stillness.
He dropped to his knees as the air thickened — a hum vibrating through bone, through breath, through thought.
It wasn't pain. It was recognition.
The world was remembering.
The grass bent in one direction, as though bowing.
And from the horizon, a light began to spread — not golden like dawn, but silver and trembling, cold and gentle all at once.
Lysander closed his eyes. "You're here again," he whispered.
I never left, a voice replied — familiar, low, and endless.
You are only now learning to hear me.
The wind carried her words through him. And then, like the moon lowering itself to earth, the landscape shifted.
He wasn't in the grasslands anymore.
He stood on marble — cracked, white, gleaming faintly beneath a blood-tinted sky.
Before him stretched the throne room of Elarion as it once was, untouched by decay.
Candles burned blue; silken banners stirred without wind.
And at the far end of the hall, on the steps before the empty throne, stood Arenne.
She was as he had seen her in dreams — tall, graceful, her silver hair bound in a crown of crescent metal, her eyes full of sorrow that no age could soften.
But this time, she looked directly at him — and when she spoke, her voice did not echo in his mind. It filled the air itself.
"You should not be here," she said.
"This memory was sealed long before you were born."
"I didn't come here," he said, his voice trembling. "It came to me."
She smiled faintly. "Then the world is ready to remember."
He took a hesitant step closer.
"I saw you die," he said. "Or something close to death. I saw you dissolve into the sea."
"I did."
Her tone was neither regretful nor proud. Simply true.
"I had ruled too long. The world had stopped dreaming, because I had stopped feeling. I thought if I became part of creation itself, I might set it free from me."
"And did you?"
She looked past him, through him — toward the endless horizon that shimmered beyond the throne room's open gates.
"For a while. The mortals forgot my name. The gods fell silent. The moons turned white again. But divinity is not so easily ended, Lysander. Even a single memory of love can keep it alive."
Lysander's hands shook. "You gave everything to the world, but the world forgot. That isn't fair."
Arenne's expression softened, her lips curving into something almost human.
"It was mercy, not loss. Immortality without love is an empty light. I had to fade, so that love could begin again — not as worship, but as choice."
She took a step toward him, her presence warm as moonlight, her voice like the hush before dawn.
"Do you know why you carry my heartbeat?"
He swallowed. "Because… I was chosen?"
She shook her head. "Because you remembered me. You dreamed of kindness even when you did not know my name. Every soul that remembers compassion is a vessel of the Eternal."
He stared at her, the truth dawning like slow fire.
"So you're not gone."
"No. I am the pause between moments. I am what endures when memory turns to feeling."
She raised a hand, and the air shimmered between them.
"Look, and see what I became."
The vision cracked open — and Lysander saw it all.
He saw Arenne standing before an ocean of starlight, her crown breaking apart in her hands.
He saw her cut her palm and let her divine blood fall into the sea.
He saw the sea glow, and from its foam rise the first mortal dreams — fragile, bright, and fleeting.
Then she turned away from her throne and walked into the water.
As her body dissolved, her voice whispered:
Let me live where love still hurts.
The vision ended.
They stood again beneath the red moon, the ruins of the world around them.
Arenne looked at him — the faintest tear glimmering on her cheek, though no mortal hand could ever touch it.
"You are not my replacement, Lysander. You are my redemption."
He wanted to reach for her, but she was already fading.
Her voice lingered, soft as breath:
"When the world remembers why it dreams, I will be whole again. Until then, carry my heart well."
He woke in the morning light, the ring on his finger glowing faintly.
The red moon was gone, and the sky was blue again.
But for the first time, he could still hear her — faint, steady, inside the rhythm of his pulse.
Let me live where love still hurts.
And Lysander smiled, whispering back, "Then we will live there together."