The desert wind was still, yet it howled in Airam's ears—like the echo of something ancient buried beneath the dunes. The girl standing across from her looked so familiar it made her chest ache. Same face. Same mouth. Same eyes. But there was something lighter about her. Something unburdened.
"You look... younger," Airam said, her voice quiet but wary.
"I am," the girl answered, brushing sand off her blue skirt. "I never carried a crown. Never led an army. Never had fire sleeping under my skin. I never had to make anyone proud."
Airam swallowed. "Then what are you?"
The girl tilted her head with a small, sad smile. "I'm you. The version that left when the weight got too heavy. The girl who wanted a simple life—books, a garden, and someone who'd love her even if she had nothing to offer but her dreams."
Airam's chest tightened. "That life... it never felt real."
"It was," the girl said softly. "You just didn't choose it."
For a moment, neither spoke. The sun overhead remained fixed, suspended in the orange-red sky like it had forgotten how to set. The heat didn't scorch. It pressed.
"Is this some illusion from the First Order?" Airam asked, stepping forward. "Another trap to keep me still?"
The other Airam shook her head. "No. This is you, trying to decide who you really are before the flame consumes you."
"I already made my choice," Airam said. "I kept the flame. I'm fighting back."
"But you're scared," her mirror said gently. "Because every queen before you either died... or lost herself."
Airam flinched.
Her hands clenched around the staff, its light pulsing in rhythm with her heartbeat.
"I didn't ask for any of this," she whispered. "I didn't ask to be a vessel. A ruler. A weapon."
The girl stepped closer, closing the distance between them. "But now that you are... are you strong enough to be both the girl and the queen?"
Airam looked at her—really looked. For the first time, she saw what she had buried: the softness she had forced down, the dreams she'd smothered in duty. All to become something worthy of the crown.
"I don't know how," she said, tears brimming in her eyes.
Her mirror offered her hand.
"You start by forgiving the part of you that wanted peace. And remembering it's still there."
Airam hesitated… then took her hand.
The moment their fingers touched, the desert shattered.
A windstorm exploded around them, scattering dunes like ash. The horizon split, revealing flashes of every life Airam had ever lived—the first queen, the hidden child, the runaway, the dreamer. A thousand versions of herself collided.
And she stood at the center of it all.
Then—silence.
When she opened her eyes again, she was standing on a stone platform beneath a sky of endless stars.
And the other Airam was gone.
But she felt her inside—folded gently into her heart.
---
Elsewhere…
Liam jolted awake, breath ragged. The forest was dense, bathed in twilight, unfamiliar and silent. He sat up slowly, his body sore, his thoughts fragmented.
Where...?
His mind felt cloudy. Blurred.
He looked down at his wrist—where Airam's sigil used to glow faintly beneath the skin.
Gone.
A rustle.
He turned sharply, reaching for a blade that wasn't there.
An old man stepped out from behind a tree. Weathered face. Heavy cloak. One eye missing.
"Easy, soldier," the man said. "You took quite a fall."
Liam stayed tense. "Who are you?"
The man dropped something onto the forest floor.
A blade—Liam's sword.
"I knew your father," he said. "He served under the flame... like you. Until he turned away from it."
Liam's breath hitched. "My father's dead."
The man only shrugged. "Are you sure? Or is that just what the Order told you?"
Liam stared. The man continued.
"You don't know who you are, boy. Or why the flame binds itself to you. But you will. Soon."
---
Back in the starfield...
Airam walked slowly across the stone platform, the staff now glowing steady and warm. Ahead, a single archway pulsed with golden fire, runes dancing across its frame.
As she stepped through it, she felt the Breath stir again—not like before, not like a force ready to consume her.
It felt like hers now.
It listened.
Then came a voice—deep, layered, echoing from all around.
> "You have chosen. You are whole."
She turned—expecting her reflection, the Custodian, anyone.
But standing at the edge of the stars was the dark heir.
His face pale, eyes wild, his hands cuffed in golden light.
> "They found me," he rasped. "They're coming. The Thrones... all seven."
Airam lifted the staff, its flame flaring in response.
> "Then I'll be ready."
The stars above dimmed—one by one—as if preparing for something much darker.
---