# Chapter 985: A Queen's Vigil
Twilight settled over the new world not with a fading, but with a deepening. The sky, a soft lavender bruised with rose, did not darken but seemed to absorb the light, holding it close as the temperature dropped. The settlement around the base of the Soren-Sapling grew quiet, the day's labor on the First Archive and the new living quarters giving way to the warm glow of lanterns in windows and the low murmur of evening meals. The air, always clean and sweet here, carried the scent of night-blooming moon-vine and the cool, mineral smell of the river that now flowed pure and clear from the tree's roots.
Nyra Sableki moved through the settling twilight like a ghost in her own home. Her days were a tapestry of council meetings, resource allocations, and diplomatic missives with the burgeoning city-states of the Crownlands and the Sable League. She was the First Chair of the Riverchain Concord, a title that felt both too heavy and too hollow. She was a queen in all but name, a leader who had helped forge a paradise from the ashes of the old world. But her truest duty, the one she never spoke of in the council chambers, awaited her now.
She bypassed the central path, her soft leather boots making no sound on the grassy earth. She skirted the edge of the settlement, where the last of the children were being called inside, their laughter trailing behind them like ribbons of light. She saw Kaelen and Bren standing sentinel at the edge of the woods, their silhouettes dark against the luminous forest, but she did not approach them. This was a pilgrimage she made alone.
Her destination was the tree. The Soren-Sapling. It was a name that had stuck, despite the Concord's official attempts to name it the World-Tree or the Heartwood. To the people who lived in its shadow, it was Soren's. It was colossal, its trunk wider than the tallest tower in the old capital, its bark a swirling pattern of silver and bronze that seemed to drink the twilight. Its branches, thick as ancient roads, reached out to form a canopy that sheltered the entire valley, and its leaves were a constant, soft chime of silver and green. It was a god made manifest, a living monument to sacrifice.
But Nyra did not see a god. She saw Soren.
She reached the base of the trunk, where the roots buckled the earth into gentle hills. She ran her hand over the bark, feeling a warmth that was not from the day's residual heat but a slow, steady pulse, like a heartbeat. The texture was both smooth and ridged, familiar in a way that made her throat ache. She leaned her back against it, sliding down to sit on the soft moss that carpeted the ground. The immense scale of the tree made her feel small, but not insignificant. Safe.
"Hello, you," she whispered, her voice barely disturbing the evening air. "Another day done."
She rested her head back, the bark a solid presence against her skull. She closed her eyes, letting the quiet hum of the tree fill her. This was her ritual. Her report. Her confession.
"The First Archive is going up quickly," she began, her voice finding its rhythm. "Lyra is a terror with a measuring rod. She says the humidity has to be perfect for the old texts. We're finding more of them, you know. In sealed vaults, buried under the ash. Stories from before the Bloom. People are… hungry for them. For a history that isn't just pain and survival."
She paused, listening to the rustle of a million silver leaves. It sounded like a soft, constant sigh.
"The new city on the eastern fork of the Riverchain is thriving. They call it Haven. Clever, I know. They've built aqueducts from the purified river, and they're planning a university. A university, Soren. Can you imagine? Not a Ladder arena, not a barracks, but a place for people to just… think. Cassian sends his regards. He says the Crownlands' granaries are full for the first time in a century. He's a good king. A better man than his father. He still asks about you."
She fell silent for a long moment, the words of the day-to-day politics feeling thin and inadequate. She was reporting to him like a subordinate, but that wasn't why she was here. The public report was a shield, a way to begin the more difficult conversation.
"The children," she said, her voice dropping to a near-inaudible murmur. "They're everywhere. They run through the settlement with no fear. Their Gifts… they're just part of them. I saw a little girl today, no older than five, coax a flower from the earth just to see the colors. There was no wince, no darkening of the tattoos on her arm. Just joy. It's what you wanted. It's everything."
