Vessaria stirred, though only slightly. The motion was more of a twitch beneath the blankets than anything deliberate, like her body answering some silent call before her mind could catch up. Her back was still partially to him, shoulder half-bared where the silk of her nightgown had slipped in her restless movements. Her voice, when it came again, was raw — quieter even than before, as if speaking too loudly might shatter something inside her that had only just started to hold shape again.

“…There were stairs,” she murmured, eyes half-lidded against the dimness. “So many stairs. And a light. But not sunlight — colder. Like stars, or… ash falling upward.”

She curled tighter into herself, the curve of her body shrinking further beneath the folds of the blanket. Her fingers twitched near her collarbone, instinctively brushing where the crescent moon pendant rested — as if it might anchor her thoughts in the now.

“They whispered to me. Not like speech. Like… a choir behind a door. Some I could almost understand. Others…” Her voice faltered, lips barely moving now. “Others tried to bury me. Pull me down. There was something under the stairs. Breathing. Slow. Hungry.”

Silence stretched a beat, and then she finally turned her head toward him — not fully, but enough that he might see the gleam of her eyes in the low light. Not weeping. But frightened. Furious. Awake.

“I don’t know what it was. I only know it didn’t belong in dreams. And it wasn’t just looking at me — it was waiting.”

Her eyes found his fully now, and though her voice remained hushed, there was a fragile thread of defiance woven through the exhaustion. “You said others didn’t wake. Then maybe I wasn’t supposed to. Maybe it saw me, and something went wrong.”

A long breath slipped from her, almost a shudder. Then, quieter still:

“…Or maybe something went right.” Vessaria’s breath settled in her throat like frost, not quite escaping her lips as she stared into the half-shadowed space where Ciaran sat beside her. She could feel the weight of his gaze—felt it like gravity, like some ancient current turning just beneath her skin, pulling her thoughts up from the dark places they had tried to sink into.

She didn’t move much, didn’t dare. Movement might invite something else—another slip of memory, another pull from that other world. And she was too close to the edge still. The images hadn’t faded, not fully. They clung like thorns to the edges of her mind, trailing blood and chill with every breath.

She stared at a fold in the blanket, lips parting.

“There was a door. Or maybe it wasn’t. It was shaped like one, but it wasn’t made of wood or stone. It looked… alive. Breathing. Rooted into the black. The closer I got, the more it seemed to turn away from me, like it didn’t want me to see behind it. Or it was trying to protect me.” A pause, and then a bitter edge crept into her voice, a soft laugh that didn’t rise above a whisper. “Or maybe that was just another lie. A trick. There were so many.”

She drew her knees up closer beneath the blanket, folding her arms around them. Her voice remained soft, but there was clarity to it now—slivers of lucidity cutting through the haze.

“I heard a name,” she said. “Not spoken aloud, but carved. Like someone had gouged it into the bones of the place. I don’t know if it was a name or a warning, or maybe both.” She looked toward him again, her eyes searching his face not for comfort, but for understanding. “Eriovax.”

The syllables left her mouth like a chill, hanging in the air for a heartbeat too long.

“I don’t know what it means. Only that when I looked at it, the world shivered. And I did, too.”

Her hands rose, pressing lightly to her temples as if the pressure might ease the ache that had started there.

“There were whispers before the name. Long before the stairs. I was still in my world then. Still in Thaloria. But they were already reaching. Not words, just sounds in the dark — breathing behind mirrors, flickers in the corners of my eyes. I told my nursemaid once. She said it was the weight of prophecy. That the Moon Bride always sees things. But she was wrong.”

Her voice hardened slightly, and she turned fully toward him at last, letting the blanket fall from one shoulder so he could see her clearly.

“This isn’t blessing, is it?” she asked, eyes sharp now despite her pallor. “Whatever I carry, it isn’t a gift from the gods. It’s something else. Something old. And it’s following me. Even here.”

A soft wind pressed against the windows of the bedchamber, though the glass did not fog, and the fire did not flicker.

“It knew I would be chosen. Long before I was marked. The dreams didn’t start after they gave me the crescent.” Her fingers touched the pendant absently, then curled into her palm. “They’ve always been there. Since I was a child.”

She let that hang in the silence between them.

“Sometimes I dream of a tree. Black and pale, all at once, like it’s been burned and bleached at the same time. It grows in a field of stars. But not like your realm. Not Umbrythar. It feels deeper. Older. Its roots go through the bones of the world.”

A beat. Her voice cracked.

“Once I dreamt it opened its eyes.”

Her fingers shook now, though her voice stayed steady. There was something mesmerizing about the way she said it—not dramatic, not panicked. Just… quiet truth. As though she’d been holding it in for so long, and now that it had been said, it might finally stop digging at her.

“I remember thinking… if I could just wake up, I’d be safe. But I couldn’t. Not then. Not that time.” Her lips pressed together, and she looked at her hands for a long moment, as though expecting them to be marked. “When I finally did, I had a scar on my wrist. No wound. Just the scar. Shaped like a crescent moon.” She held it up to show him, and though the mark was faint, a silvery curve glinted there beneath the thin skin—familiar, unnatural.

“I told no one. Not even the priestesses. I was afraid they’d think I was cursed. Maybe I am.”

Finally, her shoulders sagged, the sharp energy draining out of her limbs. She leaned back into the pillows with a long exhale, eyes fluttering half-shut.

“I only know fragments, Ciaran,” she murmured. “Pieces of pieces. Shadows of names and ruins and doors that shouldn’t open. I’m sorry if that’s not enough. But whatever this is—whatever they want with me—it hasn’t ended just because I’ve crossed into your realm. If anything… it’s only getting stronger.”

She turned her face slightly toward him once more.

“So I’ll rest. For now. But when you’re ready to ask again… I’ll be ready to remember.”

Her voice drifted into silence, not unconsciousness, but a stillness that came from the edge of exhaustion. Even curled beneath the weight of her own memories, Vessaria did not look broken, Only waiting.

