Chapter 34- Queen of Bone

The bone chamber reeked of rot and scorched blood.

Cracked obsidian pillars leaned like broken teeth, holding up a ceiling streaked with magma veins that pulsed low and slow, no longer bright, no longer hot. The throne sat in the center like a festering wound in the stone, its jagged edges carved from the skulls of traitors and burnt out stars.

Veltherion slumped upon it, one leg dangling, black ichor leaking from the deep cracks in his skin.

The blow from the goddess had ruined him.

His flesh peeled at the edges like molten bark, his magic flickering like a dying candle. Every breath he took felt like a struggle between realms, and every moment he wasn't screaming was only because his rage had eclipsed his pain.

"You dare look at me like that," he rasped.

Lorelei, the bone seer, did not respond. Her gnarled fingers moved with delicate grace as she stirred the smoking bowl in front of her. Charred bones floated in the tar like liquid, and the whispers of the dead curled around her like fog.

"I should rip the tongue from your skull," Veltherion snarled. "Or better yet, make you eat it."

Still, Lorelei did not answer.

She merely hummed.

Veltherion snapped.

With a feral growl he launched from the throne, skeletal wings half formed and cracked with soot, and backhanded her with enough force to send her flying across the chamber. She slammed into a pillar, the stone crumbling around her as her body slumped to the floor.

Silence.

Then a cough.

Then a laugh.

Lorelei slowly sat up, brushing soot and blood from her robes with an exhale of amusement.

"You should save your strength, my king," she said softly, not looking at him. "You barely have enough magic left to piss in a straight line."

Veltherion snarled again, dragging himself back to the throne. He collapsed into it like it was the only thing keeping him alive.

Lorelei stood, unmoved, bones cracking as she reset her own shoulder with a wince.

"Pathetic," she muttered. "Brought low by a goddess with her tits out and a temper."

He flinched.

She smiled.

"The magma army is decimated," she said coldly, returning to her bowl. "Scorched by divine flame. The bone beasts are still regenerating. Your little blood hounds from the west fled after they saw the castle's wards flare. You've got whispers and shadows left, and not much else."

Veltherion's teeth ground together, molten sludge dribbling from the corner of his mouth. "I should send what I have. Attack during the trial. Break her while she's watching."

"No," Lorelei said, finally locking eyes with him.

That eerie, pale gaze.

That bone deep certainty.

"She's expecting it. The council will be ready. Her army's no longer divided. If you strike now, you'll lose the last pieces of leverage we have. The gods want her alive. For now. Let her believe she's safe. Let her grow comfortable."

"And then?"

Lorelei turned, walking away with slow deliberate steps.

"Then we burn it all."

Veltherion let her go.

He couldn't chase her. Not right now. Not when the bones in his spine still screamed, not when the divine mark scorched across his chest pulsed with warning.

He slumped further down the throne, claws curling into the armrest.

"Let her think she's won," he muttered.

His voice was hollow.

His wrath was not.

"Let her crown her little nobles. Let her build her dream. I'll be there to crush it. When she least expects it."

The magma pulsed once more.

Weak, but alive.

Waiting.

Watching.

Plotting.

Far below the throne room, where the screams of the damned echoed like lullabies and the stone bled ichor instead of dust, Lorelei moved through the dark with purpose.

She passed the locked door of the old pit, the one where failed experiments still moaned for release, and continued downward. Past the seared war chamber. Past the ribcage archways that quivered when she walked beneath them. Until finally, she reached a sealed door made from fused bone and shadow steel. Her private sanctum.

Only she could enter.

The moment the bone recognized her magic, the locks uncoiled like a serpent unraveling, hissing open.

Inside, the air was thick and cold. The temperature dropped ten degrees the second the door slammed shut behind her.

There were no torches here.

The walls glowed faintly with bioluminescent fungi, casting an eerie green light over the room's contents: ancient bones arranged in spirals, black candles burned down to wax puddles, scrolls written in languages long dead, and a pool of corrupted divinity swirling in the center of the floor, bone seer essence, raw and undiluted.

Lorelei dropped to her knees in front of the pool.

Her bruised face twisted into a smile.

Veltherion thought she was loyal.

Veltherion thought she was scared of him.

Veltherion was an idiot.

"I see it now," she whispered, eyes glowing silver white as the visions hit. "The crown. Not made of gold. Not of fire. But of spine. Of ash. Of the ones who bowed and then bled."

She tossed in a shard of her own rib. The pool hissed and flared, showing her glimpses, of kingdoms cracking, of Rhiannan's castle burning under moonlight, of a serpent with his face coiled around a throne of thorns.

Creatures began to appear from the edges of the room.

Things that should not exist.

Long forgotten horrors whispered into being by her magic. Crawling things with too many teeth. Winged beasts with bones outside their skin. A wolf that didn't cast a shadow. A child shaped demon that laughed in reverse.

They circled her.

Watched her.

Worshipped her.

"I gave that king my loyalty," she hissed, voice rising. "And he broke me. Used me. But I see now, the goddess chose her to bring light. That means there must be a counterweight."

She stood slowly, robes dragging in the blood slick runes at her feet.

"I am that weight."

She stretched her arms wide, her body pulsing with dark energy.

"I am the Queen of Bone. The Mother of Rot. And I will paint my kingdom in screams."

The monsters knelt.

The shadows bowed.

And somewhere above, Veltherion stirred in his throne and shivered, without knowing why.

Lorelei laughed, long and low.

She would wait.

And when both goddess and king tore each other apart, she would rise from the ashes.

Crowned in marrow. Drenched in ruin. Carved from vengeance.

She would die for it.

But only after she ruled.