The tree had bloomed.
The First Throne had been reborn—not as an empire, but as a wound healed, as something ancient remembered rather than something newly forged.
But nothing awoke alone.
Across the fractured lands and forgotten seas, the reverberations of the Queen's return sent cracks through realms that had not spoken her name in centuries. The old world, still clinging to its rusted order, stirred from sleep—and it did not stir gently.
I. The Palace of Bone – Kingdom of Halveth
Wind howled over the Dagger Spires, where Halveth had built its capital upon the ribs of a dead giant.
Within its bone-white walls, High Lord Caedor, Regent of the South and Warden of Chains, stood at the edge of his throne room as a raven's cry echoed off obsidian columns.
The message it carried was written not in ink, but in bloodroot.
He read it in silence. No furrow of brow. No hiss of surprise.
Just one word:
"She."
Behind him, his advisor—a robed figure with no face beneath the hood—hissed in displeasure.
"She is supposed to be a myth. A warning. Like fire beneath the skin. Like old songs sung in graves."
"She is neither," Caedor replied. "She is alive."
He turned to face the chamber of his court. Every noble there—pale, glass-eyed, silent—waited without breathing.
"The Forgotten Queen has returned."
Murmurs rippled. Some laughed. Others trembled. The old blood knew what the name meant.
One bold lord stepped forward. "Shall we send an envoy?"
Caedor's eyes narrowed like a blade being drawn. "No. We send the Ash Riders."
II. The Prophet of the Drowned Temple
Far across the western sea, the ocean boiled near the coast of the Drowned Temple.
Waves rose unnaturally—not in rage, but in reverence.
On the broken shores, a man with salt-white eyes stood in waist-deep water, whispering to the waves.
He was known only as The Prophet, though once his name had brought cities to their knees.
"The tree has risen," he crooned. "The wound has healed. The One-Beneath-the-Root has taken breath again."
His followers—barefoot, cloaked in seaweed, with barnacles embedded in their skin—chanted low and slow.
"She. She. She returns."
The Prophet dipped his hands into the tide and drew forth a mirror made of water. Within it shimmered a vision:
The Queen on her living throne.
A tower collapsing in flames.
A child clutching a blade of unlit fire.
And beyond it all… a mouth, vast as the sky, whispering secrets into the stars.
"The Chain is undone," he said. "Now the Leviathans must choose. To rise, or to drown again."
The tide withdrew in answer. And the sea trembled.
III. The Queen's Vision
Back at the base of the Worldroot, the Queen sat in stillness. The roots of her throne connected not just to soil and stone—but to memory.
And through that connection, she saw…
A field of broken swords.
Children weeping beside monuments of ash.
A king with no crown offering a chalice filled with his own tears.
A maiden standing at the mouth of the void, singing a song that made the stars weep.
She gasped awake.
Aldric rushed to her side. "What did you see?"
She looked at him—not with fear, but with clarity.
"They're coming. All of them. The ones who buried me, and the ones who built kingdoms from the silence I left behind."
Maerlyn adjusted his cloak. "Then we fight."
"No," she whispered. "Then we prepare."
IV. The Turning of the Blades
The Queen summoned her companions to the Throne of Root.
Rowena stood closest, her bow slung low, fingers always near the quiver.
Kaelin sat cross-legged on the steps, humming softly to her hammer.
Aldric leaned on his sword, silent but steadfast.
Maerlyn circled the base of the throne, murmuring spells into the wood itself.
Even the trees seemed to listen.
"There is a place," the Queen said. "Where the silence began. The Vault of First Binding."
Maerlyn froze mid-syllable. "That place doesn't exist anymore."
"No," she agreed. "But it remembers existing."
Kaelin cracked her knuckles. "Then let's go knock."
Aldric looked out across the horizon, where a dark cloud had begun to form—not from weather, but from marching armies.
"How much time do we have?"
The Queen looked skyward, where crows wheeled in strange spirals. She heard the wind whisper a name she hadn't spoken since her first breath.
"None. The war has already begun."
V. The Whispering General
In a forgotten field between worlds, a general stood amid statues of her own past victims.
She wore armor made of regrets, and her eyes had long since forgotten tears.
They called her the Whispering General, though once she had a name as sweet as rain.
And in her hand was a sword forged from the rib of a dead god.
A messenger approached, breathless.
"The Queen… she has returned."
The General turned. Her voice was dry thunder.
"Then we ride."
"But what of the pact?"
She looked at the sky. It was bleeding light.
"There is no pact with the unforgotten."
VI. The Queen and the Flamechild
As preparations began, a stranger came to the grove.
A child.
Eyes glowing like a forge. Hair crackling with quiet flame. Barefoot. Alone.
Everyone moved to stop her—except the Queen.
She stepped down from her throne and knelt before the girl.
"You carry it," she said. "The Fire That Waits."
The girl nodded.
"I don't want to burn," she whispered.
The Queen reached forward and cupped her face.
"Then let me help you shine instead."
VII. The Grove Becomes a Fortress
The Worldroot Tree bloomed again—this time growing walls of light, twisted halls of living bark and branch.
Weapons were forged not in fire, but in memory—spears from ancestors' names, armor from songs long unsung.
The Grove was becoming a sanctuary.
But also, a citadel.
The first of many to come.
And overhead, the stars rearranged themselves, forming a symbol long forgotten.
A throne split in half.
A flame within the wound.
A name written backward in time.
VIII. A Voice Returns
That night, while the others slept, the Queen stood alone beneath the roots.
And a voice, older than language, whispered to her from the depths of the tree.
"You have returned.
But what of her?
What of the one who took your face?
What of the False Queen?"
The Queen opened her eyes.
And for the first time in years, they burned with fury.
"She has one chance.
To kneel…
Or to be undone."