For the first time in days, there was no blood in the wind.
No battle cries.
No throne screaming.
No bones cracking under divine weight.
Only silence.
Too deep.
Too still.
Alera stood on the edge of the ruined field, her burned palms curled at her sides. The ash in the air danced like falling feathers, grey and slow. Around her, the remnants of the Dusk Sentinels gathered what remained of their wounded and dead. Saphine was issuing commands. Lysandria was nowhere to be seen.
The Bearer of the End had vanished.
And Alera?
She hadn't slept.
Not since she broke the throne.
Not since she heard her child whisper:
"There are more thrones than stars."
She should have felt victory.
Instead, she felt haunted.
By Kael's absence.
By Kieran's silence.
By the weight of being chosen by something older than the gods.
She was no longer just Alera Ilithra Solara.
She was the Queen of the Forgotten.
But what did that even mean?
She walked through the field of broken bone and memory, boots crunching ash and old spells. The starlight above had dimmed, as though mourning what had been destroyed.
A rustle to her right made her stop.
She turned hand instinctively on the dagger at her hip.
It was Seris.
The girl who had been the child's voice.
She now walked like a ghost.
Eyes too bright.
Too knowing.
"You're not sleeping," she said softly.
"Neither are you."
Seris tilted her head. "Because the dreams are louder now."
"What do they say?"
"They say we're being watched."
Alera's spine stiffened.
"By who?"
Seris hesitated.
Then pointed downward.
That night, Lysandria returned from her scouting mission with blood on her cloak.
"There's movement beneath the Hollow Spine," she said grimly.
"The caves?" Saphine asked.
Lysandria nodded.
"They were once sealed by the Bone Court. With the throne broken, the seals are bleeding."
Alera frowned. "What's down there?"
Lysandria didn't answer.
Not directly.
She held up a scroll one older than parchment, written on skin that shimmered like moonlight.
"Do you know the name Vaelora the Hollowed?"
Saphine gasped.
"She was the first queen who betrayed Solara."
"No," Alera corrected, eyes narrowing. "She was the first punished for betrayal."
Lysandria unrolled the scroll.
"It says she still lives."
The next day, Alera descended the Hollow Spine with a dozen Sentinels, Saphine, and Seris.
The cave swallowed light.
And time.
They passed ruins carved in languages older than the stars.
They passed murals showing women bound to thrones not with chains but with children.
And at the deepest point of the cave
They found a mirror.
Not a reflection.
A portal.
Alera stepped close.
And her own image smiled back.
But the smile didn't reach its eyes.
"Don't touch it," Seris whispered.
Alera turned. "What is it?"
"A trap," Lysandria said. "Made to lure queens who think they're invincible."
"How do you know?"
"Because I nearly touched it once."
Suddenly
A voice echoed.
High. Beautiful. Wrong.
"I wondered when you'd find me."
A figure stepped from the dark behind the mirror.
Her face was… perfect.
Too perfect.
Like it had been sculpted by fear itself.
She wore robes made of living silk, and bones woven into her crown.
"Vaelora," Lysandria breathed.
The First Betrayer smiled.
"Children of Solara. How far you've fallen."
The Sentinels raised their weapons.
But Alera didn't move.
"You're supposed to be dead."
"I am," Vaelora said sweetly. "But death is no prison when you rule the Forgotten."
Alera's hand curled into a fist. "I rule the Forgotten."
Vaelora's smile widened.
"Then we're about to have a problem."
The cave pulsed.
The mirror shattered inward.
And from it poured a song.
One that had no lyrics.
Only agony.
Seris collapsed first, clutching her ears.
Saphine bled from her nose.
Alera staggered.
But Lysandria raised a talisman a shard of the Bone Heir's broken sword.
The song stopped.
Vaelora hissed.
"You carry his pieces."
"I carry his failure," Lysandria snarled. "And yours."
Vaelora retreated into the shadows, her voice echoing like silk torn in water.
"You can't stop what's been set free. Solara's flame burns in a hundred wombs now. The thrones will awaken. The children will choose. And when the choosing is done…"
She looked at Alera.
"You'll wish you never broke the throne."
Back in the camp, Saphine poured over star maps, trying to trace ley lines.
Seris paced like a caged wolf.
Lysandria stood watch.
And Alera?
She stared into the flame that refused to die.
The one she lit when Kael died.
The one that never flickered.
Because Kael's soul hadn't moved on.
It was waiting.
That night, a spy was found in the lower ridge.
One of the Sentinels.
Dead.
Clutching a letter written in blood.
Alera opened it with trembling fingers.
It read:
She is not the only one who hears the thrones call.
Some of us answer it willingly.
She called a council at midnight.
No throne. No crown.
Just fire and truth.
"There's rot among us," she said. "Not just in the Bone Court. Here. Now. Someone is helping the enemy."
The Sentinels murmured.
Lysandria nodded. "We purge quietly. But we can't trust everyone anymore."
Alera looked up at the stars.
"Then we stop trusting shadows. We start walking in open fire."
As the council dispersed, Seris remained behind.
"Alera?"
"Yes?"
"I think he's waking up."
Alera stiffened.
"Who?"
"The one who's not the Sovereign. The one beneath him."
Alera's blood went cold.
"You mean?"
Seris nodded.
"The First Flame didn't come from Solara."
"Then from who?"
Seris's eyes glowed again.
And a third voice spoke through her mouth.
"From the Void Queen who birthed the stars."
The fire cracked.
The world tilted.
And Alera understood
They hadn't been fighting the throne.
They'd been fighting its jailer.
And now the real Queen wanted her crown back.