"I trusted you..."
The words were no louder than a gasp, a whisper that seemed to absorb all the light in the surrounding darkness. It was the first sound in the suffocating silence..
"I... trusted you..."
This time, the words were heavier, broken by sobs. Her tears fell, hot against the cold stone beneath her, each drop echoing in the silence. They fell not with anger, but with despair—each one carrying the weight of hopelessness, of a heart undone.
A second whisper followed, heavy and choked.
"I loved you... as my own."
Then came the whisper, raw, final.
"Why?"
Silence.
The silence stretched, thick, unyielding. It pressed into the walls, into the air, into the very bones of the kingdom above. From that silence bled a sound—soft at first, rising in broken sobs, twisting into something unearthly. Her cries warped, a shrill edge piercing through despair, until sorrow gave way to something no chains could bind.
The scream.
It tore free, piercing higher and higher, a screech so sharp even the sirens of the sea cowered and vanished beneath the waves. The sound clawed at the skies, cracking through the kingdom above like thunder.
The kingdom heard it.
Every fairy froze where they stood. Their wings instantly beat and strained, fighting the unseen pressure—a futile, rapid fluttering against the sound. They struggled to correct their posture, their bodies listing and twisting as they fought the sickening, overwhelming weight. The shock was the sudden, devastating silence where their flight should have been.
They dropped a foot, then two, the involuntary fall stunning them. Their muscles failed, and their wings went slack and useless.
Fairies lifted their gaze, their eyes wide with disbelief, only to see hundreds of others staggering, their own desperate movements mirroring the chaos. This wasn't a personal failure; it was a kingdom-wide catastrophe.
Then, one shriek of pure horror tore through the silence. A fairy clawed frantically at their back, their voice dissolving in panic: "My wings! They turned red!"
Horror spread like wildfire. Radiant wings, once shimmering with light, bled crimson. It consumed the straining light of the wing structure, staggering like unstable blinks. Once the light was wholly consumed, the blood saturated the gossamer surface and ran in thick streaks, raining down upon marble floors and mossy roots alike. The sound of droplets striking stone filled the air, a thousand wings weeping blood.
No fairy was spared. Younglings, warriors, healers—each one writhed, their wings heavy with the weight of scarlet. Some clawed at themselves in terror, others collapsed, dragged down by the burden of what their wings had become.
Beyond the kingdom, her voice carried still. Trees groaned and split, their blossoms curling into ash before touching the ground. Rivers frothed and darkened, churning with violent currents. Birds fell mid-flight, their lifeless bodies littering the soil. Beasts fled, insects burrowed deep—nature itself cowered, bowing to the voice that had shattered the stillness.
Then it stopped.
The scream cut away, leaving only silence. A silence so suffocating it bound every heart in dread.
"What... what was that?" a fairy whispered, clutching their bleeding wings.
A royal, cloaked in gold and silver light, staggered forward. Their face drained of color, their voice breaking as truth clawed its way from their throat.
"It... it cannot be..."
And then they heard it.
A laugh.
It slithered through the silence—low, broken, but rising, curling like smoke into the air. A laugh not of joy, but of something haunting, of something torn apart and rebuilt in despair.
Fairies lifted their gaze skyward.
Chains, blackened and ancient, cracked one after another, falling in sparks that lit the shadows. From above, through the shattering bonds, a figure emerged.
Her skin pale as frost. Hair, long and black as midnight, cascading wild around her. Her eyes burned with a glow that was not mortal, not merciful. Prison rags clung to her body, yet around her swirled a mist of shadows, restless and alive.
She hovered above them, her very presence suffocating the air.
Her name fell from trembling lips like a curse.
"Marzanna..."
The Former King's lover.
The witch they had chained.
The witch they thought buried.
And now, she was free.