The wind no longer carried scent nor warmth as Lysander and Arenne approached the threshold between waking and dream.
It was a grey, breathless border — a horizon that seemed to shimmer like a reflection on glass, showing two worlds at once.
The Oracle's ember pulsed faintly within Lysander's heart, guiding him onward.
Each beat echoed with Arenne's presence — the soft, eternal hum of her divinity mingling with his mortal pulse.
Once, I ruled this place, Arenne whispered. The Dreaming Realms were my garden. Every thought, every wish, every grief of humankind took shape here.
"And now?" Lysander asked, stepping closer to the boundary.
Now it has turned against itself.
He reached out.
The air rippled beneath his touch, and he felt it — the weight of millions of sleeping minds, their dreams stitched together into one vast, trembling tapestry.
He stepped through.
The Dreaming Realm unfolded like a living cathedral.
Mountains hung upside-down in the air, dripping rivers of light.
Cities of glass rose from oceans of stars.
Everywhere, fragments of memory drifted — laughter, tears, prayers, echoes of mortal lives.
But beneath the beauty lurked a deep, rhythmic silence.
It crept like fog, curling around the edges of dreams, freezing them in place.
She's here, Arenne murmured. The False Queen hides within the center — the place mortals once called the Heart of Faith.
Lysander began to walk.
Every step he took rippled the dreamscape, drawing memories toward him — faces, voices, fragments of lives once touched by Arenne's light.
He saw lovers holding hands beneath crimson moons, soldiers praying before battle, children whispering their first hopes into the night.
All of them turned to look at him as he passed, their eyes full of longing — and then, one by one, they turned to glass and shattered.
She's consuming them, Arenne said, her tone heavy with sorrow. Each dream she silences becomes another stone in her new throne.
As he ventured deeper, the dreamscape began to change.
The skies dimmed, the rivers stilled, and a black snow began to fall.
In its flakes, he saw reflections — small scenes of people's last moments before despair: a mother weeping over her child, a poet burning his verses, a queen kneeling beside her fallen lover.
Arenne's voice trembled.
These were the moments I turned away from. The prayers I could not bear to answer.
"You're not the same as you were," Lysander said gently. "You learned."
Then let me prove it.
Her presence flared within him — light spilling from his hands like silver flame.
Where the light touched the snow, it melted into warmth, and for a heartbeat, the world seemed to breathe again.
Then the silence struck back.
A voice rose from the stillness — calm, resonant, cruelly familiar.
"You would burn eternity for the sake of fleeting hearts."
Lysander turned.
From the mist stepped the False Queen, radiant in her emptiness.
Her form shimmered with a beauty too perfect to be alive — eyes of silver glass, wings of obsidian smoke.
She looked at him the way gods look at dust.
"You carry her heartbeat," she said softly. "The traitor's rhythm. She traded forever for the ache of love. And you — you are her apology."
Lysander stood firm, though the air trembled around her presence.
"I carry what she became — not her apology, but her truth."
The False Queen smiled faintly, as though amused.
"Truth is only the silence that remains after love is gone."
Arenne's voice rose within him — gentle, defiant.
And yet I am still here.
The False Queen's gaze flickered, her form wavering as though something deep within her recognized the sound.
"You should have slept, sister. You should have let the world forget."
I tried, Arenne said, her tone breaking like light through rain. But love would not let me.
The realm quaked.
Dreams shattered into mist, rebuilding themselves around the two Queens — one of light, one of void.
Lysander stood between them, the ember in his heart burning brighter until his veins glowed with living silver.
The False Queen stepped closer, her voice lowering to a whisper.
"You think love will save you. But love is the most fragile lie of all. It dies with every heartbeat, and I am what remains when it ends."
He reached toward her, not with anger but compassion. "Then let it end and begin again."
For the first time, the False Queen faltered. Her eyes flickered — not with rage, but confusion.
"Begin… again?"
Arenne's light grew, wrapping the realm in warmth.
Love doesn't end. It changes. Even silence can become song again.
The black snow began to glow.
Dreams frozen for centuries stirred awake — the laughter of children, the whisper of rivers, the sound of wings.
The False Queen screamed — not in pain, but in recognition. Her form cracked, revealing light beneath.
I remember… the first sunrise.
Arenne's voice wept through the dream.
Then remember why we made it.
The world shuddered — and the two Queens, light and shadow, reached toward one another.
When the brightness faded, Lysander stood alone in a field of silver lilies.
The sky was clear, the silence gentle.
And before him, in the soft light of dawn, stood Arenne — whole, radiant, and mortal-shaped once more.
Her silver hair flowed softly in the wind. Her eyes — still eternal, still kind — met his.
"The silence has learned to dream again," she whispered.
He smiled, exhausted, trembling. "And the dream has learned to forgive."
She stepped closer, taking his hand.
"Then let us teach the world both."