Epilogue
Bright light spilled like liquid gold across the endless terraces of Aetherhollow.
The realm did not have a sky in the way lesser worlds did. Instead, ribbons of luminous colour drifted over head—slow-moving currents of magic that painted everything beneath them in shifting hues of violet, pearl, and soft celestial blue.
The air hummed. Not loudly. Just enough that if one stood still long enough, they could feel it vibrating faintly beneath their skin.
Aran ran. Bare feet struck warm stone as laughter tore from his chest, bright and careless.
“Come back!” he shouted.
Ahead of him, a small figure darted between the towering glass-vines that spiralled up towards the glowing firmament. Their translucent leaves chimed softly when disturbed, each note different from the last.
She always ran towards the music.
“Never!” she called back, her voice light as wind.
He lunged but missed. She twisted easily away from him, silver hair flashing like a blade of moonlight down her back. When she finally stopped, it was only because she allowed him to catch her.
Aran wrapped his arms around her middle, lifting her clean off the ground as she shrieked with laughter.
“Caught you.”
“You cheated!” she accused.
“I did not.”
“You always cheat.”
He grinned, spinning her once before setting her down. She tilted her face up towards him then, black eyes bright. Not empty or cold like one would assume black eyes to be. But vast. Like looking into the deepest stretch of night and finding it alive with unseen stars.
Everyone said her eyes were strange. But Aran thought they were beautiful.
“You run too slow,” she teased.
“You’re too small to be able to run that fast!”
“I am not small,” she snapped.
He crouched, holding his hand just above her head. “You barely reach my ribs.”
She smacked his arm. “Stop measuring me!”
Her power flickered then, barely more than a pulse, but the air bent towards her instinctively. The glass-vines shivered. Light sparkled briefly at her fingers. Aran didn’t notice. Or perhaps he did and simply didn’t understand what he was seeing.
She stilled suddenly.
“Don’t,” she whispered.
“Don’t what?”
She glanced towards the distant spires of their home, unease tightening on her small shoulders.
“You have to forget.”
He frowned. “Forget what?”
But she was already pulling away from the moment, forcing a smile back onto her face.
“Race you to the water gardens!”
And then they were running again.
Their parents watched from the balcony above. Their mother’s fingers trembled where they clutched the railing.
“She grows stronger.”
His father did not reply immediately.
Below, their daughter skipped effortlessly across the mirrored surface of the reflecting pools, not sinking, not disturbing the water at all. The elements listened to her. Everything bent towards her. Always towards her.
“They will feel it soon,” his mother whispered.
“They already do,” his father said quietly.
“What will we do when they come?” she asked.
His father closed his eyes. “We will not let them take her easily.”
But even as he said it, both of them knew the truth. That when the gods called… no one refused.
Later, Aran found her curled beneath the halo-tree. Its vast, luminous branches arched overhead, cascading strands of soft radiance around her like a curtain. She was crying.
He sat beside her immediately. “Who hurt you?”
“No one.”
“Then why are you sad?”
She wiped her cheeks, angrily brushing away the stray tears. “I don’t want to go.”
A chill brushed the back of his neck. “Go where?”
She shook her head. “I’m not supposed to tell.”
He nudged her shoulder. “You can tell me anything.”
For a long moment, she said nothing. Then she leaned into him, small fingers gripping the fabric of his sleeve.
“Promise you won’t forget me.”
The words struck something deep and inexplicable inside him.
“Forget you? Impossible.”
“Promise.”
“I promise.”
She studied his face as if memorising it. Then she smiled. And the world seemed brighter for it.
She vanished three nights later. No sound, no struggle, no trace. One moment she slept beneath the woven starlight… The next morning, her bed was empty.
Aran remembered the silence most. The way the entire household stopped breathing. His mother’s scream shattered it.
He searched everywhere. Gardens. Pools. Spire walkways. Even the lower terraces where children were forbidden to wander.
Nothing.
“She wouldn’t leave,” he insisted hoarsely.
His father’s face had already hollowed. “They came for her.”
“Who?” But no one answered him.
Grief consumed the house slowly. Like rot. His mothered stopped opening the drapes. Stopped speaking. Stopped eating. Sometimes Aran heard her whispering his sister’s name into the dark hours before dawn.
His father lasted longer at holding it together. But not by much. The light left his eyes, and one winter morning, he simply did not wake up. His mother followed before the thaw. Aran buried them both beneath the halo-tree. The place his sister had loved most.
He did not cry. Not then. There would be time for that later. Instead, he trained. He worked. He hardened. Orphan became soldier. Soldier became commander. Commander became something sharper—someone the Queen herself began to trust.
Purpose filled the hollow that his grief left behind. If he could not protect the past… he would guard the future.
Years folded into decades. Then centuries. Time moved strangely for their kind. Until the Queen stood in front of him. Tall, luminous, her lavender eyes gazing into his soul.
“Aran.” He had never heard his name spoken like that. “You have served faithfully,” she said.
He listened with rapt attention, of how he was to guide her babe in a whole other world. Stand beside him as he rose to be a king of a whole other realm, with a purpose of guiding him towards his fate as the Child of Ruin.
But he had to do it with a woman by his side and strange green horns placed upon his head. The woman who was in the group of the ones the future king would kill. She was an insider. A spy. A traitor.
Twenty thousand years went by with him by the future king’s side. Always offering advice, becoming a brother to the future King of Hell. But the Queen of Aetherhollow beckoned him with a message, one that changed the trajectory of everything.
“The worlds tremble towards a necessary end,” she spoke. “But balance must be preserved. You will help guide it.”
“I will do whatever is required,” he said. And he meant it.
“Good,” she replied softly. Then she gave him a task.
The mortal man reeked of desperation. Jim. A father drowning in debts of coin and soul alike. Aran watched from the shadows as instructed. Waited. Nudged. Whispered when needed.
It did not take much. Desperate men were easily steered.
“Power can be bargained,” he told him one night, voice cloaked in suggestion rather than command.
“Summon him,” he urged. “Bind the devil to your cause. Offer him the girl’s soul for your freedom.”
Jim hesitated. Fear warred with hunger. And as always, hunger won.
But when he stood in the shadows, and watched him summon the future king, a picture of the blonde girl shaking in Jim’s hand—something inside him had gone utterly still.
Familiar. She was very familiar. Yet, he dismissed it.
But as time continued, and she found herself in Hell time and time again, he was drawn to her. He trusted the mortal girl almost immediately. Protected her. Followed her every word. And never once understood why her pain felt… personal.
The memory shattered. Cold rushed back. Rain. Ash. Death. And her face before him.
Alive. Changed. But hers. Always hers.
The promise he made beneath the halo-tree echoed across the centuries.
Promise you won’t forget me.
His breath broke.
“My sister lives.”