The silver threads thickened as Seraphina walked, their glow pulsing like slow, steady heartbeats in the gloom. They wove between the trees in intricate patterns—sometimes looping around ancient trunks, sometimes stretching taut across the path like the strings of some enormous, forgotten instrument. When she brushed her fingers against one, the vibration travelled up her arm, settling deep in her chest with a resonance that made her teeth ache. It wasn't just light. It wasn't just sound. It was memory.
Lysandra's memory.
She could feel it now—fragments of her sister's presence lingering in the air like the scent of ozone after a storm. The sharp, metallic tang of fear. The warmth of determination. The bitter aftertaste of whatever the Watchers had done to her. Seraphina quickened her pace, her boots sinking into the damp earth as the forest grew denser, the canopy above knitting together until no trace of the sky remained. The only light came from the threads, their silver glow painting the trees in ghostly hues.
Then, without warning, the threads twisted.
They coiled abruptly to the left, plunging into a thicket of brambles so dense they formed a wall of thorns. Seraphina hesitated. The branches were unnaturally black, their edges glistening as if wet, and when she leaned closer, she realized why.
They weren't thorns at all.
They were claws.
Curved and razor-sharp, each one the length of her forearm, protruding from the gnarled wood like the talons of some long-buried beast. And they were moving. Not much—just a faint, rhythmic flexing, as if whatever they belonged to was stirring in its sleep.
A whisper of sound behind her.
Seraphina turned just in time to see the silver threads recoil, slithering back the way she'd come like snakes fleeing fire. The path vanished. The light faded.
And the claws flexed again, this time with purpose.
The King's Descent
The crypts beneath the castle had not been opened in centuries.
The king stood before the sealed archway, his torch guttering in the damp air. The stones here were older than the kingdom itself, their surfaces carved with warnings in a language even the Scholar had not fully understood. Turn back, they seemed to say. What sleeps here should never wake.
His daughter—ever dutiful, ever cold—held the lantern aloft as he pressed his palm to the center of the arch. The moment his skin touched the stone, the carvings flared red, the heat so intense it blistered his flesh. He did not flinch.
"Father," his daughter said, her voice carefully neutral. "The bloodline curse—"
"Is the only reason this door will open for me," he finished.
And it did.
With a groan of grinding stone, the archway split down the middle, the two halves sliding apart to reveal a staircase spiraling into darkness. The air that rushed out was thick with the scent of wet earth and something else—something sweet and cloying, like rotting fruit.
The king stepped forward.
His daughter did not follow.
He turned, one eyebrow raised.
"You're afraid," he observed.
She met his gaze evenly. "I'm not the one holding a torch."
For a moment, something almost like pride flickered in his eyes. Then he descended, the shadows swallowing him whole.
Lysandra was drowning.
Not in water—in light.
It filled her mouth, her nose, her lungs, burning like liquid silver. She tried to scream, but the sound was swallowed by the brilliance pressing in on all sides. The threads—her threads, the ones the Watchers had sewn into her skin—were unravelling, each one peeling away to reveal raw, glowing flesh beneath.
And the First Queen watched.
She was taller than Lysandra had imagined, her hair not just red but the deep, visceral crimson of a freshly opened wound. It moved around her like living things, tendrils curling and uncurling in the charged air. Her eyes were worse. There were too many of them—not just in her face, but scattered across her skin, her palms, the insides of her wrists—all fixed on Lysandra with terrible focus.
"Little thief," the First Queen murmured. Her voice was layered, overlapping, as if a dozen women spoke at once. "You stole into my dreams. You woke my hunger. And now you will feed it."
She reached out, one long finger trailing down Lysandra's cheek. Where she touched, the skin split, silver pouring from the wound like blood. Seraphina pressed her back against the nearest tree, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps. The clawed thicket loomed before her, its talons flexing hungrily. She had two options: go through or go back.
Going back meant abandoning Lysandra.
Going through meant walking into what was very clearly a trap.
She closed her eyes, listening to the hum of the last remaining silver thread—the one wrapped tight around her wrist, trembling like a plucked wire. It tugged her forward, insistent.
Seraphina opened her eyes.
And stepped into the thorns.
The claws struck fast, but she was faster. She twisted, letting the first swipe graze her shoulder instead of her throat. Hot blood welled, dripping down her arm, but she barely felt it. The second claw came from the left. She ducked. The third from above. She rolled.
And then she was through, stumbling into a clearing so abruptly it felt like stepping off a cliff. The air here was different. Heavier. Older. And at the center of the clearing stood a door. Not of bone this time.
Of teeth.
They stretched from ground to sky, each one longer than she was tall, their roots sunk deep into the earth. They parted as she approached, saliva dripping from their jagged edges, the gap between them widening into a yawning, hungry dark.
