The morning rose quietly over the plains, but Lysander could no longer tell where the world ended and he began.
Every breath shimmered with silver mist.
When he blinked, the horizon rippled — mountains seemed to sway like curtains, and rivers curved in slow circles, defying gravity.
It wasn't illusion.
It was remembrance.
The world was remembering what it used to be, and it was remembering through him.
He sat by a pool of water and cupped his reflection in his palms.
For a heartbeat, he saw himself — the man he had always been, weary but alive.
In the next, his eyes turned pale and ancient, and Arenne's face flickered through his features.
He did not panic.
He simply breathed, and she breathed with him.
Do you feel it now?
The balance between the divine and the human?
Her voice came from within, soft but certain.
He nodded faintly. "It feels like… remembering someone I've always loved, but never met."
Because you have never been apart from me, she said. You were my mortal half — the dream I cast into the world when I gave up my throne.
He frowned. "Then… was I ever truly myself?"
Yes, she whispered. You are what I could never be — mortal enough to change, human enough to forgive.
As the sun climbed higher, his skin began to shimmer faintly, as if light passed beneath it.
Where he stepped, grass straightened, flowers opened, and air thickened with scent.
But for every new bloom, he felt a pang of exhaustion.
Divinity flowed through him, yes — but divinity always asked for balance.
Each miracle took something from his human self.
By twilight, he found himself standing upon a cliff overlooking a ruined valley.
Once, this had been a sacred site — the first temple built to the Queen, long since reduced to rubble.
Now it pulsed faintly with life again: vines crawling up broken columns, the faint hum of energy in the stones.
He knelt, pressing his hand to the earth.
"Tell me what to do," he murmured.
"Do I let you take over, or do we live like this — halfway between heaven and man?"
The wind rose, curling through his hair like a caress.
I do not wish to rule again, Arenne said softly. I only wish to remember through you.
"Then what happens to me?"
You will not disappear. You will become more.
Her words trembled with tenderness — and sorrow.
But it will not be easy. The old gods have awakened. They sense the return of my light, and they fear it. They will come for you.
He clenched his hand against the soil. "Let them."
No, she whispered. You cannot fight them as I once did. The world no longer needs a ruler. It needs a bridge.
As night deepened, the first stars flickered red — faint points in the blackness, watching.
A rumble moved through the ground.
In the distance, the ruins of the old temple began to glow.
Shapes moved among them — vast, slow silhouettes of beings half-formed from smoke and memory.
The forgotten gods.
They had awakened.
Lysander rose slowly, his eyes reflecting silver light.
Arenne's voice steadied him.
Do not strike. Do not kneel. Remember what we learned: divinity without love is nothing.
The shapes came closer — towering figures cloaked in starlight and shadow, faces shifting like mirrors filled with flame.
Their voices merged into one, like the echo of thunder across the ages:
"The Eternal One walks again."
"The balance is broken."
"The mortal who carries her will unmake the silence we built."
Lysander's voice was quiet, but it carried farther than theirs.
"The silence you built is what killed the world. I am not here to rule it again — only to love it."
The gods recoiled, as though the word love itself burned them.
One stepped forward, eyes like the abyss.
"You speak as she did — and that nearly destroyed creation."
Arenne's presence flared within him, her calm like the tide.
Then let creation be remade by gentleness this time.
The red stars dimmed.
For a long moment, the gods said nothing.
Then one by one, they began to fade, their forms turning to dust and light, returning to the wind.
Only their voices remained, murmuring as they vanished:
"If love rules again, we will see whether eternity can bear it."
When the last whisper faded, Lysander fell to his knees.
His hands glowed faintly, trembling with exhaustion.
Inside him, Arenne's voice was quiet, almost human.
You did it.
"No," he whispered. "We did."
Then rest. Tomorrow, the world will remember again.
He looked toward the horizon, where the first pale thread of dawn began to rise.
For the first time in an age, it was not crimson.
It was white.