In the middle of the shattered, otherworldly sea—somewhere beyond the layers of Anbord's reality—a figure slowly rose from the remnants of light.
Where two once floated, there now stood one.
She hovered above the silver-blue ocean like a goddess reborn. Her eyes opened slowly, revealing irises that shifted—red and blue, crimson and cerulean, pulsing between thought and instinct.
Her hair cascaded down in two colors—red like wildfire, blue like psychic flame. It shifted in the air like a living veil of silk.
No longer Tia.
No longer the unknown crimson girl.
She was both—and neither.
A being of mind and blood.
Memory and rebirth.
Her body bore the psychic sigils of the Mindscapes across one arm, while the faint outline of the Spirit Mark burned across her shoulder—a mark that tied her to Ethan… and the throne.
Her name had not yet been spoken.
But she opened her mouth now, testing her voice.
"E…than…"
It trembled out—lost, unsure.
The ocean rippled beneath her feet.
