The Silver Accord, signed three years after Miraen sealed the final rift, had promised unity among the Five Realms. The ink had barely dried before cracks began to form beneath its gilded surface.
Peace, as it turned out, was not the absence of war—it was the constant tending of a fragile, living thing.
And Miraen, now twenty-one, stood at its heart.
She walked through the marble corridors of the Ember Citadel, the center of interrealm diplomacy, with quiet authority. Courtiers, diplomats, and scholars bowed respectfully as she passed, their gazes tinged with admiration, curiosity, and sometimes wariness.
She had grown taller, her features refined with the elegance of starborn blood and the warmth of a mortal upbringing. Her hair, once pure black, now shimmered with threads of gold under the sun. She wore no crown—only a silver circlet bearing the Flame-Void sigil, the twin swirls of light and dark coiled into unity.
