The moonlight stayed constant.
Not flickering. Not fading. Just watching, high and full, casting silver upon the frost-blanketed plain where the two figures knelt.
The child sat quietly, her fingers curled against her chest, her breath shallow.
And then it began.
Not with light. Not with thunder. But with a single word.
A na.
Whispered, not by her but soone inside her.
"Maera…"
The child shivered. Her head tilted upward, eyes wide as a tiny orb of blue slipped through her collarbone, spinning lazily in the air. It shimred like a teardrop caught in the wind.
Riel leaned forward, not speaking. Just listening.
Another na ca.
Then another.
Each na drew forth a point of light, no brighter than a candle fla, drifting upward, slow, reverent, as if afraid to leave.
"Sorrel…"
"Thiven…"
"Orli…"
The nas began to overlap.
A chorus without music, a river without banks.
They rose, and with them, the air grew lighter, warr and drifted into the sky like snowflakes.
The snow didn't lt, but it loosened.
As if exhaling.
The child's arms dropped to her sides, her fingers splayed in the frost as light after light erged from her small fra — not ripped, not expelled, but released. Offered.
"I didn't rember them all," she whispered. "But they… rembered themselves."
Riel didn't answer. She couldn't. Her throat had closed, her eyes narrowed not in judgnt anymore, but in awe.
The girl's skin glowed faintly with every soul that passed.
So cried as they left — not in pain, but joy. So smiled. A few even laughed.
The air began to hum.
Not music.
Sothing deeper.
Like all the threads of their stolen lives were being stitched back into the fabric of the world.
Each soul beca a seed of sothing unseen.
And in the distant lands, those seeds would bloom.
Riel watched as the girl in the snow beca pale... her figure fading and growing weaker each ti a soul left her body.
It was clear what might happen... and she watched silently.
—
anwhile, in the southern parts of the demon empire.
The battlefield was still.
Around Alan, the demon lands lay coated in the pale afterbirth of war — not blood, but snow, falling now with a strange calm. The twisted monsters had stopped moving. So shrank, curled up, and whimpered like dogs waking from a nightmare.
Alan stood still amid the wreckage, sword lowered, eyes drawn upward.
There was no reason to look up. But sothing in his chest told him he had to.
And then he saw her.
A silhouette in the drifting white. Slender. Upright. Cloaked in shadow that shimred faintly like silk soaked in moonlight. She didn't glow like a goddess or descend like a spirit.
She simply was.
Standing across from him in the field like she'd never left.
His heart didn't jump.
It sank.
"…Mireille," he whispered.
Her na tasted like old paper. The letters he had folded too many tis, regretting the words he left unspoken.
She smiled.
Gods, it was the sa smile.
Not full of forgiveness. Not full of judgnt. Just… familiar. Worn at the edges. Like she'd been waiting through lifetis just to give it once more.
Alan stepped forward instinctively. His boots broke ice. Shattered flowers curled underfoot.
"I couldn't save you," he said. "I didn't even bury you."
She didn't speak.
Her eyes lowered gently, as if telling him: You did enough.
Alan's jaw clenched. His hand tightened around the sword he didn't rember raising.
"But I hated myself," he said.
She touched his chest.
Not with warmth. But with weight. Like a hand that had been there once before, in another life, before pain ever got between them.
"You've grown cruel," she said softly. "But kind."
The wind stirred. Sothing loosened in his throat. He didn't speak.
Because if he did—
He might ask her to stay.
Mireille's form was already dissolving at the edges, her hair unravelling like ink in water. The breeze pulled at her robe, lifting it like smoke from a candle's wick.
She took one step back.
"I wanted to hate you," Alan muttered. "I told myself I did."
She looked at him with soft amusent.
"Well, I loved you... I do, even now. So be happy... that girl has my approval."
And then she was gone.
"W-Wait!"
No light, no big scene or sound.
Just a small burst of silver petals that scattered at his feet.
Alan stood in silence.
Around him, flowers began to bloom — violet, soft, unfamiliar to this land.They curled through the snow. Poked from stone. Grew even from the corpses of demons.
And Alan, proud knight of the north, hero of Grigor... and loving husband.
Fell to one knee.
And let the rain fall unseen.
——
The throne room of Grigor's citadel had never been so quiet.
