Chapter 537 - Chapter 537 — The Last Queen’s Memory, Part 2

The ancient city trembled beneath a sky that had begun to lose its stars, yet the woman wearing the divided crown remained beside the throne as though she had known for centuries that this moment would come and had merely been waiting for someone to witness it. Elara stood before her, unable to look away from the face that seemed at once unfamiliar and painfully intimate, while the distant figure of Eryndor approached through the great hall with the measured stride of a man who had never needed to hurry because the world had always moved according to his wishes. There was no obvious hatred in the Queen's expression when she watched him approach, only a sorrowful affection that frightened Elara more than open hostility could have done, for it suggested that the disaster which had destroyed this ancient kingdom had begun with a bond neither person had ever intended to break.