The sound of metal clanging against stone echoed through the empty temple, a distinctive cadence that might have been mistaken for a clock ticking. Slow, steady, each scrapping counting down, marking the last moments of something inevitable.

Zora didn't move. She didn't want to. She tried to slip into sleep, let the weight of her broken body sink into the cold embrace of oblivion. If she closed her eyes and let go, maybe she wouldn't wake up again. Maybe that would be mercy.

But the sound grew louder, closer.

It wasn't a clock. It wasn't time itself winding down. It was footsteps. The unmistakable tap of a cane meeting stone. It stopped. Then, a voice—low, careful, hesitant. "Zora?"—Of course it was him, Orlo.

She didn't reply. Didn't move. Didn't breathe any louder than necessary.

She didn't want pity. Didn't want the soft edge of someone's voice breaking against the wreckage of her leftover body, didn't want hands reaching for her, trying to piece together what couldn't be fixed.

She just wanted to be left alone. Die alone so she could slip away and drift into the quiet where the ones who had already left were waiting.

But then—fear.

Would she find Orlo there? Would he die with her, but far away from her?

The thought curled inside her like cold fingers wrapping around her ribs. What about Shuri? Would she welcome her after death and finally take revenge upon her?

And then, the voice again—"Little Spider… can you hear me?"

Her eyes fluttered open, then shut again as if even the effort of waking was too much. The world was a haze of too many vivid colours and blurred edges, her vision swimming in and out of focus.

Slowly, shapes began to take form.

A figure sat beside her, clad in a brown suit that looked slightly wrinkled, like it had been worn for days without rest. The silver cane in his grip gleamed faintly like an old trinket. Its surface marked with the unmistakable engraving—one-one-one.

Zora's gaze trailed past the cane, past the hand wrapped around its handle, until she reached his face.

Red hair. An eyepatch. But something was wrong. Her brows knit together in confusion. The patch was on the wrong eye.

"…Orlo?"

The name trembled from her lips, uncertain, like she was afraid that saying it aloud might make him disappear. She barely had the strength to speak, let alone understand what she was seeing.

His hand moved gently, brushing away a stray strand of hair that clung to her damp forehead. She couldn't feel the touch. Was it warm? Maybe too warm against her cooling skin.

"I'm here," he murmured, soothing. "Everything will be okay."

Zora let out a breath that barely counted as a laugh, something bitter, something broken. "I'm dying," she whispered. "I'm so sorry. I tried to keep you all safe, but... I failed."

Orlo—if this was really Orlo—huffed softly, shaking his head. "Don't be silly," he said, his tone almost teasing, almost mocking. "I'm alive and well."

She blinked at him, her breath shallow. His suit, the way he sat so still, the faint smirk at the corner of his lips—none of it made sense. He looked like Orlo, he felt like Orlo, but something was different.

Her cracked lips barely moved as she forced out the words, "So you came to die with me?"

The man lowered himself until his face was level with hers, and in that instant, she knew. He didn't need to say a word. It was Orlo—but not her Orlo.

There was something in the way he held himself, in the way he carried time like a weight upon his shoulders, his presence shaped by winters—no, centuries—of knowing. His expression was calm, almost serene, but his ember eye burned with something ancient, something too wise to belong to the Orlo she knew.

And the eye—

It was in the right place.

Where Orlo had once lost his eye, where an empty socket should have been hidden beneath an eye patch, this one held something else. Something that watched her too intently, too knowingly.

Unless…

Unless the eye patch covered his real eye.

"I am not dead, Little Spider. Neither are you."

Zora swallowed, her throat raw, her body refusing to move the way she wanted it to. "Orlo," she whispered, barely able to form his name. "I can't hold on much longer."

He smiled—no, smirked—that familiar, knowing tilt of his lips that once teased her. "There is so much you don't know about yourself," he murmured. "You could walk into the breath of a dragon, and it wouldn't be able to touch you."

His fingers traced idly over the silver head of his cane, the one one one engraved into its surface, glinting under the dim light.

"I have wondered for so long why the hex would choose you," he continued, his ember eye gleaming with something unreadable—something both reverent and resigned. "And the answer was so simple."

He leaned in. "Who better to have our little Sunbeam than you? You were made for her. Not for me but for her."

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"They took her from me... they took her..."

"Everything is fine, you'll see." His voice was calm, careful. Too careful. "I know you won't ever take your eyes off her. I know she will grow as beautiful as her mother. I know..."

Zora's breath hitched. "You could fetch her… take her with you, right? She would be safe with you! I don't trust him…"

There was a desperation to the words, something close to hope clawing at her throat, forcing them out before doubt could steal them away.

"Zora, I can't."

"Why not?"

Orlo sighed, his smirk fading into something softer. "Because right now, I'm in Regulus." His voice was quieter now, almost distant. "Right now, I am angry… I'm mad."

His ember eye burned a little brighter, a flicker of something dangerous lurking beneath the surface. "And…" His fingers curled tighter around the cane, his jaw tightening for just a moment before his lips parted again, his next words spoken like a confession he wasn't ready to understand.

"I have this new… gift. I couldn't understand it."

His gaze lifted to hers, and for the first time, she felt it—the weight of something unspoken, something unravelled within him. Something restless. Something that had awoken. "I... at this time, I don't understand. The more I see, the blinder I am."

Zora's fingers trembled as she reached out, her hand hovering just over his face, drawn to the eye patch like a moth to an open flame. If she could just—just—rip it away, maybe she'd find him underneath. Maybe she'd see the man she had lost. She wanted her Hexe back.

She moved to pull it away. But his hand caught her wrist before she could.