Vessaria dreamed.

Not in the way mortals do, where sleep becomes a quiet cocoon of comfort and forgetfulness. No—hers was a dream of corridors that looped back on themselves, staircases that bled into nothing, and songs sung through teeth. The hours, or days, or centuries stretched thin, wrapping her like silk and chain.

She walked alone.

Sometimes, she stood before the tree again, the bleached-black one growing in the void between stars. Sometimes she saw the door—flesh-like, breathing, wounded. Sometimes she stood before the mirror and saw not herself, but a girl half-swallowed by moonlight, eyes full of some other voice.

There were moments of clarity, rare and aching.

“Wake up.”

A voice—hers?—cut through the dark like silver through dusk.

But waking was like climbing a tower with no steps. Until, one day, something shifted. It was subtle at first—a tremor in the shadows, a breath of frost not born of fear. Then, the pressure around her thoughts began to lift, like ice cracking on a lake’s surface.

And she opened her eyes.

The ceiling above her was carved stone—softly arched, gently gilded with morning’s dying light. At first she thought she might still be dreaming, for the edges of everything shimmered slightly, but no… it was real. The cold that kissed her cheeks was real. The faint ache in her limbs. The warmth of the furs wrapped around her. She exhaled, and it fogged in the chilled air.

Her body ached as she sat up, slow and wary, a tremble in her hands. The pendant around her throat was still there—its crescent moon warm against her skin, unnaturally so.

The room was quiet, save for the whisper of wind beyond the high stained-glass window. She’d been moved—she was no longer in the smaller chamber from before. This room was grander, carved from ancient stone and veined with frost, but softened by layers of midnight-colored drapes and a low-burning hearth.

There were no servants. No Ciaran.

For a long while, she didn’t move. Only sat, eyes drifting around the room, adjusting to the silence. Her heart felt hollow and full all at once. Something inside her had changed. She could feel it. Like something vast had passed through her, leaving its shadow behind.

And then she heard voices.

Distant, but not unfamiliar. She frowned faintly, pushing off the covers and rising with effort. Her legs protested, weak from disuse, but she managed to dress herself in the deep-blue robe left out by the bedside. It smelled faintly of nightbloom and starlight. The floor was cold as she padded across it barefoot, toward the door that stood slightly ajar. The voices grew clearer as she followed them through the winding corridor. One of them was low and honeyed, echoing with soft condescension. The other more clipped, ceremonial, familiar.

She knew those voices. Turning a final corner, Vessaria halted abruptly—her breath catching in her throat.

There they were.

A small group of robed priests and dignitaries, moving through the castle’s lower gallery as if they belonged there. Two she recognized from Caer Vethiel: Father Malric, the High Priest who had blessed her upon her selection, and Sister Virellia, a sharp-eyed woman who had always spoken too softly and watched too closely. They were speaking to a pair of Umbrythari attendants, questioning something about the location of the “throne antechamber” and asking if it would be possible to perform a purification rite. Sister Virellia turned—and her expression changed the moment she saw Vessaria.

“My lady!” she gasped, eyes wide. “You’re awake.” At once, they turned toward her, heads bowing, some with reverence, some with curiosity. The attendants stepped aside, wisely silent.

Vessaria stood very still. She could smell incense on them, faint but cloying. The scent of home—but not the part she missed. The part she had long learned to fear.

“I am,” she said slowly, voice low from disuse. “Though I’ve no idea what day it is.” Father Malric stepped forward, expression radiant with what he probably thought was holy delight. “Praise be to Solvara and Lunareth. You are a miracle, my lady. We were told you might not awaken for many weeks. Yet here you are. It is surely a sign that the alignment is upon us—”

Her hand rose without thinking, silencing him. “No more omens,” she said, not unkindly, but with steel beneath the words. “I’ve had my fill.” He blinked. Sister Virellia tilted her head slightly. “You seem… changed.” Vessaria looked past them, into the wide corridor of Umbrythar’s keep—the ancient walls that watched without blinking, the faint cold that lived here not as a threat, but as a truth.

“Yes,” she said. “I think I am.” She stepped forward, letting the robe flow behind her like ink on water. Her steps were steadier now. “Tell me,” she said. “Where is Ciaran?”

Father Malric faltered, taken aback by the bluntness in her voice. He opened his mouth—perhaps to insist on another blessing, or to guide her back to a more “appropriate” tone—but Vessaria had already turned her gaze on Sister Virellia instead.

The priestess hesitated. There was something sharp in Vessaria now, something new. No longer the silent, obedient girl who had bowed her head beneath prophecy and crescent veils. No longer a symbol—she had returned different. The shadows knew her name now. And so, it seemed, did the priests.

Sister Virellia inclined her head slightly, not quite a bow. “He is within the depths of the keep, my lady. We have not seen him since yesterday’s audience. After you did not wake.”

Vessaria’s brows knit. “Audience?”

“Yes,” the priestess said, voice measured. “We were sent to deliver word from Caer Vethiel. The stars will soon pass out of alignment. The convergence of your realms—Umbrythar and Thaloria—is reaching its peak. The Church has requested the ceremony take place… promptly.”

Vessaria stilled.

Promptly.

Her lips parted with the beginnings of a protest, but what emerged was a bitter laugh instead—soft and quick, like something stolen.

“Of course,” she said. “You sailed through wind and shadow to make sure I said my vows while I was still half-dead.” She could feel them watching her. The dignitaries behind the priests shifted uncomfortably, clearly not prepared for this version of the Moon Bride. She hadn’t been trained to speak like this. Hadn’t been raised to meet the gazes of gods and kings alike with open defiance. But something inside her had cracked in the Hallow. And the light that spilled through that break was not meek.

