Chapter Six: A Storm in Her Bones

Elira

The scream still echoed in her throat.

She clutched the sheets to her chest, breath hitching as the dream burned itself out in her mind. Not a nightmare—something worse. Truth, whispered in a stranger's voice, kissed onto her skin like a promise she didn't ask for.

The Hollow King had touched her. Spoken to her. Seen her.

And a part of her—traitorous and ancient—had answered back.

Elira slid from the bed, her bare feet cold against the obsidian floor of her chambers. Moonlight spilled through the high windows, casting pale light across the marble and her scattered clothes.

She needed air. Distance. Control.

And Kaelen was nowhere to be seen.

---

She found him in the war chamber, alone but not idle. Shadows moved with him, bending to his hand like smoke. A map of the realm hovered above the stone table, flickering with lines of light and red pulses—wards weakening, territory shifting.

He didn't look up when she entered. "You screamed again."

Elira folded her arms. "That's what you lead with?"

"I told you the Hollow King would come."

"He didn't come. He was already in."

That made him turn.

His eyes were sharper than they'd ever been—less silver, more steel.

"What did he say?"

"Nothing useful," she lied.

Kaelen stepped closer, but she held her ground.

"You're shaking," he said softly.

"Because I saw a god in my sleep and woke up to find my body still humming with power I don't understand."

"You will," he promised.

"Will I? Or will I be fed half-truths and pretty lies until I either snap or obey?"

The silence thickened between them.

"You think I'm lying to you?" he asked at last.

"I think you're telling me what you think I can handle," she replied. "And I'm not some glass doll, Kaelen. I don't want protection. I want the truth."

He exhaled slowly, as if weighing something ancient. "You think the Hollow King's truth is better?"

"No," she said. "But he's not hiding that it's ugly."

---

They trained at dawn.

Elira didn't ask for rest, and Kaelen didn't offer it. Blades clashed in the courtyard, spellfire arced through the air, and each blow between them was heavier than the last. Not just combat—conversation. Rage bled into their footwork. Passion curled behind every dodge. They weren't just fighting; they were trying to figure out who they were to each other.

"I felt something in the dream," Elira said as she struck.

Kaelen deflected her blade. "He's using your bloodline. Twisting the bond."

"No," she said, circling him. "It wasn't a trick. It was real. It felt real."

He lunged—fast, brutal. She parried, breathless.

"That's how he works," Kaelen growled. "He finds the fracture in you and calls it fate."

She hesitated.

He disarmed her in a flash and had her against the training post, his hand braced beside her head. Their faces inches apart. His breath hot. His eyes searching.

"You're not his," Kaelen whispered.

Her pulse stuttered. "Aren't I?"

He didn't kiss her. That would've been easier.

Instead, he stepped back like she'd burned him.

And walked away.

---

Later, Elira found herself in the forbidden wing.

The castle had many secrets—Kaelen's court more still—but this wing was spoken of only in warnings. A warded hallway of old magic and older memories, sealed off after the fall of the last moon-marked queen.

The one Kaelen had buried.

The one the Hollow King said he killed.

The doors at the end were ironwood, bound in silver. They opened for her when she raised her hand.

Inside, moonlight pooled in dust. Tapestries hung in decay. Books lined the shelves, untouched for decades. In the center: a mirror cracked top to bottom, and beside it, a circlet of obsidian and gold.

Her fingers brushed it before she could stop herself.

Visions slammed into her.

A girl with silver hair, screaming as chains bound her. Kaelen holding a blade soaked in shadow. The Hollow King, watching from a place just beyond time, whispering her name not with malice, but longing.

And her own face, twisted in rage, fire pouring from her palms.

Elira staggered back, breath ragged.

What am I?

---

That night, she didn't dream.

She remembered.

Flashes of lives before this one. Burnings. Drownings. Crowns placed on her brow just before the sword fell. Kaelen there in every life, sometimes lover, sometimes enemy.

And always the Hollow King, waiting at the edge of the end.

"You are the spark in every dark age," a voice said.

Not his.

Hers.

---

She woke before dawn, sweaty and cold, and went to the balcony.

Kaelen was there already.

She didn't speak. Neither did he. For a long moment, they just breathed the same sharp air. Then she said:

"I went to the forbidden wing."

His posture didn't change. "Of course you did."

"You killed her, didn't you? The last one."

"Yes."

The honesty stunned her.

"Why?"

"Because she chose the Hollow King," he said. "And she didn't come back from it."

Elira turned to him. "And if I do the same?"

Kaelen met her eyes.

"I'll still love you," he said quietly. "But I won't let you burn the world."

She blinked. "Love?"

The word hung there—raw, dangerous.

He stepped toward her. Hands curled at his sides like he wanted to touch her and didn't trust himself.

"I don't want to love you," Kaelen said. "I want to save you."

She stared at him.

Then walked away.

---

She found herself in the temple that night.

The old one, crumbling and half-swallowed by the cliffs beneath the castle. She didn't know why she came. Maybe to feel something bigger. Maybe to beg a goddess she didn't believe in.

But she wasn't alone.

He was there.

Not in flesh—but in shadow, in reflection.

The Hollow King stood across the ruined altar, crown gleaming like dusk.

"You shouldn't be here," she said.

He smiled.

"I'm not. You are."

She stiffened.

"I felt your rage today," he said. "Your confusion. Your hunger. You think that's weakness."

"It's dangerous."

"It's power. And it's yours."

He stepped closer. No sound, no breath.

"Kaelen would cut it from you. He fears what you could become."

"I fear it too."

"Then let me show you." His hand extended. "One memory. One truth. The rest is yours to decide."

She looked down at his hand.

Then she took it.

---

Fire.

Not real fire—memory-fire.

The kind that burns in the soul.

She stood in a battlefield of stars. Blood soaked the ground. Screams echoed from the heavens. She saw herself—older, crowned, magic unchained.

And she was winning.

Against gods. Against men. Against the very fate that wrote her death.

Beside her stood him. The Hollow King.

Not as master. Not as jailer.

As equal.

As king and queen.

She broke from the vision gasping, heart pounding.

"I… I was—"

"Everything," he said.

"You showed me a lie."

"I showed you a choice."

Elira turned, eyes burning.

"You want me to burn everything."

"I want you to burn what chains you. There's a difference."

She looked down at her hands.

They glowed.

She hadn't even noticed.

And she couldn't tell if it thrilled her or terrified her.

---

When she returned to the castle, Kaelen was waiting in her room.

He looked at her like he already knew.

"You felt him again," he said.

"Yes."

"You let him in."

"I did."

He exhaled. "Then it's beginning."

"What is?"

Kaelen walked to her, slow.

"When the world ends, Elira… it won't be because you were evil. It will be because you finally knew what you were worth."

Her breath caught.

"And what's that?"

His hand cupped her cheek.

"Everything."

And then he kissed her.

But this time, she didn't kiss him back.

Not because she didn't want to.

Because she didn't know if she was his anymore.