The weight of Seraphina's refusal hung heavy in the silent chamber. Despair flickered in Lucian's eyes, quickly replaced by a simmering frustration. "Then what was the point of all this?" he growled, his hand instinctively moving towards the hilt of his unseen sword. "We braved the depths, faced her trials… for nothing?"
Finley placed a calming hand on Lucian's arm. "Hold, Lucian. Force will avail us nothing against a being of her power. We are in her domain, at her mercy. There must be another way."
He looked thoughtfully at Seraphina, her sorrowful gaze fixed on some distant point. "Perhaps… perhaps we approached this incorrectly. We asked for a boon, but we know so little of the one we ask it from."
Turning to Seraphina, Finley spoke with a gentle curiosity. "Your Majesty, you spoke of the land you left behind. From which kingdom did you hail before you embraced the tides?"
Seraphina's gaze slowly returned to them, a flicker of surprise in her deep ocean eyes. The question seemed unexpected, a shift in the tenor of their desperate plea. A soft sigh escaped her lips. "It was a kingdom… long since swallowed by the shifting sands of time. A place of rolling hills and ancient forests, where the rivers ran swift and clear. It was called… Eldoria."
A wistful expression crossed her face, a fleeting glimpse of the human woman she once was. "I remember the scent of the pine forests after a spring rain… the warmth of the sun on my skin… the sound of laughter echoing through the stone halls of my home."
The sorrow in her voice deepened. "But that world… it is gone. Lost to the relentless march of ages. Just as the love I shared with Lysander is now a memory, a whisper in the currents of time."
Finley listened intently, his mind already piecing together fragments of ancient lore. "Eldoria… the chronicles speak of it. A kingdom renowned for its connection to the earth magic, its powerful guardians of the forests…" He paused, a thought dawning in his eyes. "The sirens of Eldoria… their magic was said to be particularly potent, tied to the very lifeblood of the land."
Lucian, though still simmering with frustration, recognized the shift in Finley's approach. Perhaps softening the Queen's heart, understanding her past, could indeed be a more advantageous path than brute force.
Seraphina's gaze sharpened, a hint of intrigue replacing some of the sorrow. "You know of Eldoria?"
Finley nodded. "The legends are fragmented, but they speak of its fall… and of its powerful sirens. The magic that cursed Lucian… could it have originated from that lineage?"
The air in the Lumina Maris Temple crackled with a new tension, a shift from desperation to the potential for a shared history, a common thread that might yet sway the sea goddess.
Seraphina's brow furrowed in confusion at Finley's mention of Eldoria's fall. "Swallowed by the sands of time?" she echoed, her voice laced with disbelief. "That cannot be. Eldoria was a kingdom of stone and ancient roots, its power woven into the very fabric of the land."
Lucian, equally perplexed by her reaction, stepped forward. "Your Majesty, with all due respect, the histories we know speak of a different land in that region now. A kingdom called Regulus Veridia Nova. Eldoria… it vanished centuries ago. The maps, the chronicles… they all point to a new era."
Finley nodded, his scholarly mind trying to reconcile the ancient lore with the present reality. "The fall of Eldoria is a tragic tale, Queen Seraphina. Some say it was a cataclysm, others whisper of a slow decline. But its memory remains only in fragmented texts and ruins long since overgrown."
A look of profound shock and disbelief washed over Seraphina's face. The shimmering orb in her hand flickered violently. "Gone? My home… the land of my birth… vanished?" Her voice was barely a whisper, filled with a raw pain that eclipsed even the sorrow she had expressed for Lysander.
"But… the forests… the rivers… my family…" Her eyes, wide with anguish, darted between Lucian and Finley, as if seeking confirmation that their words were not some cruel jest. "How? What could have caused such a devastation?"
The revelation of Eldoria's demise seemed to strike a far deeper chord within Seraphina than their pleas for the cure or the mention of Lysander. The loss of her homeland, a place she still remembered vividly, was a fresh wound, a profound severing from her past.
The atmosphere in the Lumina Maris Temple shifted dramatically. The focus on Lucian's curse and Seraphina's lost love was momentarily overshadowed by this devastating news. The sea goddess, a being of immense power and ancient sorrow, now grappled with the unimaginable loss of her origins.Finley, sensing the shift in Seraphina's emotional state and recalling fragmented historical accounts, carefully offered another piece of information. "Your Majesty," he began, his voice gentle, "the histories of Regulus Veridia Nova do mention a connection to the ancient bloodlines of Eldoria. Centuries ago, the first King of unified Regulus, Alaric the Great, is said to have married a woman of significant power, a princess whose lineage traced back to the Kingdom of Eldoria. Some accounts even suggest she was your sister, though time has blurred the details."
Seraphina gasped, her hand flying to her chest. "My sister…? Aeredith?" A flicker of a long-forgotten memory seemed to dance in her eyes. "She… she survived?"
Lucian added, "And the lineage continues, Your Majesty. King Theron is the thirteenth ruler to sit on the throne of Regulus Veridia Nova, a direct descendant of King Alaric and, if the histories are true, your sister's line."
A complex tapestry of emotions washed over Seraphina's face – shock, a fragile hope, and a profound sense of displacement. The idea that a part of her bloodline had endured, had shaped the very kingdom that now stood where her beloved Eldoria once thrived, seemed to shake her to her core.
"Thirteen kings…" she murmured, her gaze distant. "Centuries… so much has changed. The world I knew… my sister… her descendants rule in its place?"
The weight of her isolation seemed to lift slightly, replaced by a flicker of connection to the present. The sorrow for Eldoria remained, but now it was intertwined with the unexpected knowledge of a surviving lineage, a living link to her lost past.
"Your Majesty," Finley pressed gently, sensing an opening. "Lucian's curse… it is a shadow that darkens the present of Regulus Veridia Nova. If your sister's descendants rule there, and if the magic that afflicts him has roots in the ancient power of Eldoria… perhaps the healing lies not just in the sorrow of the deep, but in the land of your kin."
He gestured towards the Tears of the Azure in her hand. "Even a temporary easing of his suffering, granted by your magic, could give him the strength to seek answers, to perhaps even uncover forgotten lore within Regulus Veridia Nova that could lead to a permanent cure, a healing that honors the legacy of both Eldoria and your sister's line."
Seraphina looked at the shimmering Tears, then at Lucian, then back towards some unseen horizon. The weight of centuries, the grief of lost love and homeland, and the unexpected thread of surviving family seemed to war within her. The possibility of a connection to the present, a way to indirectly influence the fate of her sister's descendants, appeared to be a powerful new consideration..