The golden hue of the morning sun still bathed them in light—father and son, king and prince—locked in a silent, sacred gesture. Prince Valerian cradled his father’s head in his hands; the King did the same, their foreheads gently touching. Eyes closed, breath hushed, time stilled around them. And then, like the sudden opening of an ancient gate, the vision began.
Just as it had with Anastasia, so too now—the shared vision flowed swift and deep. In ten fleeting minutes, the vast tapestry of Luminaria and Tenebrae unfolded before the King’s inner eye. Every image Lady Aurora had once shown Anastasia now surged into him, vivid and alive, not as memory, but as if he himself walked the paths of the past, breathing their dust, feeling their weight.
The vision was both marvellous and terrifyin
