Story 768: Beneath the Widow’s Veil

The streets of Ebongrave belonged to the dead.

Captain Aldric Vayne did not.

His heartbeat thrummed like war drums in his chest as he bolted through the ruined alleys, his boots slamming against broken stone. The laughter of the dead followed him—a chorus of twisted, gurgling voices that slithered into his ears.

Selene was toying with him.

He had seen the look in her eyes—the amusement, the cruelty, the promise of something far worse than death. She didn’t want him dead yet.

She wanted him to run.

Aldric grit his teeth, forcing himself forward. His men were gone, their bodies left to fuel her unholy resurrection of the fallen. He was the last of the resistance in Ebongrave, the final ember in a fire already drowned in blood.

And still, he refused to let it die.

Selene stood atop the remains of a shattered cathedral, the wind teasing at the edges of her tattered black veil. A queen of ruin, a goddess of decay.