Arenne did not sleep.
The feeling remained.
Not fear.
Not danger.
Recognition.
It lingered at the edge of her thoughts like a melody she had once known but could no longer remember.
Outside, the fire had burned low. Rainwater dripped from the pine branches, striking the earth in a slow, patient rhythm.
Lysander stirred beneath his blanket.
"You've been awake all night."
"I know."
"Do you want to tell me what's troubling you?"
Arenne remained silent for a while.
Then she looked upward through the narrow opening in the trees.
"When I was Eternal, nothing could watch me without my knowing."
"And now?"
She smiled faintly.
"Now I finally understand how mortals must have felt."
⸻
Dawn crept quietly through the forest.
Mist floated between the trunks like wandering spirits, softening every edge of the world.
They packed their belongings and resumed their journey.
The path soon narrowed until only one person could walk at a time.
Arenne led the way.
Every so often she would stop beside a tree, brushing her fingers over its bark.
Lysander noticed.
"Still speaking to flowers?"
She laughed.
"No."
"What, then?"
"I'm apologising."
He blinked.
"To the trees?"
"I commanded forests for so long."
She rested her palm against the trunk of a towering pine.
"I never once thanked them for growing."
Lysander smiled.
"They seem to have forgiven you."
A gentle breeze stirred the branches above them.
Thousands of pine needles whispered together.
Arenne closed her eyes.
"I think they have."
⸻
Near midday they reached the highest ridge in the forest.
Beyond it, the land opened into an endless valley.
Golden grass swayed beneath the wind like waves upon the sea.
Far in the distance stood a lonely tower of white stone.
Its upper half had collapsed long ago.
"What is that place?" Lysander asked.
Arenne studied it quietly.
"The Observatory of Caelis."
"You've been there?"
"I built it."
He laughed.
"Of course you did."
She smiled.
"It wasn't a palace."
"It was a promise."
⸻
As they descended into the valley, Arenne began to speak.
"When I first awakened as the Eternal Queen, humanity feared the night."
"They feared what they couldn't see."
"So I gathered the wisest astronomers, poets, and dreamers."
She looked toward the ruined tower.
"We built Caelis so they could study the stars instead of fearing them."
"What did they discover?"
Her smile faded.
"That even the stars are born."
"And if something is born…"
"It can die."
⸻
They arrived at the tower shortly before sunset.
Its great bronze doors had fallen from their hinges centuries earlier.
Inside, vines wrapped themselves around broken staircases.
Dust covered forgotten instruments of brass and crystal.
Yet at the very centre of the observatory stood an enormous circular floor carved with a map of the heavens.
Every constellation had been etched into white marble.
Arenne slowly walked across it.
"I remember every name."
She knelt beside one constellation shaped like a swan.
"But…"
She frowned.
"Something is missing."
Lysander crouched beside her.
"What do you mean?"
She pointed toward a blank space in the stone.
"There used to be a star here."
"It guided sailors across the western sea."
"There is no carving."
As if it had never existed.
⸻
A chill swept through the observatory.
The last rays of sunlight disappeared beyond the mountains.
One by one, the stars emerged overhead.
Arenne looked upward.
Then froze.
Another star vanished.
Not dimmed.
Not hidden by cloud.
Gone.
Her breath caught.
"Lysander…"
He followed her gaze.
"I don't see anything."
"Exactly."
She whispered the words as though afraid the heavens themselves might hear.
"The stars are disappearing."
⸻
A deep voice echoed through the ruined observatory.
It did not come from the doorway.
Nor from the sky.
It seemed to arise from the very stones beneath their feet.
"At last…"
The sound reverberated through every wall.
"The Keeper of Dawn walks as flesh."
Lysander drew his sword.
"Who's there?"
No answer came.
Only the slow rumble of ancient stone.
The marble map beneath Arenne's feet began to glow.
Lines of silver light spread between the carved constellations.
One after another…
Entire constellations faded from the map.
Not erased.
Consumed.
Arenne's eyes widened.
"No…"
She knew this pattern.
She had seen it once.
Long before kingdoms.
Long before Velhar.
Before even her own birth.
A memory surfaced from the deepest corner of her mind.
A voice.
Ancient beyond imagination.
Speaking into a universe that contained no stars.
"Light is temporary."
"Darkness is patient."
Arenne staggered backwards.
Her face had become pale.
Lysander caught her before she could fall.
"What is it?"
She looked at him with an expression he had never seen before.
The expression of someone who had finally remembered the one thing she had prayed never to recall.
Her voice was barely more than a whisper.
"I remember…"
A tear rolled down her cheek.
"…what came before the gods."
Outside the observatory, every star above the northern horizon disappeared at once.
And for a single heartbeat…
the night became utterly black.