The Crown That Bled

Selene

The crown didn't appear with gold or jewels.

It formed from memory.

As she stepped out of the Echo Keepers' sanctum, the air shimmered with energy. Her armor restructured itself—sleek, blackened by starlight, marked with runes that pulsed like veins.

And floating just above her brow: a halo of blades, silent and circling.

Not a crown to rule.

A crown to wound.

Kael watched her in awe. "What did they do to you?"

"They didn't do anything," Selene said softly. "They just reminded me what I am."

She stepped forward, the ground beneath her cracking.

"I was never just a queen. I was a weapon built from loss."

The Queen

She felt it the moment it happened.

The mirror in her chamber shattered, spraying blood instead of glass.

The court silenced as their Queen gripped the throne's arms, her knuckles white.

"She's reforged," the Queen whispered.

One of the war-priests dared to speak. "Shall I summon the Saint?"

The Queen didn't answer right away.

Instead, she turned to the crumbling wall of ancestors behind her—portraits of kings and queens she had devoured for their knowledge.

"I once feared her compassion," the Queen said.

"But now… I fear her clarity."

She smiled coldly.

"Let her come. I have one gift left to give her."

Kael

As they rode north, Kael studied her.

She wasn't Selene anymore—not entirely.

She carried herself with the calm terror of someone who'd held a dying god in her arms. She no longer hesitated before casting bloodlight or summoning the bones of long-dead kings.

But she still looked at him like Selene.

That was what scared him.

"You remember everything now," he said.

"I do."

"So… who was I?"

She turned her head slowly.

"You were the man who tried to stop me… and then chose to stand beside me."

Kael swallowed. "And how did that end?"

She looked away.

"I killed you."

The Saint Stirs

In the catacombs beneath the Hollow Throne, the Bound Saint stirred from her cage of molten chains. Her skin was burned gold. Her voice was a whisper of ten thousand prayers.

"I feel her," she murmured.

"She comes wearing all her names."

The Queen descended the stairs slowly.

"You will greet her as commanded."

The Saint smiled.

"I will greet her as sister."

The Queen paused. "Say that again?"

But the Saint only laughed.

And every candle in the catacombs blew out.

Selene

That night, beneath twin moons, Selene stood at a cliff overlooking the Dead Sea—the place where Valeria first made the gods bleed.

She whispered a name into the wind.

A god's name.

Not to beg.

Not to pray.

But to warn.

Then she turned to Kael.

"When we reach the Hollow Throne, you don't follow me inside."

Kael stepped forward. "You can't face her alone."

"I won't," Selene said. "Not this time."

She raised her hand—and from the shadows emerged her court.

Specters. Warriors. Souls bound to her in the first war.

And they knelt.

"My Queen," they said.

Selene closed her eyes.

The war had begun.