From within, something laughed.
Seraphina tightened her grip on her dagger.
And walked inside.
The moment Seraphina crossed the threshold of the tooth-lined door, the air turned viscous, thick with the cloying sweetness of decay and something darker beneath it, metallic and sharp, like blood left to dry in the sun. The ground beneath her feet was not earth, nor stone, but something soft and yielding, pulsing faintly as if alive.
When she looked down, her stomach turned. The floor was flesh—pale, veined, stretched taut like the membrane of some enormous, buried organ. Every step left a faint indentation that smoothed itself out moments later, as though the very ground were healing behind her.
Ahead, the darkness was not absolute. Strange, bioluminescent growths clung to the walls—if they could be called walls. They curved inward like the ribs of a colossal beast, their surfaces slick with a glistening film that reflected the eerie blue-green glow in fractured patterns. The air hummed with a sound just below hearing, a vibration that made her teeth ache and her bones feel too heavy.
And then there were the eyes.
Dozens of them. Hundreds. Nestled between the fleshy folds of the walls, peering out from the shadows between the rib-like structures. They blinked at her with no discernible pattern, their pupils slitted like a cat's, their irises the same molten silver as the Watchers'. None of them looked away.
She forced herself to move forward, her dagger clenched so tightly in her hand her knuckles ached. The path sloped downward, the fleshy ground growing warmer the deeper she went, until the heat seeped through the soles of her boots. The air grew heavier too, pressing against her skin like a damp hand.
Then, a voice.
Not from ahead.
From inside.
It slithered into her mind, smooth and cold, curling around her thoughts like smoke.
"You should not be here."
Seraphina froze. The voice was not Lysandra's. Not the First Queen's. It was something else—something older.
She swallowed, her throat dry. "Where is my sister?"
A pause. Then, laughter—soft, mocking, echoing as if from a great distance.
"She is where she chose to be."
The ground beneath her lurched.
Seraphina barely had time to gasp before the fleshy floor contorted, throwing her forward. She landed hard, her palms sinking into the warm, pulsing surface. When she tried to pull free, the flesh clung to her, tendrils of sinew wrapping around her wrists like shackles.
Panic flared, white-hot in her chest. She yanked, but the bindings only tightened.
Ahead, the path split.
To the left, a tunnel lined with teeth, their jagged edges dripping saliva. To the right, a pool of liquid silver, its surface rippling as though stirred by an unseen hand, and straight ahead—
A throne.
Not of gold or bone, but of hair—long, matted strands woven together, still glistening as if freshly ripped from a scalp.
Upon it sat the First Queen.
Lysandra knelt at her feet, her back arched, her skin split open in jagged lines where the silver threads had torn free. They hovered in the air around her, connecting her to the First Queen like puppet strings.
The Queen's many eyes fixed on Seraphina.
Her lips curled.
"Welcome, daughter," she said. "I've been waiting."
The crypt stairs spiralled deeper than they should have.
The king counted each step, his torchlight flickering against the damp walls, but the number made no sense. Fifty. A hundred. Two hundred. The air grew thicker, and the scent of rot was so overpowering that it coated his tongue.
And then, abruptly, the stairs ended.
He stood in a chamber so vast that his torchlight could not reach the ceiling. The walls were not stone but flesh—the same pulsing, veined membrane Seraphina had walked upon. At the centre of the room lay a pool of black water, its surface perfectly still, and in its depths, something stirred. The king approached, his reflection warping on the water's surface. Then the reflection smiled—wider than his face could stretch.
"You've come to bargain," it said.
The king did not flinch. "I've come to reclaim what's mine."
The thing in the water laughed. "Nothing here is yours. Not anymore."
It reached up—a hand of liquid shadow—and pressed its palm to his chest. The king's breath left him in a rush, and the water swallowed him whole. Lysandra's head lifted sluggishly, her silver-streaked eyes finding Seraphina's.
"Run," she mouthed.
The First Queen's grip on the threads tightened. Lysandra screamed, the sound tearing through the chamber like a physical force. The silver threads yanked, peeling her skin back further, revealing the glowing veins beneath.
Seraphina lunged.
The flesh binding her wrists tore free with a wet rip, but she barely felt the pain. She ran, her dagger raised, her vision narrowing to the First Queen's smirking face.
The Queen did not move. She didn't need to. The moment Seraphina was within reach, the throne of hair surged to life, strands whipping forward like serpents. They wrapped around her arms, her throat, yanking her off her feet. The dagger clattered to the ground. The First Queen leaned down, her breath cold against Seraphina's cheek.
"You should have chosen the throne," she whispered. "Now you'll become part of mine."
The hair tightened, and the world went dark.