Queen Sentient's Chamber, After the Memory
I stumbled back from the echo like it had teeth.
The chamber around me felt too small. Too still. The golden mist that shimmered before now pulsed with something heavier—regret, maybe. Or guilt. Or just the echo of my mother's voice still clinging to my skin.
I didn't fall.
I should have.
I wanted to.
But something inside me held.
Maybe it was Antic's breath behind me, quiet and waiting. Maybe it was the way Queen Sentient stood like a statue made of empathy, her violet eyes gentle but unyielding. Or maybe it was me. The part of me that had learned, somewhere between birth and betrayal, how to break without shattering.
"I didn't even cry," I murmured, voice too small for the room. "As a baby. When they took me."
Grin didn't joke. Dolly didn't hum. Even Antic held still, which for him was practically divine intervention.
I pressed my hands over my eyes—useless, still, always—and felt the burn of invisible tears.
"Why didn't I cry?"
"Because you already knew," Queen Sentient said softly. "Even then, your soul understood what your mind couldn't."
That should have comforted me.
It didn't.
I turned from them. I didn't want to be seen, even if no one could look me in the eyes. I wanted to be ugly for a minute. Messy. Angry. Quiet.
Antic shifted beside me. I could feel his warmth and his hesitation like twin ghosts.
"You don't have to be strong for us," he said. "You don't even have to be nice. You just… have to stay."
I didn't respond.
Not with words.
But I stayed.
And in that silence, I braced myself.
Because I knew what came next.
Not birth.
Not erasure.
Death.
Vision Realm — Elara's Exile
Echo-layered space, scent of dying flowers and ash
The world melted again.
But not with color. This time, it peeled in greys.
Ashy clouds dulled the sky. The wind dragged its feet like it was grieving. There was no shimmer, no pulse, no scent of sun-drenched magic. Just the groan of dying trees and the tired hush of a land that had been silenced.
The forest didn't sing here.
It mourned.
I stood on the outskirts of a crumbling cottage, swallowed by the roots of a giant, brittle oak. The tree was wrong. Its limbs curled inward like it was ashamed of itself. Its bark, once thick with glowing veins, now hung in strips—peeling, disfigured. Beneath it, moss clung like rot.
Inside, I could hear her breathing.
Elara.
Not a goddess now.
Just… a woman.
I stepped through the threshold like crossing a grave.
And there she was—curled in a wooden rocking chair, shawl wrapped around her too-thin shoulders, her hands folded in her lap like she didn't remember what they were for.
Her face—
Gods.
It was hollowed. Not by age, exactly, but by something slower. Something meaner. Her eyes—those wild, glimmering universes I'd seen before—had gone dim. Still open, but seeing nothing.
I stepped closer. She didn't flinch. She didn't even blink.
She just rocked. And rocked.
A fire crackled weakly in the hearth. A carved stool sat empty beside her, half-draped with a child's blanket. The kind stitched by someone trying to be brave.
On the floor beside her—an offering.
A single wooden carving.
A bird.
Scarlet and blue.
It looked like the one Ami gave me as a child.
But this one… this one was unfinished. The wings uneven. The paint chipping. Like she never got the chance to finish what she started.
I reached out.
My fingers hovered inches above hers.
And I heard her voice. Not with my ears, but in that secret, silent place between heartbeats.
"Pecola… my little echo."
I staggered.
It wasn't a sound.
It was a memory she'd left behind—one that smelled like burnt jasmine and fear.
"They took you from me."
The air choked with it. With everything she never got to say. With the weight of magic lost, and motherhood denied, and a love that had to bite itself shut every time it tried to speak.
"I let them take everything, so you could keep something."
I wanted to fall at her feet. To shake her. To scream.
But she was already fading.
Her rocking slowed. Her hands trembled once.
And then… they stilled.
Outside, the wind died.
Inside, so did she.
No bang. No cry. No final spell to reclaim the legend.
Just the silence of a mother who gave everything—and got forgotten.
I stepped back, but I didn't leave. I sat on the floor beside her chair, curling my knees to my chest like I was six again, trying to listen through the walls for someone who'd never return.
I didn't cry.
Not because I wasn't broken.
But because she'd already cried enough for both of us.
And I was tired of making her do everything.
Vision Realm — The Watcher Behind the Veil
Somewhere between memory and betrayal
The cottage faded like fog under flame.
And in its place—sterile white.
Not the pure kind. Not angelic or divine. No. This was the cold white. The kind that buzzed in your skull and left your bones aching. The kind that smells like bleach and burnt paper. The kind that feels like you're not supposed to be alive.
Steel glinted in the corners.
Glass hummed under pressure.
I stood in a narrow corridor, somewhere clinical. Somewhere secret. The kind of place you only hear about when you're older and angry and no one tells you why.
A figure moved at the far end.
Her gait familiar. Intentional. Controlled like a woman who knew every pressure point in a hundred bodies.
Ami.
But not mine.
Not yet.
Her face was sharp, focused—almost cruel in its purpose. No apron. No peppermint. Just the long, flowing coat of the Order, the dark gloves, and a manila folder clutched like it could cut through reality.
The door hissed open before her.
She stepped into a room filled with machines that blinked like watching eyes.
And on the table…
Me.
A baby. Wrapped in a thin blanket. Crying soundlessly. Kicking at nothing.
I couldn't breathe.
