Chapter 15 – The Queen’s Shadow

Chains cut into her skin.

Elira's breath came ragged, every movement tightening the black bindings that pinned her to the scorched ground. The Herald crouched before her, silver eyes gleaming like knives dipped in moonlight.

"Do you know," he said softly, "why your fire feels wrong?"

She glared at him, blood trickling from the corner of her lips. "Because you're trying to take it."

He chuckled. "No. Because it isn't yours. It was never meant for you. It was forged in someone else's bones—and that someone is calling."

He pressed two fingers against her forehead.

The world shattered.

Suddenly she was standing in a throne room, vast and hollow, flames licking the walls. On the throne sat a woman with eyes like liquid gold—eyes that mirrored Elira's own, but older, colder.

The woman wore the Iron Crown, cracked and bleeding heat. Her gown was in tatters, but her posture was regal, unyielding. Chains pinned her arms to the throne, yet her gaze burned with defiance.

"Mother?" Elira whispered.

The woman tilted her head, as if seeing her through glass. "You are not ready."

"Ready for what?"

"To inherit me."

The throne room exploded into shards of glass, scattering like dying stars.

Elira gasped as reality slammed back. The chains around her wrists pulsed, absorbing every flicker of her flame. The Herald's smile widened.

"She resisted until the end," he said. "She broke the world trying to keep you alive. But I wonder—" He leaned closer, whispering like a serpent. "Will you do the same for them?"

At his gesture, illusions of the academy flickered around them: students trapped under collapsing wards, professors bleeding, Caelum on his knees, his chest pierced by a chain of shadow.

Elira's chest tightened.

"Stop," she growled.

"Then give it to me," the Herald said. "The Book. The fire. Your mother's crown. All of it."

Something inside her snapped.

Not with fear.

But with fury.

"NO!"

The flames that erupted this time weren't white. They were black and gold, a twisted inversion of her usual fire. It devoured the chains, slicing them apart with a hiss like steel melting in acid.

The Herald's eyes flared. "Impossible."

Elira stood, trembling but unbroken, the Ashen Book hovering behind her like a halo of fire-thorns.

"You want my fire?" she said, voice shaking with raw power. "Then burn with me."

She raised her hand—and the entire Shadow Realm ignited.

Far from the inferno, Caelum was already defying the Archmage's orders.

The War Chamber had erupted into argument, but he'd slipped out, taking a relic blade forged from the Academy's deepest vault. Its edge hummed with wind sigils—the same weapon once wielded by the First Crown Guard.

"Caelum, wait!" Professor Veyra chased him down the corridor. "The Shadow Realm isn't stable. If you go in—"

"She won't survive alone," he snapped.

"Then you'll die with her."

He paused just long enough to meet Veyra's gaze. "Better me than her."

Before she could stop him, he sliced a rift into the air with the relic blade. The tear glowed silver.

And he stepped through.

Back in the Shadow Realm, the Herald was no longer smiling.

The black-gold flames scorched even his chains. He moved with lethal precision, each strike like thunder.

"You think this power is yours?" he hissed. "You're drowning in her legacy."

"Maybe," Elira spat, blocking a chain with a flaming shield. "But I'll use it to kill you."

Their clash was apocalyptic—firestorms tearing the sky, obsidian shards falling like meteors. Elira's veins burned with heat so intense she thought her blood might boil.

Then—something cracked.

The Book.

The Ashen Book's pages flipped violently, symbols crawling like living ink. A voice—deep, female, and terrifying—spoke through her mind:

"Little thorn… you are not ready for the crown, but you will take it regardless."

Elira froze.

"Who—who are you?"

The voice laughed, like steel snapping.

"I am what remains of your mother. I am the fire that cannot die. Use me—or I'll use you."

The Book's flames surged, threatening to consume her.

"Elira!"

Her name cut through the storm.

She turned—and saw him. Caelum, stepping out of a silver rift, blade blazing with windlight. His eyes were hard, but there was something in them—fear, fierce and raw.

"You idiot," she whispered. "You'll get yourself killed."

"Then we die fighting," he said.

The Herald's chains writhed like serpents. "Ah, the loyal hound," he sneered. "Shall I break you next?"

Caelum didn't answer. He launched forward, his relic blade slicing through shadow like lightning.

For the first time, the Herald faltered.

They moved like a storm together.

Elira's flames burned the ground while Caelum's wind carved paths through the chains. For a moment, just a moment, it felt like they could win.

But the Herald's power deepened, shadows thickening like tar.

"You cannot kill what was born of betrayal," he hissed.

"Then I'll burn you until nothing's left," Elira snapped.

The Ashen Book pulsed in her hands, its pages glowing with runes she didn't recognize. Instinct screamed—one last strike.

"Caelum!" she shouted. "Hold him!"

Without hesitation, Caelum locked blades with the Herald, forcing him to the ground, chains whipping around them both.

Elira raised the Book.

Its flames roared, forming a spear of black-gold fire.

She hurled it.

The impact shook the realm.

For a heartbeat, silence.

Then—the Herald's scream ripped through the air as his form disintegrated into smoke and ash.

Elira collapsed to her knees, chest heaving. Caelum stumbled beside her, bleeding but alive.

"Is… is it over?" she whispered.

The Book answered for her.

"This was only the shadow of your enemy. The real one waits… where the crown still bleeds."

The ground trembled.

Cracks of light split the Shadow Realm, reality tearing apart.

"We need to go," Caelum said, pulling her up.

Before they could move, a final whisper from the Herald's fading form curled through the air:

"Your mother died for nothing, little queen. And you will too."

Caelum sliced a rift open with his relic blade, dragging Elira through just as the Shadow Realm collapsed into fire and void.

They landed hard on the academy floor, coughing.

The professors stared.

Elira clutched the Book, still smoldering.

And for the first time, she realized: the Book was no longer just an object. It was alive. And it had chosen her.