She didn't even get to ponder what choice she apparently just made and why that ridiculous voice was so happy about it.
Asteria blinked, her boots sinking not into the cold stone of the Cathedral, but into sand that shimmered like crushed diamonds.
She stood at the edge of a reflective ocean, the water so still it was impossible to tell where the surface ended and the sky began. There was no horizon, only an infinite expanse of pale blue and silver. Above her, suspended in a state of agonizing, slow-motion descent, was a blindingly golden sphere. It was a sun caught in the middle of an eternal fall, casting a light so pure it made the very air feel holy.
"Asteria, dear."
The voice was soft, devoid of the static and the choral distortion of the Sovereign. Asteria spun around, her hand instinctively reaching for the hilt of a blade. It was still there, but it felt light – almost hollow – in this place.
A few paces away, standing amidst the diamond sand, was Halesia.
She wasn't the goddess in white silk. She wasn't the weeping monster behind the Mask of Glass. She was dressed in a simple, pale dress, her hair flowing free like silk on the wind. Her eyes were a clear, piercing sapphire, brimming with a lucidity that was almost painful to behold.
"It's interesting, isn't it?" Halesia said, stepping toward the water's edge. She didn't look at Asteria, but at the falling sun. "That I can share my most vulnerable, deepest parts with you... and gain absolutely nothing from the exchange."
Asteria's head was spinning. The transition had been too fast, the contrast too violent. "Is this... your soul sea?"
Halesia hummed a response, a sound of gentle affirmation. There was no madness in her gaze, no predatory hunger. She was simply herself – undiluted, unmasked, and terrifyingly human.
"But outside... she was..." Asteria stuttered, the words catching in her throat as she struggled to reconcile the carnage of the Cathedral with the serenity of this place. "You were tearing your world apart..."
Halesia laughed then, but it wasn't the ragged sound from before. it was a soft, melodic ripple that carried a weight of profound sadness. "I need not answer your questions, Asteria. It won't matter anyway, will it? Time is a very different thing in here, but out there... Valerius is currently breaking my bones, and your hand is still warm from the altar."
She turned, finally looking Asteria in the eye. The sheer weight of hundreds years of consciousness pressed against Asteria's mind, but it wasn't a hostile pressure. It was just... heavy.
"I have a favour to ask, my little thief," Halesia sighed, her shoulders dropping.
"Huh?" Asteria gripped her sword tighter, her confusion mounting. "A favour? You don't ask favours from people like me."
"I am a prisoner," Halesia corrected her softly. She began to walk in a slow circle around Asteria, her bare feet leaving no prints in the shimmering sand.
"Kill me, Asteria."
The words were so blunt they felt like a physical strike. Asteria flinched. "What?"
"Kill me," Halesia repeated. She stopped and, with a grace that felt like a falling petal, she sank to her knees in the sand. She didn't bow her head; she looked up at Asteria with a pleading, desperate hope. "I don't want to suffer anymore. Do you have any idea what it's like? To sit here, in this quiet ocean, and observe the outside world through the eyes of a monster?"
She gestured vaguely to the golden sun above.
"It's like seeing myself through another's eyes. I sit here and watch as my hands crush my subjects. I hear my own voice screaming commands that make my stomach turn. I got everything I ever wanted, Asteria. I got the eternity my father promised. I got peace. And I got it at the cost of my own self. I'm awfully stupid, aren't I?"
Asteria looked at the woman – the goddess – kneeling before her. "You let it happen. You invited it in. Valerius said-"
"Valerius is a man who loves the process more than the result," Halesia interrupted, her voice hardening for a fleeting second before softening again. "But he was right about one thing. I was a coward. I didn't want to see the sand swallow the towers. So I chose to sleep. And now, I can't wake up. And the only way out is for the vessel to be destroyed."
She leaned forward, her hands resting in the sand.
"So please, kill me. If need be, I'll even assist you in taking my life. I don't want to suffer anymore. I don't want to spend another century missing a father who abandoned me to a throne of glass, nor do I want to watch my kingdom continue to crumble out of my own foolishness."
The violet light of the blade in Asteria's hand seemed to harmonize with the golden light of the soul sea. It was a weapon of endings.
"If I kill you," Asteria whispered, "what then?"
"My subjects are already dead, Asteria," Halesia said, her voice a ghost of a whisper. "They are echoes in a glass jar. Give them the mercy of a real death. Give me the mercy I could not offer them."
Halesia reached out and took the tip of the jian, guiding it toward her own heart. Her skin felt warm – vibrant and real.
"Do it, little thief. Take the last thing I have to give. Be the hand that finally lets the sun set."
Asteria looked into those sapphire eyes and saw the truth. There was no trap here. No gambit. Just a tired girl who had been playing Queen for far too long. Asteria's heart hammered against her ribs, but her hands stopped shaking. She realized then that this was why the Spell had chosen her. Not because she was a hero, but because she was a thief – and she knew exactly what it meant to take something that couldn't be returned.
"I'm sorry," Asteria whispered for the second time.
"Don't be," Halesia smiled, and it was the most beautiful thing Asteria had ever seen. "It's a lovely day for a sunset.
Asteria plunged the blade forward – the invisible wall Valerius was hitting wasn't there, instead it felt like slicing through air, as if nothing was resisting it – instead, welcoming the sensation.
The Queen willed herself to be slain.
The moment the blade pierced Halesia's chest, her soul sea began to tilt. The golden sun above shattered, its fragments falling like burning rain. The reflective ocean rose up in a massive, silent wave, swallowing the sand and the kneeling goddess.
Asteria felt a massive impact. The serenity of the soul sea was replaced by a cacophony of sound – the roar of a collapsing building, the screams of a dying god, and the frantic, desperate heartbeat of a man who refused to let go.
The spell whispered in her ears.
[You have slain, Supreme Human, Fallen Sun]
[You have rec-]
The Spell's voice cut off.
The whiteout faded.
Reality slammed back into her with the force of a falling mountain. Asteria's eyes snapped open. She was back in the Cathedral, her hand still pressed against the altar.
But the world was different.
The altar was cracking. The fog was being sucked into the fissures. And right in front of her, Valerius was mid-strike, his intangible blades buried in Halesia's chest – exactly where Asteria had driven the jian within her soul.
The Queen wasn't screaming anymore. She was looking at Asteria through the cracks in her mask, a single, clear blue eye visible behind the glass.
She was smiling.
And Valerius?
He overthrew the woman he called daughter; the Queen he pledged loyalty to.
His defiance was usurping a Supreme's throne.
The cracking figure of Halesia dissipated – crumbling into dust and swept up in the wind with a final whisper. "Thank you."
The Kingdom of Glass birthed a new Supreme to lead them.