Ami moved toward the infant—toward me—with robotic precision. She opened the folder, scanned the glyphs, then set it aside like it offended her.
Her hands hovered over the baby's temples.
And then I saw it.
The light.
It pulsed through her gloves, forming sigils in the air—half-magic, half-medicine, all manipulation. One by one, they sank into my baby skin like invisible needles. No screams. No scars.
Just dimming.
Each pulse took something.
Not memories. Not senses.
But possibility.
It was like watching someone paint over a masterpiece with beige.
I clutched my own arms. Gasping. "Why," I whispered. "Why would you do this?"
As if she heard me across time, Ami paused.
She didn't answer. Not with words.
She touched the baby's cheek.
Gently. Almost lovingly.
And then she stepped back.
Behind her, two masked figures emerged from the shadows, nodding once. Operation complete.
But Ami lingered.
As the others left, she turned—just once—and looked directly into the corner where I stood. As if she knew.
Her voice was so soft, I almost missed it.
"I'm sorry, Pecola. I had to break you… to keep you."
I fell to my knees.
I wanted to hate her.
But I couldn't.
Because I saw it now—the love wrapped in razor wire. The protection that wore the mask of betrayal. She didn't wound me for power. She did it because she thought it was the only way I'd survive.
And godsdammit, maybe she was right.
But that didn't make it okay.
The vision didn't break this time.
It… tilted.
Shifted sideways like a hallway dream, and suddenly I wasn't in the operating room anymore.
I was somewhere warmer.
Wood creaked under my bare feet. I smelled cinnamon and old carpet. Dust motes floated in sunbeams like lazy secrets.
And there she was again.
Ami.
Older now. Softer in the shoulders. Silver stitched through her hair. She sat at a small wooden table, pouring tea into two chipped cups—one of them child-sized, one meant for company she didn't have.
She stirred it out of habit. Even though there was no sugar. No guest.
Just a photo frame beside her elbow.
I moved closer.
It was me.
Seven or eight, maybe. My mouth mid-laugh. Someone had caught me by accident—caught a joy I didn't even know I had.
Ami's fingers traced the glass.
She didn't smile.
She just whispered, "I hope she never knows."
And her voice cracked like old wood under snow.
Then… a knock at the door.
Not a real one. A memory-echo. Queen Sentient must've left this part for me. A slice of time too private to witness, but too important to forget.
Ami rose slowly and answered it.
Outside stood a courier in formal Order robes—tall, severe, the kind of man who didn't blink unless permission was granted. He handed her a scroll. Said nothing.
She read it.
Her hand tightened.
Her jaw locked.
She closed the door with her back, then crumpled the scroll into her fist until it caught flame from the glyphs lining her kitchen walls.
It burned blue.
She didn't flinch.
She just walked back to the table, set the cup down gently, and whispered to the empty chair, "If they come for you... I won't let them take you again."
Something shattered in my chest.
Not glass.
Not bone.
Just trust I didn't know I still wanted.
Because she had let them take me. Over and over. With machines. With lies. With bedtime stories that wrapped truth in cotton candy and laced it with control.
But she had also—always—been there. Guarding. Watching. Undoing the damage in secret where she could.
It wasn't a clean love.
But it was still love.
And maybe that was the worst part.
I touched the table with one hand.
The wood remembered her fingertips.
The tea cup shimmered.
And the vision dissolved.
Evergreena's Echoes, Queen Sentient's Chamber
When the vision released me, I staggered back into myself like a dropped puppet.
The floor under my knees was velvet-cold. My breathing came shallow and crooked. Queen Sentient's chamber buzzed again with that strange, pulsing light—more moon than flame. The others were shadows. Soft silhouettes. No one dared speak.
Not yet.
The room felt like it had been watching.
I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.
Grin shifted first. A quiet clatter of bone and boot, like someone trying not to be real too loudly. Dolly's gloved hand rested gently on my back, no words. Just presence.
Antic crouched in front of me. His hat was off.
He didn't smile. Not even a smirk.
"You're back," he said, low.
I blinked. I wasn't sure what back meant anymore. From what? From who?
I didn't answer him.
I turned to Queen Sentient.
She stood like a statue carved from stormclouds and silk. The vortex was gone. The room had closed its mouth. And still, she looked… regretful.
"That was everything," I said, my voice brittle.
"Almost," she replied.
A sharp chill bloomed behind my ribs. "What does that mean?"
Queen Sentient approached, slow and silent, like the floor moved for her. "You saw Elara's choice. You saw Ami's love. But you still haven't chosen your inheritance."
"I didn't ask for one."
"No," she said softly. "But you were born for it."
I stood.
My legs trembled, but they held.
"Then I want to find my own way."
"Good," she said, with the faintest curl of approval in her voice. "Then you must leave."
Antic snapped upright. "Woah, hold on—leave where? She just got trauma-dunked into a vat of mystical family tree sauce and now we're kicking her out?"
I almost smiled. Almost.
But my heart wasn't done breaking.
"I'll go," I said. "Just tell me where to start."
Queen Sentient raised her hand, and the chamber shifted. Not violently. Just… decidedly.
The floor beneath me rippled like liquid metal. A new path opened—glowing steps that curved into darkness.
"Your truth lies at the root of the Perennial Forest," she said. "Where the Breaths once whispered your name."
"And after that?" I asked.
She paused.
Then: "You'll be the one writing it."