"12 hours left…" by Duvencrune, Edgar O. Diary of the Long Night, 111th Edition

Shards of glass echoed through the cavern, a chorus of splintering hope. Somewhere in the heart of Maria-Se, in the grandest house the Fisherman District had ever known, someone was undoing what should have never been contained.

A jar shattered against the cold stone floor. Then another. Each impact sent a spray of stardust into the murky air, the luminescent essence writhing for a moment before dispersing into nothing. High above, unseen beyond the ceiling of rock and sea, another star flickered into the night sky, set free.

Doriana's fingers were trembling as they reached for another jar. Her swollen belly made each movement clumsy, but she did not stop. She could not stop.

Her tears burned trails down her cheeks, mixing with the fine dust of crushed glass. Her hands, raw and reddened from the sharp edges, bled in small, stinging cuts, but she barely felt the pain.

She lifted another jar, its pale glow flickering wildly inside—something ancient, something waiting. Her grip tightened, and with a strangled cry, she hurled it against the stone. The impact sent light scattering, a pulse of warmth vanishing into the dark.

Another Spirit freed. Another star returned to the sky.

She had been doing this for days.

"Mrs. Ann, you should perhaps—"

"Perhaps what, Gale?" Doriana was exhausted, and it showed in every syllable she cried out while another jar slipped from her fingers, crashing against the stone floor. Shards of glass scattered like stars across the ground, their sharp edges biting into her bare feet as she stepped forward.

Gale flinched at the sound, hooves shifting uneasily against the cave floor. His eyes showed concern as he watched her move, uncomfortable with her swollen belly and the tautness of grief. "What should I do, Gale?" She lifted another jar, its glow swirling wildly inside as if the spirit within could sense its impending freedom. "Tell me," She spat, her knuckles whitening as she hurled it against the wall—another shatter, another burst of light, another saat unbound.

"What am I supposed to do?" she whispered now, her arms falling limply to her sides.

Doriana collapsed onto the cold ground, her legs giving out beneath her as the last remnants of strength drained from her body. Her fingers curled into the sharp remains of shattered glass, but she barely noticed the sting, barely registering the warmth of her own blood mixing with the stardust.

A sob tore from her throat—raw, broken, endless. That was all she had been doing since she had found out. Since she knew she was carrying his child. Crying.

Her shoulders shook as she wrapped her arms around herself, cradling the weight of her belly. She missed him. She ached for him. The space he had left behind was unbearable.

The bag she had packed the night he abandoned her still sat in the corner of the cavern, untouched, the fabric gathering dust. She hadn't unpacked. She hadn't dared. As if some part of her still believed she would wake up and find him there, that it had all been a cruel dream.

But he wasn't here. And he never would be. Mediah left. She was lost. Abandoned. A ghost of the woman she had once been, surrounded by broken dreams, waiting for something—anything—to bring her back.

All she had left was a man who had bought her—a man whose touch made her skin crawl, whose scent turned her stomach, whose voice grated against her every nerve. She couldn't bear it.

She prayed—desperately, endlessly—that Muru would leave again, that another business trip would take him far away so she could breathe without feeling his shadow looming over her. But even if he left, it wouldn't change the truth.

She had nowhere to go.

The thought gnawed at her, night after night, carving itself into every restless moment. But then, another thought, a dangerous one, a tempting one, whispered at the edges of her mind. What if I just left?

What if she grabbed her bag—still packed, still waiting—slipped into the night and never looked back? What if she took her child, his child, and went to the Trial of Elements Camp?

To him. To Mediah.

She imagined it, over and over, the warmth of his arms, the way he would look and smile at her, how he would press his hand to her belly and whisper to the life growing inside her. In that dream, she wasn't trapped. She wasn't alone.

But dreams were just that—dreams.

And Doriana had never felt further from waking.

But all those words he had thrown at her, the cruel, cutting ones—maybe they were true. Maybe she was a fool.

The more she replayed that night, the more she unravelled. Every cruel syllable, every bitter declaration, it all gnawed at her, looping endlessly in her mind until she could no longer tell where the pain ended, and she began.

She pressed her hands against her belly as if holding herself together, as if keeping something from breaking completely. Her voice trembled through the sobs that wracked her body. "What is the point, Gale?"

"Mrs. Ann, maybe… maybe there's something outside you should see for yourself."

Gale's voice was soft and cautious, but beneath it, there was a quiet haste. He wasn't telling—he was coaxing, the way one might guide a lost lamb back to its flock.

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Doriana sniffed, dragging her sleeve across her face while Gale's eyes flickered toward the shelves, bare now. For a brief moment, his attention lingered on the last few remaining jars, searching, yearning. He still hadn't found her. His beloved sheep, the one he had lost—perhaps forever.

Doriana's sudden scream interrupted the goat's thoughts, her cry echoing off the cavern walls. Raw pain clawed through her, seizing her body in an unforgiving grip. Her hands shot to her belly, fingers curling as the first contraction rippled through her like a force of nature.

Outside, beyond the wreckage of broken jars and shattered hopes, a black direwolf paced restlessly at the entrance of the Fisherman District's grandest house. His massive paws pressed into the damp earth, his sleek fur bristling. Every few steps, he lifted his head toward the sky. Above him, the Sixth Moon ascended, its pale glow weaving between the newest stars—tiny, fragile lights blinking into existence against the endless abyss of the Long Night.

The Howling Night was waiting. Waiting for the moment when the sky would be whole again.

Zora moved lost through the corridors of Pollux. She let her steps be slow and aimless while the weight of her swollen belly pressed against her spine. She had imagined it would be painful, the way women spoke of childbirth like a dam waiting to break. But this?