Her hand, resting on her knee, clenched into a fist. The success of it all, the sheer, unassailable rightness of this new world, felt like a knife twisting in her gut. It was his victory, but he was not here to see it. And she was left to tend the garden he had planted with his life.
"Sometimes," she confessed, the words tearing at the carefully constructed walls around her heart, "I hate it. I hate how perfect it is. I hate how they look at me, with such hope and trust. I hate how they look at this tree, with such reverence. They're already forgetting. They're forgetting the man. The stubborn, infuriating, beautiful man who couldn't ask for help and who carried the world's pain because no one else would. They're turning you into a myth, Soren. A gentle, smiling god who blessed them with a tree."
She pressed her forehead against the trunk, the warmth seeping into her skin. The scent of bark and life filled her senses.
"I promised you," she whispered, the words a sacred vow. "I promised I wouldn't let them. I promised I would remember you. But it's so hard. Some days, I feel like I'm the only one who still remembers the sound of your voice. The way you'd scowl when you were trying not to laugh. The weight of your hand in mine. I'm so lonely."
The admission hung in the air, raw and exposed. She was the First Chair, the leader of a new age, but in this moment, she was just Nyra. A woman who had lost the other half of her soul. The weight of her responsibility, the secrets she kept from the council, the constant, low-grade fear that this fragile peace could shatter—it all pressed down on her here, in the presence of the only one who could possibly understand.
"I miss you," she said, the words finally breaking free, a choked sob catching in her throat. "Gods, Soren, I miss you so much. I miss arguing with you about strategy. I miss the way you'd look at me, like I was the only person in a room full of people. I love you. I still love you. And I'm so, so tired of being strong without you."
She wept then, silently, her tears tracing cool paths down her cheeks and soaking into the collar of her tunic. She cried for the man she had lost, for the future they had planned but would never have, for the crushing loneliness of leading a world he had saved. She poured all of it, the grief and the love and the exhaustion, into the silent, listening presence of the tree. She didn't pray. She didn't ask for a sign. She just… spoke. To her oldest and dearest friend.
She didn't know how long she sat there, her body shaking with the force of her suppressed sorrow. The twilight deepened into a true, soft night, the stars above impossibly bright and clear. The gentle chime of the leaves was a lullaby for her grief. Eventually, the storm passed, leaving her hollowed out and peaceful. She took a deep, shuddering breath, the air clean and sweet.
She rested her head against the trunk again, her cheek pressed against the warm, living wood. She closed her eyes, not in prayer, but in simple, weary companionship. She was not alone. Not really. His essence was here, in the pulse of the wood, in the clean air, in the very soil beneath her. That had to be enough.
As she lay there, a strange stillness fell over the immediate area. The perpetual chime of the leaves seemed to soften, to focus. A low-hanging branch, heavy with leaves of pure, gleaming silver like the ones that had rained down during the final battle with the Withering King, began to move. It was not the motion of a branch stirred by the wind. It was a slow, deliberate, impossible lowering, as if an unseen hand were gently guiding it down toward her.
Nyra's breath caught in her throat. She opened her eyes, her gaze fixed on the descending limb. It moved with a grace that defied its size, stopping just above her outstretched hand. For a moment, it simply hung there, a bridge of silver between the heavens and the earth.
Then, a single leaf, perfectly formed, shimmering with a soft, internal light, detached from its stem. It did not fall. It drifted, a slow, silent spiral of silver, landing with impossible softness in the center of her open palm.
The leaf was cool to the touch, yet it seemed to hum with a gentle energy. It was identical to the one he had given her in the heart of the Bloom, a promise of survival. But this was different. This was not a memory. This was a response.
Nyra stared at the silver leaf resting in her hand, her heart hammering against her ribs. The loneliness that had been her constant companion for a year vanished, replaced by a profound, earth-shattering certainty. He was still here. He was listening. And in his own silent, impossible way, he had just reached back.