Selene
She dreamed of fire again.
Not the wild, consuming kind. No—this was fire shaped by will, by rage. It curled around her fingers, clung to her veins, and pulsed with memory.
In the dream, she stood on a dais of bone. Before her knelt kingdoms. Behind her, Kael stood in chains.
She wore a crown made of ribcage and light.
And when she spoke, her voice shattered glass.
Selene woke screaming.
Her hands burned. The runes had scorched her palms while she slept.
Kael was beside her instantly, a vial in hand, a cold cloth pressed to her skin. She tried to recoil, but her limbs were heavy—her magic drained.
"That's the third time this week," he murmured, not unkindly. "Whatever you're remembering… it's bleeding through."
Selene stared at the dark veins spiderwebbing her wrists.
"I'm scared," she whispered.
Kael didn't speak at first. His silence was not cruel—just ancient. Worn like armor.
"You should be," he said at last. "This power, this blood—it doesn't want peace. It wants dominion. And it remembers everything you forgot."
She looked at him, her voice cracking.
"Did I ever… love you? Before?"
Kael's eyes flickered with something too fast to name.
"Yes," he said quietly. "And then you burned me alive."
Kael
He hadn't meant to tell her.
But the question had cut deep—dragged out a truth he'd buried for centuries. The Blood Queen had loved him once. Before her final coronation. Before she sacrificed him to ascend.
The pain was supposed to be gone.
But when Selene looked at him now—with fear instead of fire, trembling instead of ruling—he felt something dangerous rise again in his hollow chest.
Hope.
She was not her past.
Not yet.
But every hour, the old soul beneath her skin clawed closer to the surface.
And Kael wasn't sure how many pieces of himself he'd lose before this ended.
Selene
The Hunters hadn't returned, but Kael said they would. They always did.
So she trained.
Clumsy at first. Her power was volatile—too raw. But Kael taught her how to shape it, siphon it, control the hunger when it surged.
"You don't need to be cruel to be strong," he told her once.
But Selene wasn't sure that was true.
Sometimes, when she channeled magic, she felt joy. A savage kind. It scared her.
One night, she stood before the cracked mirror in her chamber, studying her reflection.
Her veins glowed faintly in the dark—like rivers of starlight.
And in her eyes, for a flicker of a moment…
She saw her.
The Queen.
Smiling.
Elsewhere
The silver knight knelt beside a river of blood. The moon was full overhead. Behind him, a creature of ash and teeth waited.
"She's nearly ready," the knight said.
The voice from the shadows was dry as parchment.
"Then it's time to free the last tether."
The knight rose, face hidden beneath a visor of bone.
"I'll go to the castle," he said. "She doesn't know what they've hidden from her. But when she sees it…"
He smiled.
"…the girl will die. And the Queen will rise."