**Chapter 61 The Crown Wakes Up**
**September 13, 2029 – Blackbird-Coyote Dorm, 3:11 a.m.**
The Crown of Dacia hasn't spoken since the night I first learned the Deep Script from the Gulf itself.
Tonight it burns cold against my temple like it's been waiting for me to be ready.
I sit straight up in bed.
Remy's arm is still around my waist, his breathing slow and warm against my neck.
The dorm is dark except for the soft glow of the living battle-mural and the violet pulse coming from inside my own skull.
A voice made of ancient iron and Carpathian wind unfurls in my mind.
**Crown of Dacia:**
Storm Queen.
Bearer of the Deep Script.
You have worn me in silence long enough.
Your next quest is granted.
The words brand themselves across my vision in molten gold:
**NEW MAIN QUEST UNLOCKED**
**"The Black Sea Remembers"**
Find the drowned capital of the Dacian storm-priests beneath the Black Sea.
Recover the lost Thunder Crown — the true twin of the one you wear.
Only when both crowns beat as one heart will the Deep Script be fully awakened.
Reward: Final evolution of the Storm Queen class.
Failure: The Deep Script forgets how to be spoken. Forever.
My status window blooms open without me asking (first time it's ever done that on its own).
**Name:** Celeste Valentina Morau
**Primary Title:** Storm Queen of the New Sky (Evolved)
**New Title Unlocked:** Deep Script Sovereign
**Level:** 99 → 100 (MAX)
**Class Evolution Available:** Awaits recovery of the Thunder Crown
**Skill Tree Update – Deep Script Branch Fully Unlocked**
- New Ultimate: "Abyssal Canticle" – Speak a line that drowns gods.
- Passive: "Voice of the Gulf" – All bodies of water now obey you instinctively.
I'm still staring when Remy stirs, golden eyes cracking open.
**Remy (sleepy, rough):**
"Crown talking again?"
I'm still not coyote,or wolf. Remy.
Doesn't matter.
You're my Luna, my queen, my heart, my everything.
Titles are just noise.
If you want to get married tomorrow on the half-pipe wearing taco-truck T-shirts, I'm there.
If you want to wait until we're ninety and wrinkled, I'm still there.
I chose you when we were fourteen and dumb.
I'm not changing my mind at a hundred and legendary."
He kisses my temple, right where the crown burns.
**Remy:**
"Say yes whenever you want, storm queen.
I'm already yours."
I exhale a laugh that's half sob and open my crafting interface for the first time in months.
New blueprints have appeared (glowing violet, marked [Deep Script Forged]):
- For Lucian → "Draconic Void-Scale Wingblades" – foldable lightning swords that grow from his wings
- For Remy → "Starlight Coyote Claws" – retractable gauntlets forged from the first star Coyote ever tricked
- For Rowan → "Grimoire of Unwritten Futures" – a living book that rewrites itself to counter any spell thrown at him
- For Nerida Vey → "Singularity Tentacle Sheaths" – armor that turns her tentacles into miniature black holes on command
- For Kayo → "Nine-Tail Mirage Kimono" – fabric woven from illusions and foxfire that lets her become any one of us at will
All of them require materials from the drowned Dacia.
Perfect timing, Crown.
I'm still grinning when Seras's voice drifts from the cloud-bed across the room.
**Seras (half-asleep):**
"Tell the Crown if it wants us to go treasure-hunting under the Black Sea, it better provide snacks."Lucian holding her waist his nose buried in her hair lips on her neck.
Kayo's tails flicking tail appears over the edge of the loft.
**Kayo:**
"Also ask where the hell Riku and Aki disappeared to after the Sky Court fight.
They vanished with some very suspicious oni grins and a crate marked 'emergency sake.'"
Remy snorts.
**Remy:**
"Those two are probably opening an interdimensional bar by now."
I close every window except one line glowing soft and steady:
**Quest accepted.**
I curl back into Remy's arms.
**Celeste (whisper):**
"Black Sea next.
Then maybe… marriage on a half-pipe?"
He smiles against my skin.
**Remy:**
"Only if I get to carry you over the coping."
The crown pulses once (satisfied).
Outside our windows, six skies shift to the deep indigo of the Black Sea at midnight.
Looks like second week of college just got a field trip.
And a proposal deadline.
I can live with that.
**"Emergency Sake"**
**Riku & Aki – September 11, 2029 → present**
The moment the Sky Court surrendered, Riku and Aki looked at each other, nodded once, and vanished with a crate stamped "EMERGENCY SAKE – DO NOT OPEN UNTIL THE WORLD IS SAVED."
They opened it mid-teleport.
