The road beyond Velmont did not welcome her.
It slithered like a serpent through the forest, coiling tighter with each step Eleanor took. Trees leaned in as if to listen to her breath, and the mist that had once caressed her ankles now clung to her body like damp silk. Every branch groaned with unseen weight. Every crow that called from above sounded like it knew her name.
She walked in silence. The blade—her cursed companion—hung at her side. Though the Queen was gone, Eleanor could still feel a pulse through the hilt, like it remembered what it once was. What it still might be.
Ashryn was gone.
Velmont was gone.
She was alone.
And yet, as she moved deeper into the woods, she realized she wasn't.
Long ago, before the blade was forged, before Eleanor's bloodline had begun, there was Aeryth.
The woman who would become the Queen was born beneath an eclipse in the highlands of Ysmeria—a realm long since swallowed by the earth. The villagers had knelt in awe and fear when she cried, for her wails turned the milk sour and silenced birds for miles. Her mother died in childbirth. Her father went mad before her fifth birthday. And by the time she was ten, three elders had tried to drown her.
None succeeded.
She grew in isolation, her only companions the whispers in the wind and the hollow eyes of the wolves that followed her. But she read—gods, how she read. Ancient scrolls bound in bark and blood. Tomes passed hand to hand like disease. She drank language like wine and mastered spells that had not been spoken in a thousand years.
At sixteen, she walked into the king's hall alone.
By seventeen, she ruled.
Not by sword, but by voice. One word from her, and men fell to their knees. Another, and their blood boiled. She wore no crown, only a circlet of black thorns. And her people loved her, not because they were free—but because they were safe.
Under her reign, plague fled, crops flourished, and storms bowed around her kingdom.
But nothing lasts forever.
Jealous kings. Whispering clerics. Greedy gods.
They came for her together—mortals and immortals alike. They burned her city to the ground and buried her beneath obsidian stone.
They thought she was dead.
They were wrong.
Eleanor pressed onward, the memory fading like fog in sunlight.
She didn't know how she'd seen that glimpse of the Queen's past—whether it was the blade, or the blood in her veins—but it had felt real. As if a door had been opened.
The forest gave way to a clearing.
In its center stood a monolith—twenty feet high, shaped like a fang, black and smooth. Around its base were bodies. Dried husks. Some recent, some ancient. All pointing inward.
Eleanor stepped closer.
The monolith whispered.
Not in words. In feelings. Regret. Hunger. Triumph. Love twisted into obsession.
She touched it.
And the world fell away.
Aeryth, the Queen, stood atop a mountain of skulls.
Her gown was torn. Her hands were covered in blood. The crown she wore now pulsed with life, a parasite of gold and screaming mouths.
Around her, the world was ash.
This was the day she lost everything.
Her lover—Callian—lay broken beneath her feet. The man who had sworn eternal devotion. The man who had kissed her eyes and traced eternity into her skin.
He had been the final betrayal.
He had opened the gates. Let them in.
He had taken her heart, and with it, her humanity.
She had torn him apart slowly. Lovingly.
Then, she had wept.
For centuries.
Eleanor pulled her hand back from the monolith.
The blade pulsed once.
The trees whispered, "She remembers."
Eleanor looked up.
A path had opened—carved through the mist, lined with stones etched in runes she now understood. They called to her.
She followed.
The path led to ruins.
A city swallowed by time, half-buried in ivy and silence. Towers broken like snapped ribs. Statues with faces worn smooth. And in the center, a throne of stone, cracked but upright.
She knew the name of this place: Ysmeria.
It had returned.
Not physically, but through her presence. The Queen's blood reawakened what the world had tried to forget.
And there, upon the throne, sat a girl.
No older than seventeen. Pale skin. Black hair. Eyes like night.
Eleanor's breath caught.
It was her.
Not the Queen. Not Aeryth.
Herself.
The girl looked up.
"I am what you were," she said.
From the shadows emerged another figure—older, regal, cloaked in mourning. Eyes filled with pain.
"I am what you became," she whispered.
Then a third emerged—Eleanor as she was now.
"I am what you are."
They stood in a triangle.
"You have to choose," the younger said.
"To remember," the elder said.
"To become," the present said.
Eleanor staggered back.
"I didn't ask for this."
"You were born for it."
"I won't become her!"
The throne shattered.
And the world screamed.
When Eleanor awoke, it was night.
The ruins were gone.
She was in a field, surrounded by fireflies and silence. Her blade lay across her lap. Her hands were bloodstained.
But not her blood.
A figure moved in the dark.
Ashryn.
He looked older now. Wearier.
"You saw it," he said.
"Ysmeria."
"The truth."
Eleanor looked at her palms. "She was betrayed."
"She was loved," Ashryn corrected. "And love destroyed her."
"She's not just a monster," Eleanor whispered. "She's pain given form."
Ashryn nodded. "And that's what makes her dangerous."
Eleanor looked at him. "Why are you helping me?"
He hesitated.
"Because I helped destroy her."
Eleanor stood. "Then help me finish what you started."
Ashryn gestured toward the mountains. "There is one more place. The place where her heart still beats. You must go there."
"And if I do?"
"You'll face what she became. And if you survive…"
"I can break the curse."
"Or claim the throne."
Eleanor turned toward the path.
The moon hung red and full above her.
The blade whispered her name.
Aeryth stood at the altar of endings.
Alone.
The gods had abandoned her. The stars had turned their backs.
She took her crown and broke it.
She took her name and buried it.
She slit her palm and wrote one final command in her blood:
Let the heir decide.
Then she went to sleep beneath the earth.
Waiting.
Not for revenge.
For redemption.
Eleanor approached the final gate.
It pulsed with ancient magic—built from bone and sorrow.
Ashryn stood behind her.
"Once you enter, there's no turning back."
She gripped the blade. "I wasn't planning to."
"You might not like what you find."
She looked back at him.
"Neither will she."
The gate opened.
And Eleanor stepped through.