The ashes had barely settled when they came.
Whispers.
Footsteps.
Shadows wearing the faces of the long-dead.
They emerged not from portals or skies or spells but from the bones themselves.
One by one.
Some whole. Some hollowed. All silent.
And every one of them bowed when they saw Alera.
Lysandria called them the Unremembered.
"Queens, consorts, flamebearers who were erased from history," she said. "When the first Sundering happened, not everyone died. Some were forgotten so deeply the world ceased to know them. But memory... has a heartbeat."
"And they came back now," Alera whispered, watching the women some young, others older than time circle around her.
"Because you made the world remember."
The camp expanded fast.
The Dusk Sentinels adjusted their ranks, setting new perimeters. Old ruins were reforged with magic. Tents became towers. Fire pits became beacons.
Within two days, the mountain hollow had become a city of exile.
But not a hidden one.
From the cliff edge, Alera could see the storm brewing on the horizon clouds thick as iron, coiling with lightning that struck upwards instead of down.
The world had felt the Bone Throne collapse.
And it was sending something to find what replaced it.
She spent hours each day with the Unremembered.
They taught her things no living priestess ever had:
How to speak in forgotten tongues.
How to bend bone without breaking blood.
How to summon fire that burned lies instead of flesh.
And perhaps most importantly
How to hide the child inside her from those who would use him.
Because he was growing faster now.
Not in body but in power.
She could feel it when she slept.
He no longer needed her heartbeat to survive.
That night, as the stars bled silver across the sky, Lysandria approached her with a sealed scroll.
Alera took it carefully.
"What is it?"
"A warning."
"From who?"
Lysandria's face darkened. "Kael."
The scroll bore his scent.
Ash, blood, regret.
But the words were what chilled her:
He's not gone, Alera. He never was. What we destroyed… was only his reflection. The real Sovereign of Bone is awakening beneath the Obsidian Sea. And you are the key to his gate.
Alera stared at the stars for a long time.
And the stars blinked back.
The next day, scouts returned with news.
A force was approaching five banners, silver and black. Mounted. Armed. Thousands strong.
Not from the realms of the Bone Court.
Not from any known kingdom.
Lysandria's face went pale.
"The Devoured March."
Saphine blinked. "I thought they were myth."
"No," Lysandria said. "They were prophecy."
Alera folded the scroll tighter.
"What do they want?"
"You," said a voice behind them.
Everyone turned.
It was the girl who'd stepped from the Crowling days ago the one who called herself Seris.
But her eyes now glowed with twin stars.
And her voice?
It was not hers.
It was the child's.
Everyone froze.
Seris stepped closer.
"Alera," the voice said gently. "Mother."
The camp bowed as one.
Alera alone remained standing.
"Why are you speaking through her?" she asked quietly.
Seris tilted her head. "Because I'm not strong enough to return again. Not yet."
"Return from where?"
"From the place the Sovereign sleeps."
Her breath caught.
"You've seen him?"
"I dream beside him."
Alera took a step forward.
"What does he want?"
"To become you."
Silence followed.
Then Seris the child spoke again.
"When you shattered the mirror, you opened every gate tied to Solara's line. Not just yours. His too."
"Can we close it?"
"Not without a cost."
Alera clenched her fists.
"I'll pay it."
"No," the child said. "You'll be it."
Seris collapsed.
The starlight vanished.
And Alera caught her before she hit the earth.
Later that night, as the camp braced for battle and the winds shifted from west to north, Alera met Lysandria alone in the bone garden.
"What else haven't you told me?" she asked.
The First Queen did not flinch.
"The Sovereign was once my brother."
Alera's chest tightened.
"He was a prophet. A dreamer. Until he looked into the Mirror of Creation and saw a world where no woman ruled."
"So he made it real."
"He made it bleed."
Alera walked back to her quarters slowly.
The stars pulsed overhead, but they no longer brought comfort.
They watched her now.
Not like protectors.
But like judges.
At dawn, the Devoured March arrived.
Not with horns.
Not with banners raised high.
They simply stood at the edge of the valley tens of thousands, cloaked in shadows that dripped from their skin like ink. No mouths. No eyes. Just armor made from the bones of queens.
At their center rode a figure taller than any human draped in veils, carrying a throne on its back.
Not riding it.
Carrying it.
Alera stepped forward.
Lysandria beside her.
The air split like glass.
The veiled figure spoke with no voice.
Only thought.
We come for the Flame.
We come for the Womb.
We come for the End.
The final sentence echoed through every soul in camp.
Saphine dropped to her knees, weeping.
The Unremembered howled.
And Alera…
Smiled.
Not out of joy.
But rage.
"You will find no end here," she said.
She reached down.
And drew a sword from the earth itself formed from ash and bone and starlight.
"I am the beginning."
The veiled figure turned its face upward.
And the sky screamed.