The day began like every other in the Bone Court gray, eternal, suffocating.
But by nightfall, the walls would bleed.
Alera stood in the chamber of thrones, the one no heir had dared enter in centuries. It was not the Bone Heir's throne she faced but a forgotten seat, carved in ancient iron, with vines of bone threaded through its legs. The Throne of Echoes.
Only one of royal lineage and fractured soul could hear what it whispered.
She placed her hand on the armrest.
Her veins ignited.
Your fate is older than the gods.
You are not heir. You are correction.
You are not queen. You are reckoning.
Alera staggered back, breathing hard.
The visions came again fast, violent, burning through her mind like lightning down a river:
She saw herself marching on the Bone Heir's throne with flames in one hand and shadows in the other.
She saw Kieran bleeding beneath a shattered sky.
She saw her child older, speaking in a voice that echoed like prophecy.
And above it all a second throne, hidden in the stars.
A throne meant for no one.
And yet waiting.
She blinked away the images.
Saphine waited at the door. "It's time."
Alera nodded. "Let the Bone Court tremble."
Their plan was simple. Brutal. Impossible.
The Choir would parade through the Spiral Hall, a ceremonial act of control the Bone Heir performed once each lunar cycle. Normally silent. Normally harmless.
But not today.
Today, one-third of the Choir no longer served him.
They served her.
Alera entered the Spiral Hall with no weapons.
She needed none.
They were already inside her.
The first explosion came from beneath the spine bridge where the molten bone veins had been redirected using forbidden rites.
It erupted upward in a burst of white flame, severing a section of the Court's sacred foundation.
Guards rushed.
Confusion reigned.
Then the masked members of the Choir began to fall not from blades, but from words.
Whispers carried on breath.
Each rebel knew their verse.
Each word etched like poison.
When a masked Choir member heard the chant, their mask cracked.
And with it, control.
In less than seven minutes, half the Court was in chaos.
And in the center of it all Alera stood.
Hair wild. Eyes ablaze.
Power thrumming beneath her skin like thunder caged in flesh.
She didn't raise her hands.
She didn't need to.
The palace had begun to feel her.
The Bone Heir appeared at the top of the Broken Stair.
He wore no crown today.
His robes trailed behind him like smoke from a funeral pyre.
"You strike against your teacher," he said.
"I strike against a tyrant," Alera replied.
He took one step forward.
And the palace darkened.
The roof vanished, revealing the swirling sky amethyst spinning faster than ever.
Lightning struck bone towers. Screams echoed from forgotten chambers.
And the throne behind him hummed.
"You think this is power?" he asked.
"No," Alera said.
She held out her hand.
Flame ignited in her palm clean, golden, alive.
"This is."
He lunged.
But he did not strike her.
He struck the mirror behind her.
The last shard she'd brought from her chamber the one that contained her greatest fear.
It shattered.
And with it, the Bone Court cracked.
A scream tore through the foundations not human. The palace trembled. And from the broken mirror, light poured.
But not light from this world.
Light from another.
Everyone froze.
Even the Bone Heir.
Because standing in the beam of light
Was a child.
Small.
Barefoot.
Eyes like fire and ice fused together.
Alera's child.
But… older.
"Mother," the boy said.
Alera fell to her knees.
Her heart thundered.
"This isn't possible," she whispered.
The boy stepped forward, touching her face. "You opened the Gate when you broke the mirror. You brought me through."
"What are you?" she asked.
He looked past her, toward the Bone Heir.
And smiled.
"I am the end of his story."
The Bone Heir backed away.
For the first time
He looked afraid.
"No," he hissed. "You cannot be born yet."
The child's voice echoed with a hundred tones. "I was already born the day she made her choice."
He raised his hand.
And the throne behind the Bone Heir exploded.
Bone splintered. Fire burst. The sky tore.
Everything descended into madness.
The rebels screamed. The loyalists fought. The palace walls began to shift violently, tearing apart rooms and collapsing corridors.
Alera grabbed her son.
He looked at her, calm amid the destruction.
"You must finish what I started," he said.
She shook her head. "You can't stay here. You don't belong yet."
"I never did," he said with a sad smile. "But I needed you to see."
"See what?"
"That he's not the greatest threat."
The child vanished in a flash of light.
Alera screamed.
But there was no time to mourn.
Because the Bone Heir had vanished too.
And in his place
Stood something worse.
The true form of the Bone Heir rose from the shattered throne.
Not a man.
Not a god.
But a cage.
A cage made of every queen he'd consumed. Faces twisted. Hands reaching. Eyes weeping ash. And in the center of it
His real body.
Small. Fragile. Screaming.
Alera stared.
And she understood.
He wasn't trying to rule.
He had been trying to survive.
Inside a prison he built from the souls of those he stole power from.
She raised both hands.
Her body glowed.
Her veins burst with flame and frost, light and shadow.
And the palace roared in answer.
Then came the voice.
Not hers.
Not his.
But the palace itself.
"Choose."
She screamed, "I choose freedom!"
And the cage began to crack.
One soul.
Then another.
Until the Bone Heir's scream echoed like the end of a world.
The palace began to collapse.
Saphine grabbed Alera.
"We must go!"
Alera hesitated.
But the child's final words echoed.
"He's not the greatest threat."
She turned.
And ran.
Behind her, the Bone Court fell.
Above her, the skies opened.
And inside her
A new flame was born.
One that whispered not of thrones…
…but of war.