The rain hadn't stopped for three days. It wasn't the gentle, poetic kind that made for good songs. This was a spiteful, icy drizzle that soaked through the thick black wool of Elaris's dress and made it smell like a wet dog. A fitting smell, she thought, for a day where she felt like a cornered animal.
She stood at the edge of the royal crypt, staring down at the ornate casket that held her father. King Osric. The man who could silence a roaring court with a single, flat look. Now silenced himself by a fever that had burned him out in a week. The only sounds were the drip of water from the crypt entrance and the shifting of feet on wet stone.
"A tragic loss for all of Caelthorne," a voice murmured beside her, too smooth, too practiced. It was Finn, her youngest brother. He offered a pristine white handkerchief he knew she wouldn't take. His eyes were dry and bright with calculation. He said the words like he was reciting a line from a play he'd seen too many times. "The weight of a kingdom is a heavy thing. Are you certain your… fragile shoulders can bear it?"
My shoulders are the only ones here not shaking from greed, she thought, the words a bitter tang in her mouth. She kept her voice flat, a dull blade. "They'll have to."
"Will they?" Finn's smile was a thin, sharp line. His voice dropped, becoming a confidential whisper that felt like a spider crawling on her neck. "I'm not the one who looked ready to vomit through the entire coronation. A bit of green around the gills doesn't inspire confidence in the new monarch."
She had been. The crown—a stupid, cold circle of iron and sapphire—was already a vice around her temples, a physical weight promising a thousand heavier ones to come.
"Leave her alone." The low growl came from her other side. Rylan, the middle brother, stood with his brawny arms crossed, his gaze fixed on the casket, not them. His grief seemed genuine, a storm cloud over his usual fiery intensity. He bit the words out, each one clipped and hard. "This isn't the time for your games."
"Everything is a game, brother," Finn said, his voice light and poisonous. He didn't bother to lower his voice, letting it carry in the hushed space. "You just refuse to learn the rules."
"The only rule today is respect," a new voice cut in, cold and sharp as a honed sword. Darius, the eldest, joined their miserable little circle, his posture perfect, his grief looking as stiff and newly pressed as his tunic. He spoke with absolute authority, as if already practicing for his own coronation. "A concept you both seem to lack. This is a funeral. Not your personal theater."
"Says the man who's been practicing his 'regal nod' in the mirror since he was twelve," Rylan muttered under his breath, just for her.
Elaris tuned them out. Their bickering was a familiar, ugly blanket. It was easier to focus on that than the yawning hole in the ground. Her father's last words were a drumbeat in her skull, drowning out their squabbling.
"The throne… it doesn't guide you, Elaris. It consumes you. It's not a seat. It's a digestive organ. Promise me… promise me you will not sit—"
The High Priest's final chant cut the memory short. It was done. The dirt would soon swallow her father whole.
The court began to drift away, a slow flood of black silk and murmured lies back to the palace. Back to the throne room. Her stomach clenched into a knot of cold iron.
The walk back was a nightmare through a gauntlet of whispers. They started before they'd even left the crypt path.
"...so young," an old baroness whispered behind her fan to her companion, a man with a face like a pinched purse. "No presence at all. Looks like a strong wind would knock her over. Where's the Caelthorne strength?"
"Osric was a fool to name her heir," the man hissed back, not quietly enough. "Sentimentality over sense. Darius has the bearing, the training. This… this is a mistake waiting to happen. My investments can't afford a mistake."
I'm right here, she screamed in her head, her nails digging into her palms. My father is not even in the ground and you're counting your future coins over his coffin.
"They say she fainted during the oath-taking," a younger woman gossiped, her voice carrying easily in the damp air.
"Nerves," sniffed another, a lady-in-waiting Elaris recognized from her mother's retinue. "Or her monthlies. Unfit. The throne requires iron, not… well, not that."
Unfit. Weak. A mistake. The words were arrows, and each one found its mark. She kept her chin up, her eyes forward, imagining a steel rod strapped to her spine. But inside, she was crumbling, each whisper another shovelful of dirt on her confidence.
Darius fell into step beside her. "Come, Your Majesty," he said, the title sounding like a freshly sharpened insult. "The court awaits your… leadership." He offered his arm, a gesture of protocol, not kindness.
She looked at his offered elbow, at the fine embroidery on his sleeve. It was a threat. Taking it would be a show of submission. She turned and walked alone, feeling his cold gaze on her back like a winter draft.
The Great Hall was a den of wolves, and she was the fresh meat. A hundred pairs of eyes watched her enter, and not a single look was kind. They were hungry, judging, bored. They'd seen kings come and go. She was just the next spectacle.
