The air felt too still.
Rene couldn't move.
Couldn't breathe.
The woman standing before her—the one who claimed to be her mother—looked at her with gentle silver eyes, as if expecting her to accept the truth.
But how could she?
Their parents had been dead for years. She and Nyra had accepted that, grieved, and moved on.
Yet now, the past was clawing its way into the present.
Rena, ever calm, ever unshaken, stared up at Aeris and whispered the words that shattered everything:
"I remember you."
Nyra's breathing hitched. Her fingers twitched near her blade.
"No," she said, voice sharp. "That's impossible."
Aeris tilted her head. "Is it?"
Nyra took a step back, shaking her head. Disbelief. "Our mother died."
Aeris sighed. "I know that is what you were told."
Rene finally found her voice. "So what, you're saying you've been alive this whole time? Watching us? Letting us believe you were dead?"
The accusation in her voice was sharp, edged with something close to rage.
Aeris' expression didn't waver.
"I had no choice."
Rene clenched her fists. "There is always a choice."
Aeris gave her a long look. "No," she said softly. "Not for me."
The air thickened.
Lucien was silent.
Still.
Too still.
Rene turned to him. He hadn't spoken since Aeris revealed herself. And that was strange.
Lucien always had something to say. A smirk. A sarcastic remark. A sharp observation.
But now—
He looked haunted.
Like someone who had spent too much time staring into the past.
Rene narrowed her eyes. "You knew her."
Lucien exhaled, closing his eyes for a brief moment.
"I knew the name." His voice was unreadable. "But I never thought she would still be alive."
Nyra's patience snapped. "Then tell us what you know."
Lucien hesitated.
For the first time since she had met him—Lucien hesitated.
Then, finally, he spoke.
"She wasn't just erased from history," he said quietly. "She was banished."
Silence.
Nyra paled. "Banished?"
Lucien's golden eyes flickered with something dark.
"She was condemned," he said. "Not just by Nocturna. By the gods themselves."
Rene felt the blood drain from her face.
She turned back to Aeris.
"You expect me to believe that?"
Aeris' silver eyes were steady. "I don't expect you to believe anything."
She lifted her hand.
And the ruins around them shifted.
The mist curled, warping the air itself.
Then—
The past opened.
---
(A Memory From Another Time)
The sky was black.
No stars. No moon.
Just darkness.
The ruins were no longer ruins. They were whole—great towering structures of stone and magic, stretching toward the sky like something divine.
And within them—war.
Figures clashed. Shadows rose. Magic burned through the air.
And at the center of it all—
Aeris.
But she was different.
Her hair was longer, wild, streaked with silver fire. Her eyes burned with power. She stood at the heart of the battlefield, surrounded by those who opposed her.
She did not look afraid.
She looked furious.
"You would seal away what you do not understand," she spat, voice like a storm.
A council of figures stood before her—cloaked in robes, faces hidden.
"You have broken the laws of creation," one of them declared. "You have made something that should not exist."
Aeris' fingers curled into fists. "I made something that was needed."
"You made a key."
Aeris did not deny it.
The council raised their hands in unison, power gathering.
"This is our judgment."
Aeris exhaled sharply. "Then I reject it."
She lifted her own hands—
And light erupted.
A war began.
And in the distance—
A child's cry rang out.
---
(Back to the Present)
Rene gasped as the vision shattered.
She staggered back, heart pounding.
It had felt so real.
Like she had been standing there, witnessing the moment everything fell apart.
She turned to Aeris.
The woman's expression was unreadable. "Now do you understand?"
Rene swallowed hard. "That was…"
"The day I was erased."
Rene didn't want to believe it.
Didn't want to believe that the past had been rewritten.
But it made sense.
Rena. The whispers. The Hollow Ones.
Everything led back to that moment.
She turned to Lucien.
"You knew," she whispered.
Lucien didn't deny it.
"I knew of a war," he admitted. "But the details were lost. No one speaks of what truly happened. Only that someone tried to defy the gods—"
His golden eyes darkened.
"And that they failed."
Rene turned back to Aeris.
"You made Rena."
Aeris nodded. "Yes."
"But why?"
Aeris exhaled softly.
"Because the gods feared what lay beyond the door."
Rene felt a shiver run down her spine.
The door.
The one Rena was meant to open.
Or perhaps… keep closed.
Aeris' voice was quiet. "They thought by removing me, they would end it."
She looked down at Rena.
"But they didn't realize—"
Her silver eyes softened.
"That I had already made the key."
To Be Continued…