His grip was firm, steady—but not cruel. His fingers pressed into her skin, an unspoken warning, a plea without words.

"Don't do that."

"Why?"

"If you do… I won't be able to leave you."

"I can't feel you. I can't feel anything!"

Orlo's lips twitched, just barely, like he had expected this. "Me neither."

Zora exhaled shakily, her fingers curling inward, retreating from his grip, pulling away like she had touched something that no longer belonged to her. "Do you hate me?"

Orlo swallowed hard, his throat bobbing as if the weight of her words had lodged there, refusing to be ignored. His lips attempt a smile—something softer, something to ease the crack in her voice. But it didn't quite reach his eyes.

"I don't think I ever hated you," he admitted—but carrying something else underneath. Something bitter. "I was just very, very angry. And I will be angry for a very, very long time. I wish... I wish I were someone better."

He shifted slightly, adjusting the grip on his silver cane as if grounding himself in the present. His smile didn't waver, but it felt more like a choice than an expression.

"I have blindfolded myself for centuries," he continued, "so you may live, conquer everything, love and be happy. I need you to be happy. So, so much."

His fingers brushed against her cheek. "And I guarantee you—" he let out a breath, something between a sigh and a laugh, "—you will fall in love with many, many girls."

Her heart clenched.

"I want you to do things that make you happy," he murmured, "truly happy. For me?"

His voice softened at the edges, but there was something final in it, something that told her that he—the man sitting before her, the one who had walked through time itself—would not be beside her when she found that happiness.

"You make me happy. And our baby… I…"

She forced herself to hold his gaze, searching for something—anything—that would tell her this was still her Orlo, the man she loved, here Hexe, the man she lost.

"I wouldn't know how to make you happy, Zora," he admitted, his voice quieter now, almost fragile. "Wherever I am right now… I don't know she exists."

The words struck her like a blow.

She opened her mouth, but the words refused to form. Her fingers twitched as if reaching for him, but she hesitated. "I don't understand."

It was all she could say.

"I love you and her more than anything in the whole universe. It doesn't matter where and when. I love you more than you can even imagine. I would give anything to wake up by your side with her in my arms. I don't care if she would be screaming her lungs out with smelly nappies. It is what my saat most desires."

Zora's breath hitched. He sounded so much like her Orlo—her Orlo.

"And I am doing everything I can for our happy ending. Please, believe me, I am."

For the first time, his composure cracked. It was subtle—a faint tremor in his exhale, a hesitation in his voice. "But this timeline already happened. And... we didn't get a real chance. But I'm working on it. I need to know what happened. What was the trigger of all this chaos? I need to know where Xendrix found the power to bend reality at his will. I need to—"

His words faltered, his fingers tightening around his cane. "I need to fix this."

He met her gaze again, and Zora saw it—the sheer, boundless desperation of a man who had spent lifetimes trying to rewrite fate. How powerful was Orlo truly?

"Who is Xendrix?" Zora asked, exhausted. The name felt like a whisper from a dream, something half-remembered, something lurking just beyond reach.

Orlo—this Orlo—stiffened, his grip tightening around his cane, the silver glint of one-one-one catching the daylight. "No one."

The words came too quickly, too sharp, cutting off any further questioning. "He is no one."

There was something bitter in his tone, something that curled around his tongue like he had swallowed something rotten but refused to spit it out. Zora watched as his expression darkened.

"It's not your battle," Orlo muttered, but it wasn't reassurance. It was avoidance.

Zora stared at him, her body still too weak to move, refusing to die. "When will you stop being mad at me?"

Orlo inhaled sharply through his nose, the ember glow of his eye dimming for just a moment. He tilted his head slightly, considering the question. Then, his lips quirked—not quite a smile, not quite sorrow. "Probably when you start being mad at me."

Zora blinked, confusion knitting her brows together. What did that mean? Then, finally—"What did you do?"

"I wrote some books," he finally answered, as if that explained everything.

"I don't like to read."

"I know," he murmured. "But she does."

Before she could ask—before she could even think—he leaned in, his lips brushing against hers.

It should have been warm. It should have been real. A kiss like the first light of morning, slipping through the cracks of the temple, chasing away the darkness. It should have been him.

But it wasn't. There was nothing. No heat, no pressure, no trace of the man who had just been there, holding her hand, whispering secrets of time and regret.

Zora's breath caught, her pulse hammering in sudden, panicked realization. Her eyes snapped open. She was alone.

The temple stood silent around her.

She sat up, her body moving without hesitation, without pain. She looked down at her hands—immaculate. No burns, no wounds, no traces of light. Her skin was untouched, whole as if nothing had ever happened.

But something had happened. She knew it.

Her gaze flickered beyond the temple's broken archways to the world beyond. The sky stretched wide and endless, bathed in hues she had never seen in her whole life.

The bruised shades of the Long Night were finally gone.

Now that the Long Night has ended—on the first day, of the first moon, of the first Summer—it is finally time to tell the story of the Sun that now burns freely over land, sea, and sky.

Eura Zonnestra Mageschstea Berdorf.

Or, as those closest to her once called her, Sunbeam.

Truth be told, I never imagined I would be the one to write this book, to trace the arc of a life so radiant it carved its way into the pages of history. How a child, curious and stubborn, grew into a thoughtful noble youth, and then rose into one of the most extraordinary women ever known.

And yet—here I sit, staring down at a tattered notebook. Its edges are frayed, its corners ink-stained, its pages filled with half-formed thoughts, small sketches, and the restless scribbles of someone who couldn't bear to set their quill down. Scrawled across the front in faded, uneven lettering is the title:

"The Wingless Princess."

And so it begins.

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