The world held its breath.
Midnight and the woman descended slowly through the sky, wrapped in silver light and the steady pulse of the throne.
No one moved.
No one spoke.
The stars themselves seemed to be waiting.
When their feet finally touched the ground in the center of Black Hollow, the silence deepened.
The woman looked around.
Really looked.
At the mountains.
At the trees.
At the lights in the windows.
At the people.
At the life.
The expression on her face was impossible to describe.
Not joy.
Not grief.
Not relief.
Recognition.
The kind that comes when you've spent ten thousand years remembering something and suddenly realize you never remembered it correctly at all.
Life wasn't what she'd lost.
It was what she'd forgotten how to imagine.
The silver flower still
