Chapter 6 – The Mirror of Legacy
Amara closes the manuscript, but the past refuses to release her. This time, there is no sudden transport into another century—no queens waiting to guide her. Instead, the archive lingers inside her, whispering at the edges of her waking thoughts. When she steps outside into her modern city, the line between memory and present begins to blur.
At the university, she sees students silenced for speaking out against injustice, and in them she hears echoes of Ysabel, the healer condemned for her knowledge. In the marketplace, she watches women bargaining with a quiet strength, and she glimpses the same unyielding resolve that guided Queen Mavia's negotiations. At night, as she pores over her notes, the ink seems to bleed into her hands, reminding her of Fatima al-Fihri's scrolls and the endless labor of preserving truth.
The realization strikes her with weight: the women she has encountered are not just stories from the past. Their struggles live on in the present, disguised in new forms. Amara begins to understand that the archive chose her not simply to remember but to recognize—to see the thread binding forgotten queens to today's silenced voices.
But with this clarity comes dread. For if she does nothing, she too becomes a conspirator in their erasure. The visions are no longer safe journeys into history; they are calls, relentless and demanding. Amara feels the burden pressing down on her chest: history is not finished, and it waits for her decision.