And at the end of the endless blue carpet, it waited.
The Throne of Echoes.
It was an ugly, beautiful predator carved from a single block of obsidian that seemed to suck the light and warmth from the room. Silver veins, like frozen lightning or old scars, ran through it. She'd never liked it. Even as a child, hiding behind the tapestries during court, it had felt less like a chair and more like a sleeping dragon, its power a palpable hum in the air.
Don't sit. Promise me. Her father's voice was a ghost in her ear.
I have to. If I don't, they win. Darius will have the crown by week's end. Rylan will burn the system to the ground. Finn will poison whatever's left. They'll tear this family apart and pick the kingdom clean.
Her legs were trembling, feeling like overstretched lute strings. She could feel the cold sweat beading at her hairline, tracing a path down her neck. The walk to the dais felt miles long. Every step echoed too loud in the suddenly quiet hall.
"By the gods, she's pale as a ghost," someone muttered from the crowd, a stage whisper meant to be heard.
"Looks like she's going to be sick right on the royal dais. That'd be a first day for the history books."
"Perhaps Prince Darius will be coronated by week's end. A swift, necessary correction. For the stability of the realm, of course."
Shut up. All of you, just shut up!
She reached the dais. The air felt colder here, thick and heavy. She could see the details in the throne now—the twisted faces in the stone, frozen in silent screams, the coiled shape of dragons whose eyes seemed to follow her, the carved petals of lilies that looked like sharp, pointed fangs.
Just do it. Get it over with. It's just a chair. It's just a stupid, cold, ugly chair.
She took a shuddering breath that hitched in her chest, and sat down.
The stone was so cold it felt like it burned through her dress, a shock that stole her breath. She gripped the armrests, her knuckles white, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird trying to beat its way to freedom. For one second, there was nothing. Just the shocking cold and the weight of a hundred greedy stares.
Then.
It wasn't a sound. It was a pressure. A fist inside her skull, clenching tight.
A roar of metal and men dying. The wet, sucking sound of a blade sliding between ribs. A desperate, gasping plea in a language she didn't know. A woman's laugh, high and unhinged. The cloying scent of roses and blood.
"—weakling, the blood is thin, it will never hold—"
"—should have been the eldest boy, tradition exists for a reason—"
"—let me in, let me show you how to make them fear you, it's the only language they understand—"
Voices. Dead voices. Dozens of them. Hundreds. Overlapping, screaming, whispering, arguing. They were inside her. They were her. Panic, pure and animal, ripped through her veins. She couldn't breathe. She was drowning in a sea of dead kings, their memories, their ambitions, their madness flooding into her.
Then, two voices sliced through the storm, clear and horrifying.
One was cold iron and absolute command, a voice that tasted like a bloodied sword and smelled like static before a storm:"The Caelthorne line continues. The vessel is… acceptable. You will obey."
It was answered by another. Softer. Warmer. A voice of silk and shadow that wrapped around her terror and tried to soothe it. "Ignore him, my dear. He's all bluster and old anger. You're safe now. I am here. I will never leave you alone."
It was the voice of a mother she'd never had. And it was coming from inside the throne.
Animal terror tore through her. She shoved herself backward, scrambling away from the thing, kicking out as if it were a physical attacker. Her heel caught on the top step of the dais and she fell, landing hard on the unforgiving marble with a grunt of pain. The crown flew from her head, clattering and spinning across the floor with a sound like shattering glass.
She lay there on her back, gasping, the world spinning above her, the painted faces of her ancestors on the ceiling swirling into a blur of judgmental colors.
The hall was utterly, deathly silent.
And then the whispers started again, not in her mind, but all around her, bubbling up from the stunned crowd.
"Mad," someone breathed, the word echoing in the vast, quiet space. "Just like the old king.Theron.""I told you.The madness skips a generation." "Unfit."
Elaris pushed herself up on her elbows, humiliation burning her cheeks hotter than any fever. Her dress was askew, her hair a mess, her breath still coming in ragged pants. She met the eyes of her people—wide with shock, some with pity, too many with grim satisfaction.
And in the very back of her mind, underneath the roaring in her ears and the cruel, real whispers of the court, she could still hear it.
The faint, fading echo of a woman's voice, soothing her.
"Poor sweet child. Look what they've done to you. Look how they mock your pain. Don't worry. We'll make them pay. I will make them all pay."
She was not alone. She was haunted.
And as she knelt there on the cold floor, utterly humiliated and terrified, a tiny, shameful part of her—the part that was so desperately alone—thought, Good.