The Bleeding Hills had always been cursed.
Even before Kaelin raised her throne of bones.
Even before Venra's ashes had tainted the air with echoes of the past.
But now—something ancient had awakened.
And it was hungry.
Beneath the soil, far below Kaelin's feet, a great heartbeat began to pulse—slow, deep, and impossible.
Thump…
Thump…
The skeletal dragon curled near Kaelin's tower lifted its head. Its empty sockets narrowed as it sensed something older than death. Even the undead guards along the bone walls shifted uneasily, their bodies twitching as if summoned by a force even Kaelin didn't command.
Inside the throne room, Kaelin stirred from her trance.
She'd been meditating—no, merging—her soul threading deeper into the forbidden arts, drawing from the cursed roots beneath the hills. But something was pulling her now.
And it wasn't her magic.
It wasn't Venra either.
This felt… different.
Colder.
A whisper tickled her mind. Not words—images.
An eye. Buried. Shut.
A hand, the size of a cathedral. Clawed.
And beneath it all, a name she couldn't understand—yet felt branded on her bones.
Kaelin blinked, chest rising sharply.
She wasn't alone in this power.
Back in Elaros, Mira stood in the ancient library, deep underground where the scrolls no longer carried titles—only warnings.
Serya lit the last torch. "You sure you want to do this?"
Mira nodded. "We're fighting something we don't understand. Kaelin may be lost, but if there's a path to reach her, it's through knowledge. Or…"
"Or what?"
"Or through the truth we've been avoiding."
Mira ran her fingers along the spines of ancient tomes—books that the Council had sealed off after the last war. She paused before a crumbling one bound in red leather.
It had no title.
Only a symbol burned into its cover.
A crowned skull with eyes of flame.
She opened it.
Dust spilled out, and pages fluttered with a hiss—as if exhaling after centuries of silence.
The first line:
"When the Black Crown is claimed, the Deep One stirs."
Mira froze.
The Deep One?
Serya leaned closer. "What the hell is that?"
Mira's mouth went dry. "Not a person. Not a demon. Not even magic."
She flipped pages, scanning quickly.
The texts told of an entity older than time, buried beneath the hills before kingdoms were born. A thing that fed on fear, magic, and memories. It didn't kill. It unwrote.
The last passage was scrawled in blood:
"If the Queen of Bones rises, the Queen of Black Magic must fall… or all shall be forgotten in its maw."
Mira shut the book.
Her heart thundered in her chest.
Kaelin hadn't just opened a portal to power.
She'd unsealed a gate.
And they were all standing at the edge of it.
Kaelin walked barefoot into the lower catacombs of her tower, drawn by the growing rhythm underground. Her gown dragged behind her like spilled ink.
As she passed, bones rattled and walls trembled. The undead bowed their heads, as if something else now wore the crown.
She reached the ritual chamber.
The floor had cracked open in a jagged spiral.
Black smoke coiled upward—not from fire, but from something deeper. Inside the spiral was a hole… and a pulse.
She knelt at the edge, peering into the void.
A single whisper slipped up through the pit, curling around her ear like smoke:
"Come… daughter of ruin…"
Kaelin staggered back.
That wasn't Venra.
That wasn't Mira.
That… wasn't anything human.
She turned to leave—but the door slammed shut.
The walls bled shadow.
And for the first time since her transformation, Kaelin felt fear.
The thing beneath the hills had seen her.
And it approved.
Three days later, the skies over Elaros darkened—not with storm clouds, but with something thicker. A swarm of crows spiraled above the citadel. They did not cry. They simply circled, as if waiting.
Mira stood on the balcony of the eastern tower, eyes scanning the horizon.
The hills no longer bled.
They shuddered.
She could feel the magic shifting. Raw, unstable. Something had changed in Kaelin. Her power was no longer chaotic—it was focused.
And that terrified her more than anything else.
Serya arrived, panting. "The scouts—"
"I know," Mira said quietly.
Serya hesitated. "We've lost contact with the southern village. No sign of battle. No blood. Just… emptiness."
"Wiped away," Mira whispered. "Like it never existed."
Serya's eyes widened. "You think she—?"
"No. This wasn't her. This was it. The Deep One."
"But how do we stop something we can't even see?"
Mira looked at her hands.
Then at the crown resting on the stone table.
"We crown ourselves with what we fear," she murmured. "And that becomes the price."
She reached for the black crown and placed it on her head.
This time, it didn't resist.
It melded to her.
And in that moment—she heard the same voice Kaelin had.
Not in words.
In a hum.
Like the world was holding its breath.
That night, Mira had a dream.
She stood on a battlefield made of shattered mirrors. Every step she took cracked reality further.
Across from her stood Kaelin—cloaked in black, face half-hidden, one hand raised in warning.
But between them… was it.
A towering mass of shadow and hunger, shifting without shape or form.
It spoke through memory—pulling thoughts from Mira's past.
Her mother's voice.
The sound of Kaelin's laughter.
The whisper of Venra before her fall.
All of it twisted. Corrupted. Eaten.
The creature turned toward her.
And smiled with no mouth.
"You crowned yourself… now kneel."
Mira woke gasping, her sheets soaked, heart racing.
But even as the terror faded—her resolve hardened.
The time for waiting was over.
She would confront Kaelin again.
Not as a sister.
Not as a queen.
But as a woman standing between the end of the world—and whatever thread of light was left in it.
The next morning, Mira summoned the High Council and declared her plan.
"I'm going into the Bleeding Hills."
Elder Lysen protested immediately. "Alone? It's suicide!"
"I'm not going to fight her," Mira replied. "I'm going to talk to her. Find the core of who she was."
"And if there's no core left?"
"Then I'll face the thing she's become."
Serya touched her arm. "If you go, I go."
Mira smiled faintly. "I need you here. To lead. In case I don't return."
Serya's eyes narrowed. "You always say that. Then you always return."
"This time feels different."
"I know," Serya said. "That's why you won't go alone."
That evening, as the sun died behind the hills, Mira mounted her horse and rode alone through the borderlands—toward the pulsing heart of darkness.
The land cracked beneath her.
The skies whispered her name.
And far ahead, the bone towers loomed.
Not lifeless.
Not silent.
But watching.
Waiting.
Because the Queen of Black Magic was coming.
And so was the end.