Sister Virellia looked uneasy now. “My lady—”

“No,” Vessaria said, her voice not raised, but final. “Don’t ‘my lady’ me. You can smell the old incense on your own sleeves, can’t you? Feel how cold it is here? This place remembers. And he remembers.”

She turned from them without another word, robe whispering over the stone like a secret. The Umbrythari attendants bowed deeply as she passed. The priests did not follow.

She moved fast, quicker than her body wanted her to—but she had to see him. Had to speak to him. The dreams still tugged at the edge of her mind, but her steps were sure. She let the feel of the Keep guide her, the quiet murmur of the walls, the memory of footsteps she had once followed through moonlight and ruin.

Her path wound downward.

And at last, she found him.

The door to the library was half-open, shadows curled along its edges like sleeping cats. She stepped inside without knocking. The chamber greeted her like a cathedral made of silence and ash—books upon books, parchment glowing with faint runes, scrolls that whispered if one dared to listen.

And there he was. “I’m told,” she said quietly, “that you threatened to cut the tongues from the mouths of my priests.” She exhaled—something between amusement and relief. “I suppose I owe you a thank-you. For giving me a choice in the matter and not marrying a half dead woman." She stepped closer, feet sinking into the soft rug near the hearth. The warmth from the fire barely reached her, but his presence did. It settled around her like armor. “I don’t know how long I slept,” she admitted. “But it felt like forever. I dreamed of the Hallow." Vessaria sighed. "And of other things. Of names.”

“Eriovax,” she said, her voice barely louder than the crackle of the fire. “I saw it again, etched in the roots of that tree. I think it was a prison once. Or maybe a gate.” She met his gaze, and for a moment, it felt as though the air between them shifted—no longer lord and bride, but two survivors of something no language could name.

“I need to know,” she said, stepping forward again. “What that name means. What I mean. Because whatever is waking… it’s not done with me.” She paused, then added with a breathless, bitter edge: “And I don’t think your gods have the slightest idea what’s coming.” Looking down she realized she hadn't even given herself a chance to change into clothes more appropriate- much less with the priesthood walking about. Surely, She looked like a ghost, her hair wild from slumber.

Ciaran looked up from his seat as soon as she entered the library.

He half-rose instinctively. Vessaria looked like she was about to collapse -- her skin pale as frost, her robe hanging too loose around limbs that had only just remembered how to hold her. Her breath wavered, but her steps did not. He lingered in that half-standing posture a moment longer, unsure whether to intercept her, before deciding she didn’t want that. So, he sat back down.

His silver gaze remained fixed on her, and when she spoke of the priests and their scorched tongues, his mouth twitched into a cold line. He didn’t bother denying it. Didn’t bother apologizing, either. He only inclined his head slightly, the gesture as dismissive as it was confirming. Let them call it blasphemy. They were lucky they still had their feet.

He said nothing at first, letting her voice fill the silence, letting her speak freely. He could feel it in her -- something sharp and unyielding. The Hallow had carved her, left its blackened fingerprints along her bones, and yet she had come back with her spine intact and her mind more focused than it had ever been. She spoke the name again. Eriovax. Ciaran’s fingers, resting against the open spine of a leather-bound tome, tightened slightly.

He sat still as a statue while she moved closer, only his eyes tracking her. The flickering firelight threw red and gold along his pale skin, lighting the hollows of his face like molten bone. And then, after her final breathless observation, he finally stood. His coat, black as smoke and clasped high at the throat, shifted like liquid shadow as he moved toward the hearth. His hands went behind his back, and he stood in silence for a moment, staring into the fire as if it might yield some truth the books had denied him. When he spoke, his voice was low but not soft. Each word fell with purpose, shaped from memory rather than theory.

“Long before mortals walked in palaces and called themselves kings… long before Thaloria or Umbrythar had names… there was war.” His eyes reflected the flames. "Solvara and Lunareth, and those who existed beneath them, myself included, fought to put down the deviant gods.”

He did not look at her. “They were not evil. Not at first, anyway. But they hungered. They grew beyond the bounds of what was meant to exist. They began to unmake, not create. Worlds fell, unraveling into fire and brimstone, but they grew to enjoy such atrophy. And so… they had to be sealed.”

He moved one hand, briefly, and a constellation flickered into being in the space above the hearth—a slowly turning crown of stars, glowing softly. His voice remained steady.

“We poured our strength into creating gates. Not simple thresholds, but prisons -- veiled behind the fabric of time, behind the night sky itself. It took everything. We anchored the gates to the heavens, and those who gave the most… lost the most.”

His shoulders rose and fell in a slow breath.

“Their bodies dissolved. Their essence burned into the firmament. They became the constellations, locked in place, channeling the power of the seal, feeding it day after day, year after year, until all memory of their names faded.”

The constellation above the hearth flickered. One of the stars dimmed slightly.

“They are the locks on the Hallow. But they are dying.” His voice, though calm, carried an undercurrent of restrained fury. “Even I can feel it, cracks forming in the firmament. The strength of my kin… unraveling. Three stars fell within a day of your arrival. Another dimmed last night.”

He finally turned his face to her, gaze like silvered stone.

“If Eriovax was a prison,” he said slowly, “then perhaps the Tree you saw was not a metaphor. Perhaps some of them -- either the imprisoned gods or my brothers and sisters -- took root. Transfigured. Sacrificed their physical forms not into stars, but into something buried. Something reaching both sky and soil.” His jaw tightened, and his fingers curled behind his back. “There would be logic to it. A celestial could become a root system -- a web. A living lock. But only if willing. Only if they were still themselves. I was under the impression that none of my kin had retained sentience.”

He stepped away from the fire, casting a long shadow along the floor.

“I have tried to find a way to seal it again. A true seal, not a patchwork delay. But the only magic strong enough to match the original… is gone. Or scattered.” He paused. “Unless I can find a way to replenish them. Restore strength to the stars that still burn, or draw power from something that hasn’t yet been used.”

