The dreams won’t stop.
I can still taste the blood on the air, sharp and metallic. Hear the crackle of radiant magicks burning against my skin. Feel the sudden, violent pull of my soul, bound into that accursed magic circle they forced me into. I remember the moment I tried to flee—only for my wing to be severed, my flight cut short in a spray of silver and scarlet, mingling into a desperate, divine plea for mercy.
The wounds have healed.
The scars remain.
Why?
Why didn’t you hear my cries, Sune?
All I ever wanted—all I have ever done, for millennia—is strive to make the world better. Yet Kaelthar and his men found me. They hunted me. They tortured me for days. Perhaps they acted out of fear; I can understand that. But I will never understand why they chose cruelty as their answer.
And worst of all… they overpowered me.
Me.
The Voice of Sune.
And She… She did not come.
The only thing that kept hope flickering in the darkness was Haruki. His strength became the anchor that steadied me. I knew he would come. Not just Haruki, but all of them—my friends, my family. Even the tiefling, who claims he saved me only out of obligation. But I know better. I see the war he fights within himself. His bitterness, his loathing—none of it could mask the truth of his care.
Skoll. Mordekai. Enialis.
Haruki—my beloved, my husband.
They all came for me. They fought for me.
How could I ever repay such love?
And yet… for the first time in my long life, I feel it.
Fear.
Real, gnawing, helpless fear.
I feel small. Frail.
No… not the first time.
I remember fear from long ago—fear of losing my mother, fear of falling, fear of being alone.
I was alone then.
And in some ways…
I am still alone now.