The Crown Awakens
The crypt's silence was thick enough to hear her heart break.
Althea stared at the crown forged of light and blood, pulsing with her name.
It didn't belong to her. It was her.
When her fingers brushed its edge, whispers filled the chamber.
Voices male, female, divine, damned.
Old gods and new.
"The world bends to the one who remembers," they said.
"And you, Althea, remember everything."
Nyra stood behind her, pale as frost, eyes glowing faintly silver.
"They're afraid of you," the girl whispered.
"You were never meant to be mortal."
"I was meant to be human," Althea said softly. "That's the curse."
But when she lifted the crown, the air shimmered.
The weirwood roots coiled like veins of light around the chamber.
The dead kings stirred in their tombs not in fear, but in reverence.
Job found her there, and for a moment he couldn't speak.
"What have you done?"
"Nothing yet," she said. "But soon, everything."
The Lion's Resurrection
In the dungeons beneath the Red Keep, the priestess of the Faith Eternal drew a circle of molten gold.
Around her, candles burned crimson each wick dipped in royal blood.
Before her lay a single object: a cracked goblet once held by Cersei Lannister.
> "Fire for pride," she whispered.
"Blood for memory."
"Crown for vengeance."
A thousand rats scurried from the walls as the air rippled and the reflection of a golden crown shimmered in the blood.
Behind her, a shadow took form faint, then sharp, then living.
Lily's voice filled the room.
"They thought they could erase me."
"My queen," the priestess whispered, weeping.
"There are no queens," lily said. "Only survivors."
Her reflection stepped forward from the mirror, made of light and hate.
A being not of flesh, but of fury half-spirit, half-fire.
"Tell me of the North," she said.
"Tell me of the witch who calls herself queen."
The Gathering Storm
In Winterfell's courtyard, Job called the banners.
House Mormont, House Umber, House Reed all gathered under gray skies.
The northern ravens brought word of southern unrest.
Priests in red and gold were calling themselves the "Sons of the Lion."
And worse people swore they'd seen a woman of fire walking the halls of the Red Keep.
"Lily's ghost," Davos said grimly. "And you know what they say ghosts only come back for vengeance."
Job looked to Althea. "We can't fight the dead."
"Then we'll outlive them," she said coldly. "Or burn trying."
But her voice faltered as the crown in her hand pulsed again like a heart connected to something south.
The Mirror of Flames
That night, Althea stood before a basin of still water.
The surface shimmered and another woman's reflection stared back.
Blonde. Beautiful. Smiling.
Lily.
"So this is what replaced me," the reflection said. "A witch dressed as a queen."
"You're not real," Althea whispered.
"Neither are gods," Lily replied. "But they rule just the same."
The basin cracked and the reflection turned into flame.
For one heartbeat, the fire shaped itself into a golden crown, burning atop Lily's shadowed head.
"You can't hold both light and love," the shadow hissed. "One will devour you."
Then the water went black.
The Child and the Crown
At dawn, Nyra wandered into the godswood, barefoot on frost.
The weirwood's face seemed to move, watching her.
"She's coming," Nyra whispered to the tree. "The Lion Queen."
The branches creaked in reply.
"And what will you do, little dawn?"
"I'll shine," the child said simply. "Even if it blinds them."
The wind carried her words across Winterfell, across the snowfields, across the very Wall all the way south, where flames rose in the Red Keep.
Fire Answers Ice
Cersei stood upon the battlements of her broken city her form wreathed in flame, half-human, half-spirit.
In her hand, she held a crown of gold fire.
Far to the north, Althea placed her silver crown upon her head.
For the first time, two queens wore their destinies at once one of light, one of lies.
The world trembled.
The sky split in half one side dawn, one side dusk.
And through that rift, the old gods whispered:
"The war has begun."