Ciaran moved past her, slowly, pacing between shelves heavy with dust and knowledge too old for sane minds. “If the Hallow opens again… the deviant gods will not simply reclaim this world. They will consume it. Twist it. Fold it into themselves.” His voice darkened, shadows responding like breath drawn in. “And they remember the taste of celestials. They will not spare the priesthood. Or Thaloria. Or even the Sun and Moon.”

The crackle of the fire behind them now sounded like laughter. He turned toward her again. “I thought we had more time. That the seals would hold until I found a way to strengthen them. But if you saw the name… if it showed itself to you, then it is already clawing upward. And you-” He exhaled sharply through his nose, not in frustration, but some quieter emotion. “You weren’t supposed to survive seeing it.”

He paused, eyes narrowing faintly as he studied her again, more carefully now. “But perhaps you were never meant to be only mortal.”

The words lingered in his own mind, and as if sensing the weight of it all, his voice lowered slightly. He approached her again, not quickly, but steadily nonetheless.

"You should rest,” he said quietly. “Your presence alone in the Hallow will have marked you, though I do not yet know how. The priests will not touch you again, and if they bother you about some silly ceremony again, I will show them the meaning of 'celestial alignment.' That I swear.”

He glanced toward the ceiling briefly, toward the invisible sky far above. “I will find a way to stop this. But it may cost us both.”

Vessaria stood in the center of the vast library as though trying to remember how to breathe. The air tasted of old parchment, of coal smoke and starlight and ash—fragments of things long buried and only now beginning to rise. Her robe clung to her frame, too thin for the cold, and the weight of what Ciaran had said hung around her like an invisible cloak. Yet her spine did not bend. Her chin did not lower.

Only her eyes, bright and haunted, moved as she watched him pace across the marble and shadow.

He had just spoken of gods, of unraveling constellations, of sacrifice and root-systems made of beings that had once shaped the heavens—and through it all, Vessaria had listened not like a student, not like a bride, but like someone who had seen the aftermath of it all and could still hear the echo.

She did not speak for a long while.

The fire behind them spat sparks against the stones, and somewhere above them, an ancient beam groaned softly in its sleep. Her hands tightened around the edges of her robe, not out of fear, but to ground herself. The name still pulsed behind her eyes—Eriovax—like a heartbeat that did not belong to her. And when she finally did speak, it was quieter than before, but clearer.

“No one ever told me that the stars were bleeding to keep us safe.”

She looked toward the flickering constellation above the hearth, now dimmed in one corner. A broken lock. A dying god. She couldn’t tell if the chill crawling down her spine was from the cold or the sheer scale of it all.

“I used to think the constellations were stories,” she continued. “That they were named after heroes or beasts. I used to trace them through a frost-covered window as a child. One of the maidens said the stars were blessings. They made wishes. They kept secrets. I’d whisper my name to them, hoping they’d answer. But they were never looking down. Were they?”

Her lips pressed together, eyes shimmering not with tears but with revelation. “They were watching up.”

She crossed to the hearth slowly, her bare feet nearly silent on the marble floor. The warmth licked at her ankles, but it didn’t chase away the cold in her blood. It lived in her now. It remembered.

“I saw that tree again, just before I woke,” she murmured. “I thought it was just… a dream. A symbol. But no symbol would ache like that. It felt like something was bound inside it. Something that had once been light.”

She turned to him, meeting his gaze fully. “I touched it. I don’t know if I was meant to, but I did. And for a moment—just a breath—it opened its eyes.” Her voice was steady despite the impossibility of the memory.

“I think you’re right. I think it was a celestial once. Or part of one. I think some of them gave up the stars and became something else. And whatever that thing is… it’s waking up too.” The fire cracked behind her, and her eyes dropped to the frost-lined stones. Silence fell between them again. Then, slowly, she exhaled.

“When I was a child,” she said, “I used to dream of standing in a field with a silver sky. Not day or night. Just silver. I thought it was a dreamscape, or some pocket of the moon’s domain. But I remember now—there was no sound. No wind. Only a hum, deep and old, like the earth was whispering in a tongue I wasn’t meant to understand. And there was always a hole in the sky. A place where no stars shone.” She looked back up at him. “That hole is bigger now.”

Her arms wrapped around her waist, and for the first time, she looked tired again—but not from weakness. From knowing too much. From feeling it too deeply. “I don’t know what they want from me,” she admitted, “but I don’t think it was chance that brought me here. Not really. The priesthood believes I was chosen for prophecy—for some divine union between realms. But I wonder if that was just a story. A script written by frightened mortals who felt something ancient stirring and tried to name it before it could name them.”

She began to pace slowly, unconsciously mirroring his earlier path between the book-laden shelves. “Maybe I was never a bride. Maybe I was a key. Or a witness. Or a warning.”

Then, suddenly—her voice softened.

“I didn’t mean to survive. Not really. When I touched that thing… that tree, that god, that gate… I didn’t think I’d wake up. I think part of me didn’t want to. But something held me. Something pulled me back.”

She stopped pacing and looked over her shoulder at him, brow furrowing. “I don’t think it was one of the deviant gods. It didn’t feel like hunger. It felt like grief. Like it didn’t want to be remembered. Like it knew me.”

She turned back toward him, stepping closer. “Ciaran,” she said, her voice dropping to something more fragile. “What if part of me came back… different?” She pressed her hand to her chest, over the place where her heart beat steady and strong. “What if whatever touched me in that place didn’t fully let go?”

She hesitated, then lifted her wrist. The faint, silvery scar she had spoken of days before was still there—no larger than a crescent moon, but pulsing faintly with a shimmer not visible to ordinary sight. “This didn’t fade when I crossed into your realm,” she said. “It burns when I dream. And it hums when I look at the stars.” Then, in a whisper that sounded more like confession than fear:

“Sometimes I feel like something is watching me through it.” She let her hand fall again and looked back into his face—so close now, so full of that ancient stillness that made her feel like a flicker of time against a great wind.

