Bride of the Forgotten Throne

The night of the moon's turning arrived on pale winds and silver silence. Kaelira left Veyrhold alone, as she'd promised.

No guards.

No blades.

No Dorian.

Just the memory of a sister she'd never known, and a throne built on fire and secrets. The road east curved through forgotten forests and moonlit moors. The Hollow didn't appear on maps, and the land seemed to warp as she walked—like the world itself bent away from truth.

By dawn, the trees grew strange. Tall, with bark like charred flesh and leaves that shimmered like dying embers. The air was colder here, though no frost touched the earth.

The Hollow was not a place. It was a memory the world had tried to forget. And it remembered her.

---

She stepped through the final veil of mist and into a clearing. There stood an ancient ruin—stone archways half-buried in moss and blood-red ivy. A lone figure waited in the center, hooded and still. Kaelira stepped closer. The figure turned. And for a moment, time stopped.

She looked like Kaelira might have… if she'd never burned. Softer. Wilder. Her eyes were not fire, but moonlight. And yet, something fierce lived in them. The woman said nothing at first.

Then—

"You came."

Kaelira's voice was a whisper. "Who are you?"

The woman tilted her head. "You don't recognize me?"

"No."

"But you feel it."

Kaelira swallowed. "You're… my sister?"

"Once. Before they tore us apart."

A gust of wind stirred Kaelira's cloak. "I don't remember you."

"Because they made you forget."

---

The woman stepped closer, and the veil of magic around her peeled back. Kaelira saw flashes: Two little girls in the dark, hand in hand.

One taken. One burned.

A choice made by fire.

A soul split to survive.

"You were supposed to die," the woman said. "But they chose you. And buried me."

Kaelira's knees weakened. "I didn't know—"

"I don't blame you," the woman said. "I blame them."

Kaelira whispered, "What's your name?"

The woman looked up, pale moonlight in her hair.

"Elarin."

The name struck her like lightning in the bones.

Elarin.

Her twin.

Her blood.

Her mirror.

Kaelira shook her head. "Why didn't you come before?"

"I did," said Elarin. "But you were too full of fire to hear me. Too busy rising. I waited here, where the past still breathes."

---

They sat beneath a crumbling arch. For the first time in centuries, Kaelira let her silence be vulnerable.

Elarin watched her.

"You've changed," she said.

"So have you."

"We could've ruled together, once."

Kaelira looked at her. "And now?"

Elarin's eyes darkened. "Now I don't know what you are."

Kaelira's breath hitched. "I'm still me."

"No," Elarin said gently. "You're what's left of you. You were forged to survive their fire. But I was shaped by the cold silence they left behind."

---

Kaelira stood. "So what do you want from me?"

Elarin stood too. "I want to see if there's enough of us left… to save what's coming."

A long pause.

"And if there's not?"

Elarin stepped closer. Their foreheads nearly touched.

"Then one of us will burn the other."

---

Far above them, the moon shifted fully into shadow. And in the Hollow, long-buried magic stirred. For sisters had reunited. But only one would walk back into the light.