The Throne Beneath

The gate closed behind her with the finality of a coffin lid.

Stone ground against stone, sealing Eleanor in darkness. There was no echo. No wind. No sound at all. Only the quiet thrum of her heartbeat—and even that felt borrowed. The air was heavy, thick with the scent of earth and something older… something sleeping.

The blade at her side quivered.

She wasn't alone.

She never had been.

Each step forward felt like sinking deeper into a dream. The corridor ahead stretched endlessly, carved from obsidian that shimmered with buried starlight. Strange runes pulsed faintly on the walls, breathing with her. Or against her.

Then, the voice came.

Not spoken. Not heard.

Felt.

Why do you come?

Eleanor stopped.

The air vibrated with the question. Her throat tightened as if answering would cost her breath itself.

"I want to end it," she whispered.

End what?

"The curse. The hunger. You."

Silence.

Then laughter—low, sorrowful, and terrifying in its gentleness.

You know nothing of endings, child. You carry beginnings.

The corridor widened into a cavern. A hall. A tomb.

At its center stood a pool of still water, perfectly circular, surrounded by a ring of skeletal statues cloaked in robes. Their faces had been worn smooth, as if time itself had been commanded to forget them.

But above the pool hovered a crown.

Black thorns. Blood still clung to the tips.

It pulsed.

And with it, Eleanor's vision blurred.

She was in a throne room made of flesh and bone.

Atop a dais carved from ribs and ash sat Aeryth, the Queen of Blood.

But she was broken.

Her crown was shattered. Her eyes dim. Her mouth stitched shut by golden thread. She raised her head slowly, as if burdened by the weight of eternity.

Eleanor felt herself drift forward.

"I'm not you," she said.

Aeryth did not move.

"I've seen your past. Your pain. What they did to you."

Still no answer.

"But pain doesn't justify what you became."

At that, the golden thread writhed and snapped.

Aeryth spoke.

Then what does, heir of mine? What justifies you?

Eleanor froze.

"I'm not your heir."

Yet here you are, blade in hand, blood awakened, truth revealed. What are you if not me, reborn?

Eleanor took a trembling breath. "I'm here to finish this. To put you to rest."

Aeryth rose.

She stood tall, regal, unbroken. Her voice was thunder wrapped in silk.

Then step forward. And bear witness to what rest truly means.

Eleanor blinked.

The cavern returned.

The pool now rippled with light. Aeryth's reflection stared back—not aged, not monstrous, but young. The Queen as she was, long before the curse.

A girl in love. A woman betrayed.

The reflection began to speak.

"They called me Queen. Witch. Monster."

"But before that, I was a daughter."

Visions burst across the cavern walls like fire:

Aeryth as a child, curled in her mother's arms, stars dancing above them.

A young man—Callian—offering her a rose, hands trembling with affection.

Their wedding. Quiet. Sacred. Doomed.

"Callian was my joy. My heart. But the gods feared our union."

"He was of divine blood. I was born beneath an eclipse. Together, we broke fate."

Eleanor watched, unable to speak.

"The gods sent dreams. Planted doubt. Whispers."

"He turned. Not out of malice. Out of fear."

"He opened the gates."

"And watched me burn."

Aeryth's image darkened.

Ash fell from the ceiling like snow.

"So I did what gods feared most."

"I lived."

Eleanor stepped back.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

Don't be. They made me what I am. But you must choose what you'll be.

The blade trembled in her hand.

"I don't want to rule."

Then let it die. Destroy the blade. Break the blood. Burn the throne.

Eleanor hesitated.

"What happens if I do?"

The hunger ends. The Queen fades. You return to the dirt with no legacy.

"And if I don't?"

You take the crown. Become what I could not. Rule without ruin.

The silence returned.

Then Aeryth said one final thing.

But know this: power is not evil. It is only lonely.

The pool began to glow.

And from its center rose the Throne Beneath.

It wasn't made of bone or metal—but of memory. Ghostly and ethereal. Woven from all the Queen had lost.

Callian's smile.

Her mother's lullabies.

The sound of rain on stone.

The throne waited.

Ashryn appeared behind her, drawn into the chamber by the same pull.

He looked at her, eyes heavy.

"It's time," he said.

Eleanor stepped forward.

The blade at her side pulsed.

And she did what neither the gods, nor men, nor monsters had dared.

She laid it at the throne's feet.

"No crown," she said.

"No Queen."

And the throne shattered.

The cavern erupted in light.

A scream tore through the air—not of rage, but of release.

The statues cracked.

The pool vanished.

And Aeryth—her final echo—smiled.

Thank you.

She faded.

And the cavern crumbled.

Ashryn took her hand.

Together, they ran as the resting place of the Queen collapsed into itself, swallowed by time and silence.

When they emerged into moonlight, the blade was gone.

The curse, gone.

The hunger, gone.

But something remained.

In Eleanor's chest, a spark.

Not power.

Possibility.

Back in the highlands, a child awoke from a nightmare.

She whispered a name she did not know.

And far beneath the earth, where light had never touched, the faint pulse of blood echoed once more.

Because endings, after all… are only beginnings dressed in shadow.