Now, somewhere between dimensions (exactly 0.7 seconds outside of normal time), the two oni brothers have opened the most illegal bar in existence.
They call it **Yokai's Last Call**.
It's a floating izakaya built from:
- the wreckage of three Sky Court patrol ships
- the front half of a Shinto shrine that got lost in 1832
- one very confused dragon's hoard (the dragon is now the bouncer and loves the tips)
- and the crate of 300-year-old oni-brewed sake that can make gods cry or start wars, depending on the mood
The sign above the door is written in blood, fire, and very bad kanji:
**"No Sky Court. No Gods. No Tab. Just Drink."**
Current regular patrons:
- A very drunk phoenix who keeps trying to set the bar on fire for the insurance money
- Three exiled valkyries who lost a bet to Kayo in 2018
- The ghost of a samurai who just wants someone to finally beat him at arm-wrestling
- A tentacled bartender from the void who only accepts payment in embarrassing secrets
- And, once a week, Julian Bathory, who teleports in wearing sunglasses at night and orders "whatever makes me forget I have finals"
Riku (red horns, permanent grin, currently shirtless and wearing a "Kiss the Oni" apron) is the muscle and the brewmaster.
Aki (blue horns, quiet, wears librarian glasses even though he's 7'4" and can bench-press a tank) is the accountant, DJ, and the one who actually keeps the place from exploding.
Tonight (or whatever passes for tonight between dimensions), the bar is packed.
Riku slams a sake cup the size of a helmet in front of a weeping storm giant.
**Riku:**
"Drink.
Your ex-wife took the clouds in the divorce.
We've all been there."
Aki is in the corner, quietly teaching a baby kraken how to pour drinks without inking the sake.
The front door (which is literally a torii gate that screams when you step through) suddenly slams open.
A very familiar nine-tailed fox steps in, arms crossed, one eyebrow raised.
**Kayo:**
"You stole my cousins' emergency sake stash and opened a bar in the gap between seconds.
I am both proud and contractually obligated to burn this place down."
Riku grins, already pouring her a cup.
**Riku:**
"Little cousin!
First drink's on the house.
Second drink is on whoever loses at oni poker."
Aki looks up, deadpan.
**Aki:**
"We have a tab for the Blackbird-Coyote pack.
It currently says 'IOU: one apocalypse, slightly used.'
You're good for it."
Kayo sighs, takes the cup, and sits.
**Kayo:**
"Fine.
But when Celeste needs an army of drunk mythological disasters for her Black Sea quest,
you're both coming."
Riku raises his cup.
**Riku:**
"To the Storm Queen and her coyote.
May their wedding have an open bar
and may we be the ones running it."
The entire bar (ghosts, gods, dragons, and one very confused Valkyrie) roars in agreement.
Somewhere in normal time, a clock hiccups.
Riku and Aki's adventure?
It's just getting started.
And the emergency sake is still half full.
**The Black Sea Calls**
**September 14, 2029 – Aerie Academy, dawn**
The Crown of Dacia is screaming.
Not words.
Just pressure behind my eyes, the taste of salt and iron, and the smell of a sea that drowned three thousand years ago.
I'm on the dorm roof before I'm fully awake, barefoot, Hellebore Mist already humming across my back.
The others are right behind me (no one needs to be told when the sky changes its mind).
Above us, the bruised-twilight sky has split open in a perfect vertical line.
Through it I can see the real Black Sea at midnight, black water lit from below by something ancient and angry.
A single line of Deep Script burns across the water, visible even from here:
**COME HOME, DAUGHTER OF STORMS.**
Remy steps up beside me, braids loose in the wind, golden eyes reflecting the underwater glow.
**Remy:**
"Road trip?"
**Celeste:**
"Underwater road trip."
Kayo appears with a duffel bag already packed (snacks, nine-tail swimsuit, and what looks suspiciously like a crate labeled "Emergency Sake – Property of Riku & Aki").
**Kayo (grinning):**
"My cousins are meeting us in Constantinople with a submarine that runs on bad decisions and foxfire.
They owe me."
Rowan adjusts his glasses, grimoire already open to a page titled "How to Breathe Underwater Without Dying (Probably)."
**Rowan:**
"I've calculated a ninety-seven percent chance we find the drowned capital.
And a forty-three percent chance something down there tries to marry Celeste."
Seras cracks her knuckles, armor flickering on like sunrise.
**Seras:**
"Let it try.
I've been meaning to punch an ancient sea god."
Lucian just spreads his wings once, thunder rumbling low.
**Lucian:**
"Dragon lungs work underwater.
I checked."
Nerida Vey rises through the roof like she was always part of the floor, tentacles curling with excitement.
**Nerida:**
"Finally.