The torchlight didn't flicker. The banners didn't sway.
Only the sound of Avandar's breath filled the air — shallow, asured, caught sowhere between reverence and disbelief.
The silver light pooled in through the broken stained glass windows. It didn't co from the moon. It didn't co from magic.
It ca from the air itself.
And in that light, they arrived.
Velvet gasped first.
Alice dropped to one knee without thinking.
But Avandar didn't move.
He stood at the bottom of the throne steps, mouth parted, as the ghostly figure stepped forward from the light.
She was dressed in soft robes of white, not royal, not priestly. Plain. The way she used to dress when she walked the market streets with him. Her hair was tied in the ribbon he'd given her the night before their wedding.
And in her eyes, there was no accusation.
Only love.
"Arin…" he whispered.
She smiled. That sa shy smile, crooked on the left, the way only he knew how to read.
Then another figure erged beside her.
Taller. Broad-shouldered. Steel-grey hair tucked behind one ear.
His mother.
She wore the uniform of Grigor's old knight-commanders, hand resting gently on Arin's back.
The ghost stepped towards Velvet and showed an amused smirk.
The pair awkwardly looked at each other, and beside them, Alice froze, her shoulders trembled lightly as the older woman's eyes beca softer as she gazed back at her.
"You've done well, my little songbird."
She tried to brush her hand through Alice's hair, looking at Velvet. "Take care of her, my dear cousin. This girl always tries to act stronger than she is."
"A...ah.... of course...." Velvet's voice sounded softer than usual, broken and quivering. An old friend, a dear comrade and family mber.
The woman's face beca stern as her image flickered. "Tsk... seems my ti is too short."
She smiled bitterly and returned to Arin.
Behind them, they ca one by one.
Knights. Guards. Maids. Servants.
People he had forgotten.
People who had given everything, so he could still be standing.
They didn't bow.
They didn't speak.
They just looked at him.
With pride.
Avandar's legs almost gave. His hands trembled at his sides.
"I didn't protect you," he whispered. "I lived while you…"
Arin stepped closer.
She didn't touch him, but the wind behind her carried the warmth of her skin, the scent of her breath, the sound of her voice long faded.
"You protected the future," she said, lips barely moving. "That's more than most kings ever do, you old fool... but our daughters really take after , haha."
His eyes twitched, seeing her smile so brightly like the sun. "How?"
"Haha, well, they clearly choose a man for his looks. Right?" Arin's cheeky attitude caused him to laugh. But he froze because her figure beca thinner with each mont.
Tears fell silently down Avandar's cheeks.
'That damn playboy bastard... even ruining my reunion with Arin...'
He didn't move to stop them.
Then the light began to lift.
Arin stepped back.
His mother nodded once — the sa nod she gave before every war council.
The others followed.
And within monts, they were gone.
Only the throne remained.
And the man who stood before it, not as a prince, not as a ruler.
Just a husband.
Just a Father
Just a son.
Just a man.
———
The moonlight waned in the dream-like world as Riel watched the girl's figure becoming more transparent and weak.
"Will you disappear like this?"
"Mm..." The demon empress nodded. "Isn't it better for sothing like to vanish?"
Upon releasing each soul trapped and devoured, she rembered a battle, a life, their history and mories all filling her mind and soul. A reminder of her sins, the things she did in her desire to be "Sothing" or "Soone"
"I cannot condone what you have done, nor forgive you." Riel's answer was cold and bitter, but despite her words, she still knelt beside the childish figure.
"Mm."
"But I will wait here, beside you until the end."
The pale demon child gazed up, and her frozen lips curled into a faint smile. "I see, thank you. Riel."
The moonlight dimd, but never vanished.
Its pale glow stretched across the empty white as the child's form slowly lost substance — her body becoming outline, then breath, then light.
No dramatic parting. No sudden collapse.
She simply… faded.
Like a na no longer spoken.
Riel didn't move.
She remained seated beside the place where the girl had been, her hand still resting in the snow, untouched.
She hadn't forgiven her and probably never would.
But she had waited.
And that, for now, was enough.
The wind curled around her shoulders like a shawl, and above her, the sky remained blank — no stars, no gods, no promises.
Just silence.
And the soft, distant sound of snow beginning to lt.
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