Page 166 of She Who Holds My Wrath

And yet… somewhere deep inside me, a recognition calls. A familiarity I have never placed. No memory stirs. No thought. But something older than both screams to life at his words.

I rise, the ground feeling suddenly unsteady beneath my feet. “Aran…” My voice is barely there. “What did you just say?”

A sob breaks from him, tears falling from his emerald eyes to mix with the rain from the storm above. “My sister lives.”

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.