Queen Serenity's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

The crystal statue of the Queen stood inside a tall mirrored tower, light pulsing softly from her chest. Above her, a cracked glass sphere drifted in the air. Inside it, mist swirled and glowed. It was the thread between her sleeping mind and the four guardians who had toned her down. Astra, Lumen, Vesper, and Tessen knelt at the base of the tower. They closed their eyes and reached for her through the sphere. Serenity's voice came thin and slow. "Find her. Before the dark does." She tried to give them a name. The word broke apart before it left her. A ripple of pink and gold light burst from the sphere and contracted into the dark. The mist inside dimmed. The cracks spread. Vesper opened her eyes. "We are losing her words." Tessen lifted a round stone from her glove, ringed with shifting colors. "Then we hold what she cannot say." They pressed the stone against the tower. Serenity poured what was left of the thought, not a name, but a feeling, into the rings. The stone drank it in. Its colors locked. Inside the sphere, the mist steadied. The guardians stood. "A thousand years," Astra said. "We sleep in shifts. One wakes, one searches. The stone will know her when we touch her." They bowed to the tower and faded. The sphere went still. Serenity could no longer speak, but the feeling was carried now. Not her daughter's name. Only the shape of her love, sealed in a stone that would wait.