CHAPTER 45: THE GIRL WHO DREAMS

The sealed corridor breathed a silence that felt ancient, like a library forgotten by time. Cold vapors curled along the stone floor that somehow felt like marsh. At the end of the hall, the final threshold loomed - no door, no handle, just a seamless wall of shimmering black surface.

Elune stepped forward, taking in a deep breath - preparing her encounter with a past she hadn’t known still existed. Sealed away.

Beyond it lay a door. Slightly open. As if the one inside was expecting someone to come. Just as it had been when Lin visited.

She stepped into a chamber bathed in refracted silver. The ceiling was nowhere to be seen. The walls arched endlessly into mirrored twilight. And in the center of the room, barefoot and motionless, sat a girl.

Her back was to Elune. Her dress hung like it was stitched from ash and woven air, and her hair shimmered with a faint blue sheen under the strange light.

"Why you?" the girl said, without turning.

Elune’s breath caught in her throat. She stepped forward, voice soft, aching.

"...Because I loved you, too."

The girl turned her head slightly. Just enough to catch Elune’s reflection in a nearby pane. Her gaze was unreadable - not cold, but distant, clinical. Her lips tugged into something halfway between recognition and reproach.

"You haven’t changed at all. I bet you still trip over all the time."

For a moment, Elune almost smiled.

"I do," she said quietly. "At least twice a day."

The air between them held the ghost of something gentler - an echo from when things were simpler. But it faded just as quickly.

The girl’s eyes didn’t soften. "That clumsiness used to make me laugh."

"And I remember you used to laugh like it surprised you."

The girl said nothing.

Elune stepped closer, carefully, her voice catching on memory and guilt.

"I watched over you," Elune said. Her voice trembled. "We both did. Luc... she treasured you more than you knew."

"She sealed me," the girl replied flatly. "Is that what treasured means now?"

Elune lowered her gaze. "We were told you had... passed. I never-"

"But you believed it." Her voice was quiet, but the bitterness sat heavy beneath the words.

"You never asked. You just went on serving her."

"I grieved you," Elune said. "You were like family to me."

"Then why didn’t you look for me?"

That cut deeper than she expected. She took a step closer, hands clenched at her sides.

"I never imagined she’d—"

"That she’d what?" The girl’s voice barely rose, but it cut like fine glass. "Seal me away? Forget me until it was convenient?"

"No," Elune whispered. "Not forget. Never forget. That was the problem."

The girl turned fully now, facing her. The light curved strangely around her frame, as though the room itself strained to hold her shape.

"I’m not the child she couldn’t forget," Saen said. "I’m the memory she locked away because she loved it too much."

A silence passed between them. Elune approached slowly, her boots not echoing at all on the mirrored floor. She studied the girl - Saen, though the name was not spoken aloud.

"You’ve been here... all this time?" Elune asked.

"I’m not here," Saen replied, gently. "I’m everywhere they remember me."

Elune lowered herself to one knee. Her voice dropped to something tender. "Why Lin? Why now?"

The girl cocked her head. "Are you trying to stop me? You don’t think I deserve to be free after all this time?"

"You mean-"

The girl sighed.

"Think carefully, Elune. Luc has no pact with Lin, does she? That’s why you are worried. I’ll swap place with her. I will sign the pact."

Elune inhaled sharply. "But then Miss Roen will be-"

Saen’s eyes shimmered. "I am a Roen. A REAL Roen."

"But you are also a Zhen."

"And I’ve been punished for it enough."

Elune shook her head.

"I’m really sorry what happened to you... all this time... I never knew."

Saen’s face didn’t soften. "Don’t apologize. You served her, not me."

She took a few steps forward, and the mirrors hummed faintly. The light bent around her like water bending around a stone.

"They didn’t ask me if I wanted to come back," she said. "But now that I am... I see the path clearly."

"You’ll take her place," Elune whispered.

Saen’s eyes gleamed. "She’ll rest here. Dreamless. Just as I did."

Elune’s mouth parted, but no words came.

"And once I walk free, I’ll sign the pact with Luc myself."

"No... if you sign, the Mistress will be bound to Zhen. She won’t allow herself to be shackled to their bloodline - not even for you."

"We will see about that, Elune."

Saen circled Elune slowly, her bare feet soundless on the mirror-glass floor. She paused by one of the panes, tilting her head toward it.

"They’ve made it easy," she murmured. "Lin was already unmoored. A name here, a photo there, a memory no one else claimed..."

Her fingers grazed the mirror’s surface - the reflection rippled.

"They’ve been feeding her pieces of me," Saen said, turning back to Elune. "Soon she’ll walk and speak like me. Dream like me."

"You’re allowing this?"

Saen shrugged. "Can’t I have a little dream of my own, for a change?"

"I’m sure the Mistress-"

"Poor Elune, she still has your heart," Saen’s tone was ambiguous. Elune couldn’t tell if Saen was mocking her or feeling sympathetic. Either way, this was the painful truth that Elune had to live with for the eternity.

Saen rose to her feet, barefoot on the mirrored floor that didn’t ripple beneath her. She seemed taller now. Older. A specter pulled from time’s pocket.

"But you’ll try to stop them," she said.

"I have to."

Saen laughed softly — not cruel, not kind. Just amused.

"Then hurry," she said, the tone laced with mockery. "Your Luc always did like impossible causes."

She began to fade, not physically, but in presence — like a dream dissolving as the mind wakes.

"Try all you want, angel. But you’re not the one being dreamed."

Elune looked into the mirrors.

The angel thought she caught a glimpse of Lin for a moment.