“I’m not afraid of the Hallow,” she said. “Not anymore. I’m afraid of what I might do if it opens again. What I might become.” She swallowed hard, her throat tight. “But if there’s any chance I can stop it—if there’s something in me that can help you… then I don’t want to be protected from it. I want to understand it.” Her voice steadied, her hands at her sides, fingers curled slightly.

“I don’t want to be a bride you keep in a tower. I want to fight beside you, whatever that means. And if the cost is high… if it’s everything…” She stepped closer until she could feel the chill radiating from his skin, from his shadowed coat, from the storm he held at bay inside himself.

“Then let it cost me. Because I won’t be used by the priesthood. I won’t be another girl folded into prophecy and left behind. And I won’t let the deviant gods twist what’s left of this world into ruin.” She reached out, hesitating only slightly before her fingers found the edge of his sleeve—just enough to remind him, and herself, that she was still here. Still standing. “You said it might cost us both.” Her eyes met his, calm and steady despite the frost. “Then let it. Let it cost us both.” A long silence fell between them. Not hollow. Not uncertain. But full of a quiet, blooming resolve. And behind it, the fire whispered—not with fear, but with purpose.

Despite the weight in her limbs and the aching tension curled into her shoulders, she remained upright, as if something in her would snap if she allowed herself rest. Her bare feet moved across the stone floor with slow, deliberate steps until she reached the nearest table. There, she pressed her palm flat against the cold surface, grounding herself in the physicality of the moment — the texture of old wood, the smell of ink and parchment, the flicker of firelight over ancient bindings. There was no fear in her voice now — only something heavier. A reckoning. A truth she hadn’t yet spoken aloud until now.

“I stood before that Tree, Ciaran,” she said, lifting her chin to look at him across the room. Her hair, still mussed from sleep, cast shadows across her face. “Or maybe what’s beneath it. I don’t know where it ended and where it began. But something saw me. Not like a man sees a woman. Not like a god sees a mortal. It looked through me.”

She paused, swallowing hard.“Like I was being measured.” The fire cracked softly behind her. Her voice lowered, but it didn’t tremble. “And whatever it found… it let me live. That frightens me more than anything else. Because I don’t know why.”

She turned from him then, unable to keep still. Her fingertips drifted along the spines, not reading, just touching — as though hoping one of them might speak first.

“I don’t want to sleep. Not now.”

There was no hesitation in her words, only firm resolve. “If I rest, it’ll take hold. It’ll settle deeper. I’ll forget the edges of it, the shape of what I saw. And I need to understand.” She looked back at him again, her eyes still haunted, still very human — but refusing to dim.

“I need to know what it thinks I am.”

Something in the room shifted at that. As though the castle itself had heard her. As though the dark had leaned in to listen.

Ciaran stood still in the center of the ancient library, shadows draped around his shoulders like a mantle, flickering faintly with the firelight behind him. He hadn’t moved since Vessaria stopped speaking, but something had shifted in his expression -- a deepening of the quiet, a furrow to the brow that made him seem carved from the same obsidian as the castle. She still looked like she was about to collapse, or at least was considerably worse for wear, but she was enduring it well.

He had heard everything. Every mention of the hum beneath the silver sky, the hole that swallowed stars, the ache of a tree-god that once was light. She hadn’t faltered when she spoke of grief that didn’t belong to her, or of eyes that measured her from within the void, and he believed her.

Ciaran had seen enough gods fall to know when another had begun to stir. She was right. The Hallow wasn’t done with her.

"The greatest sacrifices often go unnoticed by the majority," he rumbled. The Night King's gaze lifted to the half-dimmed constellation painted into the vaulted ceiling above the hearth. It pained him to watch the locks weakening in real time, knowing that what remained of his siblings was failing fast.

It had been Solvara first, true to her stance as the goddess of war. Then Lunareth. Vadi, Neamh, Odessa, Aridam, Cohen, Nyk'ixi. Ciaran. One by one, they had poured their power into the prison until there was nothing left but constellations and memory. And now that memory was thinning.

He didn’t tell her this, nor did he speak of how it felt to burn from the inside out, channeling celestial flame into stone, into sky, into root and gate. He didn’t describe the look on Lunareth’s face when his skin cracked with silver fire and he began to flicker. Or the way Solvara’s voice had frayed at the edges, her light guttering like a dying sun as she gave everything to keep the Hallow closed.

No. That had been their burden. And his. Now, Vessaria bore the echo of it; it was alive in her. That humming crescent branded onto her wrist and the quiet shimmer that no spell had conjured and no mortal hand had etched was proof enough.

Something in the Hallow had seen her and let her go. Ciaran found himself hoping that the tree -- Eriovax -- was the Sun and Moon, Solara and Lunareth. They hadn't become constellations like the others; he had always supposed they had housed their powers in the sun and moon themselves, but what if...? It would certainly be nice to see them again, but he couldn't place any bets on such a far-fetched theory. He had to assume the worst.

Ciaran watched the princess drift toward the old table, pressing her palm to its surface like she needed to feel the grain of wood to believe she still existed. Her voice didn’t shake, but her words carried weight, enough to grind even celestial bones to dust. She was afraid of herself, of what she might become. He understood that too well. When she asked if she had come back different, his gaze dropped, not out of pity, but out of knowing. Of course she had. Everything that touched the Hallow changed.

“You said it might cost us both,” she whispered. “Then let it. Let it cost us both.”

He stood there, back lit by fire and shadow, arms still loosely folded, a grim silhouette in the silence of the oldest room in Umbrythar. Ciaran stepped forward, closer, his boots whispering over the frost-veined floor. His cool gaze studied the woman who had faced the Hallow and lived, bearing a scar etched by something older than gods and came back asking questions instead of cowering in fear.

He nodded once. "Then, seek it out -- cautiously.”

