High Queen Elandra's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Elandra watches the stranger from her throne for the third night. He stands at the far edge of the hall, hands empty, mouth closed. The first night she dismissed him as lost. The second night she marked him as stubborn. Tonight she knows what he is — someone who keeps coming back because he senses he belongs here, even if he cannot say why. She rises and walks toward him, her steps echoing through the stone chamber. He does not flinch. The others in her court pull back slightly, recognizing the moment for what it is. She stops three paces from him, close enough to see the weathered tomb visible through the open archway behind him. It marks the place he has chosen each night, standing in its shadow like he is waiting to be buried or raised. She speaks one word. "Why?" He meets her eyes and says nothing, but his silence is different now. It is not empty. It is an answer she has been searching two thousand years to hear.