Morning did not arrive that day — it descended.
A great, silvery pall flooded the valley like a verdict made visible. Every roof, every trembling branch, every shard of the frozen river was gilded by the kind of brightness that erased shadows instead of casting them. It was not sunlight; it was something older — a light that remembered its first command: Let there be.
Leona awoke beneath it, her eyes bruised by its purity.
The village bell had not rung; no one dared. The silence outside felt stretched thin, as though a single breath could tear it. Still, she rose, pulled the river-blue shawl over her shoulders, and walked toward the old cathedral where the summons waited. Her trial had been written not on parchment but in reflection — the kind that pools on glass when truth refuses to stay hidden.
They said she had stolen radiance itself.
Inside the nave, mirrors had been hung along both aisles. They faced one another, multiplying endlessly the image of whoever walked between them. The villagers stood behind the mirrored corridor, whispering. Their eyes shone not with hatred but with a need to believe that someone else was darker than they were.
The High Deacon spoke:
"Leona of the River, you stand accused of bending the light that blesses this valley — to summon visions not given by Heaven but by your own desire. Do you deny it?"
Her voice trembled, not from fear but from the memory of what she'd seen: the river splitting open one dawn, revealing beneath its surface a city of mirrors, each reflecting faces that looked exactly like hers.
"I do not deny," she said softly, "that the light came. But I did not command it — it commanded me."
A gasp moved through the crowd like a wind through reeds.
The Deacon gestured, and two attendants brought forth the Lens of Grace, a crystal orb mounted on brass wings. The orb pulsed faintly, alive. Its legend was old: it revealed, through a single beam, whether the soul before it was clear or clouded. Few had ever stood under it and survived the full intensity.
Leona was led beneath the suspended sphere. The brass wings unfurled, and the orb began to turn, catching the morning light from the oculus above. The radiance gathered until the walls disappeared, until even time felt bleached of color. Her breath came shallow; her pulse drummed in her throat.
The Deacon raised his staff.
"Let the Judgment of Radiance begin."
A sound like a thousand singing wires filled the air as the light focused into a single beam, striking her chest. It seared without burning — a purity that searched deeper than flesh. Images erupted within it: her childhood by the river, her secret sketches of dawn, the faces of the lost — Amara, Daniel, the boy who had painted death — and the Collector walking away from the frame.
The beam grew brighter.
She felt her thoughts peel away until only one truth remained: the river and the light had always been one. When she first looked into its surface years ago, what she'd seen wasn't her reflection — it was the river seeing itself through her eyes.
And that was her sin: she had let creation recognize its own face.
A cry rose among the spectators as her body began to shine from within, edges dissolving, form trembling between presence and absence. But Leona did not flinch. She lifted her palms, opened them to the beam, and whispered the phrase her mother once told her before vanishing into the flood:
"Every trial of light is an invitation to transparency."
The orb shattered.
No explosion — just a sound like the release of held breath. Shards hung midair, reflecting dozens of Leonas: weeping, kneeling, smiling, praying. Then, slowly, the fragments turned, aligning themselves into a new window above the altar. Through it, the sunlight fell pure again — not condemning, not judging, but illuminating.
When the radiance dimmed, Leona stood whole. Her hair glowed faintly, her eyes carried a reflection that was not hers to own. The Deacon dropped to his knees.
"She bears no deceit," he murmured. "The light found no darkness."
The villagers were silent. Some began to weep, others turned away, as though their own reflections had accused them. The mirrors along the aisle cracked one by one, until the last of them collapsed into dust that shimmered like ground glass. Only the window of shards remained — a new covenant between guilt and grace.
Leona stepped down from the altar.
Outside, the river had thawed.
Children were already throwing stones into it, watching the ripples carry little circles of sunlight downstream. The current seemed to hum a single phrase over and over — a hymn she recognized from her earliest prayer days: Light does not punish; it remembers.
She knelt by the water's edge. The reflection that looked back wasn't entirely her own anymore — part of it belonged to the valley, part to every soul that had judged her. She cupped a handful of the glowing surface, let it drip between her fingers, and whispered:
"Then let remembrance be mercy."
The river answered with a ripple shaped like a smile.
A warm wind rose from the south, stirring her shawl. On the far bank, the statue of Saint Elyra — long darkened by soot from the old foundry — began to gleam again. Pigeons circled the tower, their feathers lit like tiny lanterns. Leona watched them until their light dissolved into the sky. Somewhere behind her, the cracked mirrors gave one last, faint chime — the sound of judgment turning to grace.
And for the first time in years, the valley smelled of rain about to fall, not wrath about to strike.