The word cautiously was a warning rather than a plea; whatever held its breath in the spaces between stars was stirring again, and even if it had spared her once, there was no promise it would do so again.

He stepped back, shoulders squaring. The moment stretched. Then his voice darkened, sharpened, and cooled like steel laid in ice. “In the meantime, what would you have me tell the priests about the... ceremony?”

She likely already knew how the priests had marched into Umbrythar like emissaries of some divine bureaucracy, demanding a wedding while the bride still lay unconscious in bed. They had dared to dictate when the ceremony would occur. He had told them it would be the day after she woke up, but he wasn't inclined to keep his word to mice. If Vissaria wanted to wait, he would allow that. It seemed the entities even more ancient than himself had decided to listen to what she had to say, so it was only fair that he did as well -- and certainly those pesky guests from the temple.

Vessaria’s hand remained pressed to the ancient table, as if the pulse beneath her skin might echo against the grain of the wood and remind her she was still mortal — still real. The firelight caught the curve of her jaw as she turned slightly, finally looking at Ciaran in full.

Her eyes were tired, shadowed, but clear.

“Tell them the wedding will be tomorrow,” she said, voice quiet but unyielding. “Let them have their rites. Their satisfaction. Let them leave.” She didn’t flinch as she said it. No part of her softened.

“They’re not here for me. They’re here for the memory of a god who no longer answers them. Let them perform their ceremony and pretend it means something.” Her gaze lingered on his, and something flickered behind her eyes — not fear, not anger, but cold, lucid calculation. "Then I can begin to find out-what...exactly I am."

The next day came without warning; her body still weary from the previous day. She awoke in silence, long before any bells would ring.

Not that Umbrythar had bells — not in the human sense. There were chimes sometimes, strange crystalline sounds that echoed down corridors without wind, faint as breath and older than memory. Sometimes they rang before something significant. Sometimes they rang before something dreadful.

Today, they were still.

Vessaria sat upright in bed, the sheets sliding off her like fog. She felt… cold, not physically, but in the marrow of her spirit. Not with dread. Not with fear. But with the still, grave calm that came before something irreversible. The kind of calm you earned, not found.

She rose without calling for maids or handmaidens — if Umbrythar even had such things. She had not seen them. She suspected the castle had no need of them.

Instead, she walked barefoot to the basin of dark water laid out for her. The mirror behind it had no glass — only rippling metal, like frozen starlight. It didn’t reflect her face properly. It reflected something near her face. A fraction of herself. It was enough.

The gown was waiting when she turned: set on a mannequin of blackened bone and silver wire, taller than she was and humming faintly with the magic used to keep it upright. She stepped toward it slowly, almost reverently, her fingertips brushing along the fabric. It was not a mortal dress.

Made of silk, yes, but not silk spun from worms. This had been drawn from some deep, patient creature that lived in moonlight and shadow. It shimmered when she moved, but not with silver — with the faint, iridescent gleam of something submerged in ink. It was alive with starlight, or memory, or both.

The bodice was high-necked but sleeveless, clinging to her collarbones with folds of diaphanous silk that seemed to ripple like waves with every breath. Silver thread laced down the front in patterns that mimicked constellations, though not ones she recognized from mortal skies. Not anymore.

Her shoulders were bare, except for the cloak.

A long, sheer mantle was attached to the back of the dress by two crescent-shaped brooches — and the fabric was so pale, so faintly luminous, it might have been the veil of a forgotten ghost. It trailed behind her like spilled moonlight. Stars were caught in it. Actual stars, some small and warm, others cold and blue. They moved as she did. They whispered when she turned her head.

The skirts were layered, each fold heavier than the last. Not with weight, but with gravity. When she moved, they followed like shadows made physical — pools of midnight catching her steps. And then there was her hair.

Vessaria sat before the mirror again — or rather, the metal — and took the brush in hand. The bristles were carved bone, and the handle hummed with the same faint energy as the castle walls. She ran it through her hair slowly.

Her curls were still damp from the bath, and heavier than they used to be. She hadn’t noticed that until now. Her hair was not just longer — it was darker. The blonde tones of her youth had deepened into something richer, like spun gold buried under ash.

She didn’t fight the shape of it. She let it curl, fall, bend, twist. She pinned the upper half back loosely with the silver combs left on the tray beside her. They were shaped like antlers, or branches, or veins of crystal — impossible to name exactly. The rest of her hair fell down her back in wild, soft waves.

A single gem — moonstone, maybe — was slipped behind her right ear. It pulsed faintly when she touched it. She didn’t know what it did. But the castle had left it there for her. That meant it belonged. No makeup. No rouge or powder or oils. She had been chosen by the Hallow and kissed by something older than beauty. If she wasn’t enough as she was now, she never would be. The crescent necklace was the final piece. When she fastened it around her throat, the room stilled. Even the air stopped to look.

The moment she stepped out of her chambers, the castle changed. She felt it.

Corridors twisted differently. The doors opened faster. The walls did not breathe, but they watched. The stained glass windows, tall and narrow and filled with scenes no human priest had ever dared paint, glowed faintly with impossible color.

Even the shadows made way for her now. The floors were veined with frost, and yet her feet didn’t slip. The cold didn’t bite. And she realized, as she walked alone through the empty halls, that she was being led — not to the main gates, but somewhere deeper. To the chamber of the ceremony.

The ceilings arched impossibly high, and from them hung braziers of hanging star-metal that gave off no heat, only light. Thousands of candles flickered below them, caught in rings and circles, spirals and sacred geometry that shifted as she passed.

No audience. No rows of seats. No trumpets. Only Ciaran, already waiting at the far end, and the priests — half-shadowed, already cowed, already watching her with thinly veiled unease.

Let them watch.

The path between her and the altar was lined with silver thorns, suspended in the air by no visible strings. Roses — not red, not black, but blue, impossibly so — bloomed in those thorns. They turned to face her as she walked.

