A week after the boy's disappearance, the Order of the Pale Eye was summoned to the Glass Palace, the highest point in Elowen — a place that shimmered even under the thickest mist.
Its walls were not stone, but silvered glass, etched with symbols that caught the moonlight like veins of fire.
At the center of it all sat Queen Marwen, ruler of Elowen — not old, but ancient in her gaze, her beauty edged with grief and wisdom.
When Don Mario and his companions entered, she did not rise.
She only turned her face toward them, her voice low and deliberate.
"You have seen the signs," she said.
"The river's ash. The tiny ones crawling. The whispers in the dark."
Don Mario bowed slightly.
"We have, Your Grace. We came to warn you that the walls are weakening. The Ants have returned."
"Returned?" she murmured. "They were never gone. Only sleeping beneath our feet."
Her eyes — gray and mirror-bright — studied him carefully.
"Do you know why they come first?"
"No, Your Grace," Mario admitted.
"Because they are the messengers," she said softly.
"The hands of something greater."
Queen Marwen rose slowly. Her gown rippled like smoke as she walked toward a grand mural carved into the wall — a vast depiction of fire, darkness, and war.
She lifted her hand toward it.
"Long before my father's time, the world bled once before."
The chamber dimmed. The torches flickered as if bowing to her words.
"The Underworld rose. Its Queen — the Mother of Shadows — sent her armies through cracks in the earth. Beasts, demons, and the Ants — her scouts — devoured everything that breathed and caused the heavens to disappear."
Velra's lips moved silently, repeating an old prayer.
"But the ancients discovered something," Marwen continued.
"They could not kill her. They could not even banish her. Death has no meaning to the timeless."
"Then how did they stop her?" Mario asked.
The Queen turned slowly, her gaze sharp.
"They found one of their own. A beast of blood and sorrow — half human, half shadow. And they sent him to her not as a warrior… but as a lover."
Silence fell.
"He made her heart forget its hatred," Marwen said. "He kissed her and chained her with her own affection. Only then did she sleep. And when she slept, the world was quiet again
Mario frowned.
"That is a tale for children."
"No," Marwen said. "It is prophecy. My father told it to me the night he died."
She walked closer, lowering her voice.
"Each age brings its own gate. Each gate, its own beast. When the seal weakens, the Underworld searches for the one who carries their blood — a half-being between death and life. Only he can bind the Queen again."
Ruen looked up, pale.
"Then you believe the Beast walks among us?"
Marwen smiled faintly, the kind of smile that holds fear behind it.
"He always does."
The hall went silent. The sound of the rain tapping the glass echoed like a heartbeat.
Velra stepped forward.
"But if he exists, how will we know him?"
"You will not," Marwen answered. "He will come disguised — as beauty, as sorrow, as hunger. He may save you… or doom you."
She turned to the window where the mist crawled up from the valley like white fire.
"Tell your Order, Don Mario: prepare your relics and prayers if you wish. But no human blade, no holy chant, will end what stirs beneath the soil. If the Queen rises again, it will not be faith that stops her."
She turned, her voice falling to a whisper.
"It will be love."
The Order stood silent, shaken.
Don Mario bowed once more, his old hand trembling slightly around his serpent cane.
"Your Grace," he said, "if the beast must come, then I pray he chooses the right side."
"He won't choose," Marwen replied softly. "Beasts never do. They are chosen — by fate, by hunger, by guilt."
Her gaze drifted toward the window again. Outside, lightning rolled across the mist.
"And when he comes," she said, "you must be ready to lose everything to use him."
Don Mario's eye narrowed.
"Use him?"
"Would you rather the world burn?"
When the Order left the Glass Palace, the air outside had grown colder.
Velra clutched her rosary tightly.
"She spoke as if she knew him," Ruen whispered.
Mario did not answer. His mind was elsewhere — on the story, on the prophecy, and on the faint whisper of something he had seen in his youth — a shadow with eyes of gold that should have died but didn't.
"If the beast truly walks among us," he said quietly, "then Elowen is already damned."
From far below the city, deep beneath the chapel stones, something moved.
A faint, rhythmic sound — like the beating of a heart long buried — echoed through the cracks.
And somewhere not far away, Ochar awoke from a dream of a woman's voice whispering:
"they would come for you but don't trust them trust your reflection."
seer
could my reflection speak