The Bones Beneath the Crown

Elara stood at the entrance to the old crypt stairwell, staring into the mouth of the earth.

The torch in her hand sputtered and hissed, casting its amber glow across the damp stone steps. The scent that wafted up was a mix of wax, rot, and something older incense long since dried to dust.

Behind her, the palace was alive with motion and oblivion. Nobles laughed over wine in candlelit halls. Servants polished the floors for the Equinox Gala. And the prince the man who had ordered her death sat somewhere in gold-threaded robes, unaware that his dead fiancée now crept through the bones of the castle.

"One of these rooms holds what's left of your original body," Corven had said.

"They scattered you, broke you, sealed your power in pieces."

She descended the first step.

Then another.

And another.

Each one dropped her deeper into the silence beneath the crown.

This place wasn't on any modern blueprint. The catacombs predated the royal court. Even the old maps only hinted at its existence. Generations had ignored it, called it cursed, locked it behind reinforced doors and whispered prayers.

She reached the first landing and pushed into a tight corridor, carved from black limestone and marked with faded sigils. Her torch flickered against old iron sconces as she passed forgotten rooms: one lined with crumbling scrolls, another with sealed urns, another filled with shattered mirrors and red-stained robes.

Then she saw it.

A door.

Not wood, but stone. A thick slab with no handle, no hinges—only a carved symbol at its center: a flame curled in thorns.

The Order's seal.

She reached out and pressed her palm against the carving. Cold surged through her hand, up her arm, into her shoulder.

A whisper of memory stirred in her mind.

Her mother's voice, low and urgent in the dead of night:

"Never speak the flame aloud unless you intend to pay its price."

Elara closed her eyes and muttered the phrase she wasn't supposed to know.

"Nath'rav in dolen mar."

The seal flared.

The door groaned.

Then, slowly, it cracked open.

Elara stepped into the chamber.

It was small. Round. The air inside was unnaturally still, thick with silence. The stone walls pulsed with residual magic, long faded but not gone. In the center sat a black pedestal.

On it lay a bundle of bones.

She stopped breathing.

They were delicate, wrapped in bloodstained linen. A ribcage. Arms. A fragment of spine. She saw burn marks across the wrapping fused bone where fire had blistered flesh and marrow.

A soft thrum began behind her ribs.

It wasn't fear.

It was recognition.

These were hers.

Not the full body. Not all the parts. But part of her. Power, identity, essence sealed and hidden, like a threat.

She moved forward, fingers trembling.

And there, among the bones, gleamed something small and gold.

A ring.

Simple, elegant. Set with a sapphire that shimmered faintly blue even in the torchlight.

Her heart clenched.

She knew this ring.

Kaelith had given it to her the night they were engaged. He had slipped it onto her finger beneath a blood moon and whispered words she no longer believed.

"You are the flame beside my crown."

And now it sat here, on the hand of her ruined body.

Forgotten.

Elara lifted it gently.

The moment her skin touched the band, the room pulsed.

Reality shifted.

And suddenly

She wasn't in the crypt.

She stood in a memory.

Rain poured from a red sky.

She was back on the execution platform but she wasn't the one bound to the stake.

Another version of her was. Her features. Her hair. Her fire.

But this version wasn't screaming. She was laughing.

Burning and laughing.

And Kaelith? He was younger. Pale. Terrified. Not the prince she knew. Not the man who had killed her. Just a boy with a crown too large for his head and eyes full of guilt.

Behind him stood someone else.

The High Chancellor.

Smiling.

Whispering.

The illusion cracked. Shattered.

Elara staggered backward, the ring still clenched in her palm.

That wasn't a memory.

That was a truth someone had hidden.

She turned to leave.

And stopped.

A figure blocked the doorway.

Not Corven.

Not Seryth.

It was a woman in silver robes embroidered with flame, face veiled, her presence silent as snowfall.

"You shouldn't be here," she said.

Elara's breath caught.

She gripped the knife hidden in her sleeve. "Who are you?"

The woman didn't answer. She stepped forward, not menacing just purposeful.

"Elara Valeblume died at the pyre," she said. "This body is an insult to the balance. You weren't meant to return. You were meant to stay ash."

"Then maybe you should've burned me better," Elara snapped.

The veiled woman didn't react. "You carry too much now. Power you don't understand. Memories that don't belong to you. If you keep digging, you won't just change the past. You'll tear it."

Elara's grip tightened. "Is that a threat?"

"It's a warning," the woman replied. "You were the first. But not the only."

Then she turned, her robe whispering over the stone.

As she vanished into the corridor, she left a final word behind.

"Three."

Elara blinked.

Then the cold settled in.

Three?

Not her and Seryth?

Three who had died.

Three who had returned.

Three who remembered the fire.

And only one throne.