She did not smile. She did not cry. This was not a human wedding. This was a binding between a bride and a realm. And she walked like she belonged to it.

Like she had always belonged. The sound of her footsteps was swallowed by the stone.

There was no music. No hymn. No priestly chant rising behind her in reverence. Just the hush of the castle breathing around her — the way the braziers hummed above, the flicker of shadows recoiling as her hem passed through.

It should’ve been terrifying, she thought.

Everything about this moment, everything about this realm, was crafted to overwhelm, to remind her that she was small and mortal and other. This was a hall not meant for human feet — a sanctum carved from bone and shadow and memory, older than her gods and hungrier than her doubts.

And yet…

She wasn’t afraid.

Each step forward felt like a weight shedding from her spine. Not because she was walking toward safety, or even toward something she understood — but because she had chosen this. Because no matter what the rites meant to Ciaran, to the priests, to Umbrythar’s thousand watching eyes — this was her reckoning, too.

The wedding was their end. Her beginning.

She focused on the way her skirts swept the ground, on the pull of silk at her hips, the shifting of the luminous mantle behind her, moving like a second body made of starlight. She was aware of every inch of herself. Every detail felt sharpened, significant — the tick of her pulse against her collarbone, the weight of the necklace where it touched her skin.

And above all… the way he watched her.

Not as a groom does in a mortal chapel, fidgeting with nerves, casting glances to friends or gods or imagined futures. No — he watched her as if she were some strange storm finally reaching his shores. Like he had summoned her long ago and now, at last, saw what had answered the call. And something in her stomach curled.

Not with affection. Not yet. But with power.

Because he was not waiting for her out of love. He was waiting because she mattered. Because something ancient in this ceremony needed her — her voice, her body, her blood. And perhaps that was more honest than any flower-wrapped vow ever spoken in Thaloria. When she reached the final step, the castle shifted again.

The floor beneath her feet turned darker — black marble laced with opalescent veins, reflecting her image like a phantom. The roses behind her curled closed, as if turning away from what came next. She stood before him. Close enough to see the soft ripple of violet constellations across his skin, each one shifting slightly with his breath. Close enough to feel the gravity that clung to him — not warmth, not touch, but a pull, like a tide recognizing the moon. Her breath slowed. Her hands did not tremble.

She held his gaze as the veil of her mantle shifted slightly in some unseen breeze.

He is beautiful, she thought, in the way the end of something is beautiful. The hush before the sea swallows the last island. The gleam on a sword just before it falls. Cold, merciless, and vast.

Vessaria did not waver.

She did not flinch at the taste of the darkened wine, nor stagger beneath the weight that came with it. As the goblet left her hands, the shadows around the ceremonial chamber shifted—no longer in response to Ciaran, but to her. A pulse shivered through the stone beneath them, old magic awakening, ancient memory recoiling and then bowing. It was not her who had changed. It was everything else.

She stood still beside the Night King, her chin lifted, her spine like a blade forged in silence. The priests, once so assured of their roles and purpose, looked upon her now with a dawning unease. The girl they had expected—a frightened offering, trembling in white—was nowhere to be found. In her place stood something else. Someone else.

A queen not made, but remembered.

The runes etched in the floor pulsed faintly beneath the train of her gown, reacting not just to the blood-oath wine, but to her presence. Her gown, spun of silk and star-threads, had begun to shift again, the edges fraying into motes of light that did not burn out but hovered close like wards. The silver combs in her hair pulsed steadily with otherworldly rhythm, as if they had locked into some celestial heartbeat she alone could feel.

The lead priest took a step forward, hesitant.

“My lady,” he tried again, voice thin and papery.

Her eyes did not flick toward him at first. Instead, they remained on the runes beneath her feet, watching the way they rippled faintly—no longer with just ceremonial acknowledgment, but deference.

Then, calmly, her voice broke the silence. “I am not yours.”

It was quiet. Almost gentle.

But the silence that followed devoured the entire chamber. The air itself seemed to pull inward, holding breath. Even the shadows stopped their subtle shifting.

Ciaran, ever still at her side, did not speak, but his attention narrowed upon her. It was not surprise in his gaze. Not reverence. Only understanding. A recognition passed between them, silent and vast.

The priest flinched. Another scroll slipped from trembling fingers and curled against the base of the pedestal, forgotten.

Still, Vessaria did not move.

The braziers above dimmed slightly, as if drawing themselves closer to her light rather than competing with it. In the far corners of the chamber, thorns on the ceremonial path that had bent before her now grew inward again, closing the way behind her like a seal. The lesser priest turned to the lead one in quiet panic, whispering, “She wasn’t supposed to—”

“She drank, she stood, she survived,” the older man hissed back, sweat beading along his graying brow. “That should have been the end—”

But it was not the end. Not for her.

Vessaria’s gaze finally lifted to meet Ciaran’s fully. And in that silence, the chamber shifted again. The breath of the place changed. It no longer watched him. It watched them. Equal and opposite. Sovereign and Sovereign.She tilted her head, not in question, but in silent assent.

“Then let it be finished,” she said. And the stars above obeyed.

The ceiling vanished—not broken, but pulled away, like a veil lifted from the eyes of the dead. A sky spread out above them, not painted or imagined, but real. Unfathomable. Deep. Constellations unseen for a thousand lifetimes blinked back into place as if pulled from myth. The gods, if they still looked upon this world at all, turned their faces toward her in that moment.

The Night King stood as still as ever, and yet something in his bearing acknowledged her. Not as a bride. Not as a mortal. But as a force now tied to this place, to him, to the realm between. She turned her eyes from him then, at last addressing the stunned priests gathered in a loose ring like children who had lost the thread of their own story.

“It is done,” she said, voice steady. “You may leave.” There was hesitation. A squirming, half-swallowed resistance in their silence.

The lead priest made one last, desperate attempt. “The rite—” Her gaze pinned him in place.