A field trip that involves drowning things."
The Crown pulses once (impatient).
I look at my pack (six impossible people who turned the sky itself into an ally).
**Celeste:**
"Pack your boards.
The Black Sea wants its queen.
Let's go remind it who actually rules the deep."
We step off the roof together.
The rift swallows us whole.
Second week of college just became an archaeological dive into the birthplace of storms.
And somewhere beneath the black water, the lost Thunder Crown is waiting.
I can already feel it beating in time with my own heart.
Time to go get what was always mine.
And maybe, just maybe, come back up engaged.
The Question and the Abyss**
September 14, 2029 – Aerie Academy Main Plaza, 6:58 a.m.**
The entire university is already gathered.
Word travels faster than light when the sky itself is gossiping.
Thousands of students, dragons perched on towers, phoenixes circling overhead, even the void itself leaning in to watch.
We're standing on the central titanium half-pipe, the one that survived the Sky Court war, now polished mirror-bright and glowing violet with my lightning.
Remy steps in front of me.
He's wearing his old black tank, braids loose, barefoot on the coping like always.
In his hand is the ring his grandmother Blackwing pressed into his palm the night we left Hot Springs.
Plain silver band.
Coyote track etched around it.
Tiny blackbird in flight on the inside.
He drops to one knee right there on the half-pipe, in front of literally everyone.
The plaza goes dead silent.
Even the wind holds its breath.
**Remy (voice steady, but his hands are shaking):**
"Celeste Valentina Morau.
Storm queen.
My thunder.
My home.
My everything since we were dumb kids stealing kisses under blood moons.
I was gonna wait until we came back up from the Black Sea.
But the sky won't shut up about how you deserve the question asked under open air, not drowned in darkness.
So here it is:
Marry me.
Not because some prophecy says so.
Not because we saved the world.
Because every day I wake up and the first thing I want is you (yesterday, today, ninety years from now, forever).
Say yes, storm queen.
And I'll spend the rest of my life proving I'm worthy of the girl who made the sky kneel."
He opens the box.
The ring catches the dawn and throws coyote-gold fire across the entire plaza.
I can't breathe.
I don't need to.
**Celeste:**
"Yes.
A thousand times yes."
The university explodes.
Dragons roar.
Phoenixes scream into fireworks.
Someone's griffin starts playing wedding music on a keytar.
Remy slides the ring onto my left hand (right beside the stormglass band we forged the night the lake tried to take our truths).
It fits perfectly.
Of course it does.
We kiss like the world is ending and beginning at the same time.
Lightning forks overhead in the shape of a heart.
When we finally break apart, the entire student body is chanting our names.
Remy grins against my mouth.
**Remy (whisper):**
"Now let's go get your second crown, fiancée."
**Celeste (laughing through happy tears):**
"Race you to the bottom of the sea, husband-to-be."
We turn, hand in hand, boards under our arms, and step straight into the waiting rift.
**Cut to: 300 feet beneath the Black Sea – 8:12 a.m.**
Riku and Aki's submarine is exactly what you'd expect from two drunk oni with unlimited budget and no adult supervision.
It's shaped like a giant red torii gate with rocket boosters, portholes made of sake bottles, and a periscope that plays J-pop when you look through it.
Inside: plush coyote-print seats, a karaoke machine already warming up, and a fridge labeled "Wedding Sake – Touch and Die."
Riku is at the helm wearing heart-shaped sunglasses.
Aki is co-piloting in a tuxedo T-shirt that reads "Best Oni."
The rest of us are strapped in, boards magnet-locked to the walls, rings catching the sub's running lights every time we move.
Kayo raises a bottle.
**Kayo:**
"To the newly engaged storm queen and her coyote.
May your marriage be half as chaotic as this submarine
and twice as eternal."
We all drink (even Rowan, who immediately coughs and turns red).
The submarine dives deeper.
Pressure gauges scream.
Outside the windows, the water turns from black to impossible violet.
Ancient ruins rise around us (columns carved with Deep Script, statues of storm-priests wearing crowns that match mine).
Something massive moves in the dark (too big to see all at once).
The Thunder Crown is down here.
And it just woke up.
Remy squeezes my hand, ring to ring.
**Remy:**
**Remy (soft, deadly serious):**
"Whatever's waiting down there…
we face it married or not married,
alive or legend.
But I'd rather do it wearing your yes."
I lean my forehead against his.
**Celeste:**
"Then let's go steal a crown
and come back up husband and wife."
The submarine shudders.
The drowned capital opens its gates.
And the Black Sea parts for its queen and the coyote who finally put a ring on it.
Here comes the wedding.
Here comes the war.
Here comes forever.
We dive.