This just felt like another inconvenience.

Her hands drifted absently over the curve of her stomach, feeling nothing, not even the gentle tension beneath her fingertips. It was tight, firm, ready—but not agonising, nothing at all.

Nothing.

Her body had become something distant, something mechanical again, moving forward because it must, not because she commanded it.

She walked dressed in a simple white linen tunic, her Magi robe draped over her shoulders like an afterthought. No cold under her feet. No warmth against her skin. No scent of the oil lamps flickering along the walls, no weight to the air she breathed. It was nothing.

The world around her felt detached. She might have been walking through a dream—untethered, uninvited. A presence that did not belong.

It reminded her too much of before. Before Orlo.

She had felt it all her life—that sensation of being an intruder, of existing just beyond the reach of reality. Even now, after moons of being here, the feeling had returned. She wondered if he was blindfolded to punish her, to eliminate his existence from hers.

She should go back to her quarters. She should rest. But something—some instinct crawling beneath her skin—kept her moving forward.

Zora couldn't feel anything besides the emptiness. She wanted to cry—to sob until her breath was gone and her body shouted down—but she wasn't even sure if she was sad enough for tears. She couldn't feel them anymore. Couldn't tell if they slid down her cheeks.

Yet, she was not yet ready to be defeated.

She had been waiting, watching, her mind calculating through every possible escape. If there was no pain, then maybe she still had time. Maybe she could slip away before Finnegan took everything from her. If her body refused to break beneath the weight of labour, then maybe—just maybe—she could still run.

But where?

Taking the baby into the Shadow World was reckless, dangerous, and possibly the stupidest thing she could do. She had barely made it through several times alone. It was unstable and unpredictable, and the idea of carrying a newborn through a landscape filled with Nightmares made her feel something close to fear.

So, where would she go?

Would she go back to Orlo?

The thought clawed at the edges of her mind. Would she dare face him after everything she had said? After all the words she had thrown like daggers, each one aimed to kill? Would he even look at her the same way?

No.

There was no going back, not after the choices she had made.

But would he understand? Could he?

He was meant to be free—to chase knowledge, to shape history with ink and paper, to be called Professor—not to be toyed with by the fleeting promise of a child that had filled him with so much happiness, only to have that joy ripped away, leaving him destroyed. And now, what? She would come back as if this were some cruel game of peekaboo. Pretend none of it happened?

All she knew was that for Orlo, the pregnancy was terminated, and there was no baby. No child. The questions circled: what was she supposed to do?

Resign herself to Pollux? To Finnegan's claim, to the sick game he had already begun to weave? Would she stay and watch as a madman—one who smiled too easily and held knives in his words—adopted her baby as his own?

Would her child be raised under his rule, shaped by his will, groomed to be something she couldn't protect them from? Would they call the Winterqueen mother? Would they sit at her table and wear the crown she had forged in ice and blood? A cage lined with velvet and chains disguised as silk.

What kind of mother would she be if she let that happen?

A voice—soft, almost unsure—broke through the silence.

"Magi? Captain Magi..."

She turned.

The elves of Sorgenstein were pale, but this one—this priestess—was beyond pale. She was almost translucent, her body wrapped in a robe so thin that Zora could see the faint colour of her nipples and more beneath the fabric. Her entire form was coated in the shimmering slick of the Green Mother's balm.

Zora blinked and automatically replied. "Yes?"

The elf took a hesitant step forward.

Her face was devoid of all pigment, drained of colour like a petal left too long in the frost. Her gaze—wide, searching—held something desperate.

"Are you… are you feeling alright?" The priestess's voice wavered as her hand lifted with a hesitant finger pointing toward Zora's face.

"What's wrong?"

The priestess didn't answer right away. Her gaze was wide, unblinking, as though she was afraid to say the words aloud. Zora turned slowly, her heart tightening as she faced the smooth marble wall beside her.

The reflection staring back at her made her breath catch.

Veins of light branched out beneath her skin, jagged and glowing like cracks in shattered glass. They stretched from her neck down to her arms, curling along her wrists and even spreading to her fingertips. The light pulsed faintly, as if alive, as if something inside her was struggling to escape.

Her skin wasn't just glowing—it was burned. Dark streaks of charred, cracked flesh marred her arms and chest as though a fire had licked at her skin and left her seared and broken.

She blinked, her mind struggling to process the sight. She should be in agony. Every inch of her body should be screaming with pain. But she felt… nothing. No burning, no ache, not even the faint sting of heat.

Zora reached up slowly, her fingers trembling as they brushed the edge of her jaw. The faintest crackle of heat sizzled beneath her touch, but there was no pain, no sensation at all.

She stared at her hands. They didn't look like hers anymore.

"What… is this?"

Suddenly, the priestess lifted her arm in a swift motion, signalling to two other priestesses approaching from the opposite end of the corridor. "Her water broke! Prepare the room! The Sun is on its way!"

Zora blinked. She followed the priestess's frantic gaze downward. The marble beneath her feet glistened with liquid, a pool spreading outward from where she stood. Her robe clung to her legs, damp with the evidence of what had just happened.

But she felt nothing.

No pang of labour, no discomfort, no ache curling through her body. Just the same unsettling emptiness that had taken root inside her since she first realised she was trapped here.

She reached down instinctively, pressing her hand against her belly. It was still there, round and heavy beneath her palm. And yet, something was happening. Something her body should have felt.

The two priestesses rushed toward her, their translucent robes fluttering behind them. One reached for Zora's arm, the other moving to guide her away.

"Come," one of them urged, "It's time."

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