“The rite is over,” she said again, clearer now, not loud, but final. “You are dismissed.”

Behind her, the castle stirred. Not with malice—but with certainty. Doors that had opened for her began to close again. Walls pulsed once. A draft that smelled faintly of snow and ash whispered through the ceremonial path. The Keep had accepted her declaration. Around them, the chamber began to empty. Scrolls were gathered with shaking hands. Parchments forgotten. Robes rustled as the priests—some muttering prayers, others silent and wide-eyed—made their retreat from the starlit chamber.

She did not watch them go. She stood still, beneath the open sky of an impossible place, beside the King who had emerged from shadow—and made no move to soften. Not bride. Not girl. Not sacrifice. Queen. Vessaria remained still until the last of the priests had fled the chamber, their hurried steps fading into silence. The false sky above held steady, constellations still watching. Only then did she turn—slowly, deliberately—back toward Ciaran.

He had not moved.

The shadows still curled faintly around his frame, the embroidery on his cloak shifting with quiet life, as though echoing some silent language only the Keep understood. He looked like a weapon sheathed in silk and ritual. A king forged not by crown, but by endurance. By being. She let her gaze trace him fully this time—not as an opponent, not as a symbol—but as a man.

“You look…” Her voice was quieter now, but it carried. “Like the end of a story that never wanted to end.”

Her lips curved, just faintly. Not mockery. Not defiance. Something close to admiration. “Or perhaps the beginning of one no one dared write.”

A breath passed between them. Not wind. Not magic. Just breath. “You wear the weight of this place well, Ciaran,” she said. “It suits you. More than I think they ever understood.” And then softer still, with something almost private in her tone— “Though I wonder if even you know how much.”

Ciaran remained still, statuesque beneath the sky that had peeled back like an eyelid in reverence. The last murmur of retreating robes whispered against the stone as the priests vanished through the narrowing archways, their fragile chants and half-swallowed protests devoured by the silence that followed. He had said nothing through the entire ordeal, made no move to intervene, no effort to shield her from the bewildered scrutiny of the robed faithful. Instead, he had watched with mild curiosity, interested to see how Vissaria would handle the situation.

His gaze moved carefully as he studied her stance, her tone, the precise way she refused to bow, and how she was devoid of fear for priest or prophecy. There had been many ceremonies in his long memory, and many brides had been offered beneath fractured skies and hollow stars. Most had died on the spot, though the ones who survived had rarely acted any way but traumatized. Vessaria had dismissed the priests with a solid air of authority. In doing so, she had drawn the attention of the castle more firmly than any rite had ever managed.

Now, as the hush deepened, she addressed him.

Her words were steady, and though her tone bore no sharpness, it settled into the chamber with an odd weight. Ciaran’s expression didn’t shift immediately. He tilted his head just slightly, gaze still half-lidded, and the silver light above caught against his cheekbone, painting it like frost.

“How poetic,” he murmured at last, the sound smooth and contemplative. “I will take it as a compliment.”

He did not smile, but there was a flicker in his eyes -- the barest ripple of amusement at the edge of his otherwise immovable mask. That she was so easily offering lilting words at the end of a rite that had once been synonymous with obliteration… It was rather amusing.

His gaze lifted upward again toward the now-settled sky and the empty expanse where it had once pulsed open, as though something might still linger there. The reflection of lost constellations shimmered in his eyes, turning his pale irises into twin maps of something long fractured. He stood like that for a moment -- silent, thinking, not yet returning to her, not yet ready to speak again. The breath between them stretched until he lowered his chin and looked at her anew.

“What do you wish to do now, wife?”

There was a trace of sly jesting in the final word, the weight of a title used as a mirror, turned half in teasing and half in curiosity. It was not a jest he would’ve offered anyone else, not even once. But Vissaria had earned the word.

However, even as he said it, his thoughts wandered elsewhere. The ceremony had been brief, but the shift it signaled was not. With the rite complete, Umbrythar would shift its focus, its weight, and its memory. Already he could feel the tilt of its magic realigning, subtle, but undeniable. The castle responded to him. It always had. But now it echoed her, too, and somewhere deep in the bones of this place, he could feel that resonance beginning to harmonize.

Still, harmony wasn’t enough. The constellations had stirred. For a moment, they had glimmered bright and unbroken overhead, pulled into place by her declaration and the weight of the binding, but that moment had passed. Even now, he could feel their fracture returning -- faint, yes, but persistent, like a muscle torn and knit hastily, already threatening to split again.

He debated returning to the library to consult the books further. His thumb dragged thoughtfully across the sharp line of his jaw as he stepped down from the altar, boots silent against the black stone floor. Whatever had just occurred was a very, very quick fix -- buying time, not fixing the problem.

He crossed to the edge of the ceremonial circle, shadows rising to greet him as if to rejoin their master. They slipped across his shoulders like a second cloak, dragging behind him with subtle menace. He spoke again, though it was mostly to himself as he became lost in thought.

“Even the older records -- those inscribed in the underfolds of the Keep -- are too vague. They were written with reverence for what they feared, not with the honesty needed to confront what is coming. We will not find further answers there.”

Only then did he pause, hand still resting at his chin, brow furrowing slightly. The realization of necessity darkened his features, dropping the temperature further. .

“I may need to go there,” he said at last, albeit reluctantly. “To the Hallow itself.”

Ciaran dreaded the words even as he said them. The Hallow was not merely a place. It was a fracture -- a scar. It was the pulse of the unraveling, and it was the one place the constellations bent around, avoided, trembled to name and hold.

“I have neglected visiting it for too long” he went on, finally turning toward her. “I need to check it in person. Dreams and visions will not suffice -- not yours, not mine.”

He didn’t state the obvious: going there would be dangerous. That even he -- a creature born in shadow, harnessing the powers of the firmament itself -- was not beyond risk in such a place. But the implication was clear.

He had waited long enough.