She didn't remember falling asleep.
And yet, when her eyes opened… she was somewhere else. No ash. No ruined towers.
Just darkness pure, velvet black stretching in all directions like a quiet ocean. Except she wasn't floating.nShe was sinking. Downward. Slowly. Gently. Like her body weighed nothing, and the void was made of breath.
The silence here wasn't the same as Nightbound's choking hush. This silence was... expectant. Like something was listening. Seren's mark glowed softly on her arm, pulsing like a faint heartbeat.
Silver again, not iron. Smooth, stable.
For now.
"Candidate accepted."
The voice was different this time. Not the system. Not the parasites. Older.
Female.
Almost… regal. "You have bound two. You have bled. You have begun." Seren tried to speak but her lips wouldn't move. Her voice didn't exist in this place. "What has been broken can only be reclaimed in fragments. But the chain remembers its Queen."
The darkness rippled.nBeneath her feet or what she thought were her feet something formed. Stone. Carved stone. A platform of spiraling obsidian began blooming beneath her like a flower, layer by layer, until she was standing upon a circular disk floating in the dark. And at its center...A throne.
Black as pitch. Bone-carved.
Simple in design, yet impossibly heavy like it carried memories instead of weight. She stepped closer without meaning to. Each motion silent. Smooth. The moment her hand brushed the armrest, her head snapped back.
Pain.Light.Memory.
She was somewhere else again.
Not herself. Not this body.
She stood in a hall of mirrors, lined with dozens of Nightmares bound in chains, bowing to a woman whose face shimmered like the moon. A true Queen. Not Seren.
But someone else. Someone ancient. And on her forehead, burned into skin like a crown of fire, was the same sigil Seren now bore on her arm."She was the first."
"You are the last."
"The throne below awaits."
Seren gasped as she snapped back into her own body knees hitting the stone, breath caught halfway in her lungs. Her mark burned. Not with pain. With memory.
"Awakening Trigger: Crown Fragment Recovered."
"Royal Protocol: 4.7% Activated."
"Location: Between."
The platform beneath her cracked. Silver veins split across the stone, glowing brighter with each second. Seren didn't run. She couldn't. She didn't know where to go. The throne pulsed once more not with threat, but with invitation. And somewhere far above, through layers of shadow and silence, the Black Bell tolled again.
But this time, it wasn't alone. Another bell answered it. Lower. Older. Deeper.
Her fingers hovered inches above the armrest. The black stone throne didn't shimmer, didn't glow, didn't pulse. It just waited. Like it knew it was hers. Like it had been waiting long before Seren was ever born. The silence around her thickened not threatening, but sacred. Seren's throat tightened. She couldn't explain why her hand was shaking. Not from fear. But from something deeper. Recognition.
"Touch it," the voice whispered not from the throne, not from the air, but from within.
"Or turn away and stay nothing."
Her breath hitched. She reached out…And the moment her palm met the cold surface of the armrest Her mind exploded.
She wasn't Seren anymore. She was everywhere. She was her the first one, the true one, the Queen before queens. And the world wasn't Nightbound. It was fire. And stars. And screaming chains of memory falling through time. She stood at the edge of a realm made of thought, and watched armies of nightmares kneel before her not from fear, but from blood-oath.
Her crown wasn't forged it was grown from her bones. Her voice shattered dream-doors. Her enemies were dreamlords and they called her by one name: "The Monarch Below."
Seren gasped as the vision snapped. She was back in her body. On her knees. Hand still on the throne. But something was different.
Her veins burned. Her mark bled light not silver now, but faint violet, like old royalty faded but not forgotten. And in the center of the throne's backrest… a symbol glowed to life. Her mark. Only larger. Ancient. Full.
🩸 [SYSTEM NOTICE: ROYAL PROTOCOL — 17.4%]
°Throne Resonance Detected
°Memory Sigil Fragment: Acquired
°Lineage Confirmation: Partial
°Blood Trace: Monarch-Adjacent
Seren's head swam. Monarch-Adjacent. Not queen. Not direct heir. But not… ordinary either. She tried to rise, but the throne gripped her. Not physically. Psychically. It wanted to show her something.
The platform began sinking. Stone vanished into void. And beneath it far, far below something massive gleamed.A structure.
A city made of bones, roots, obsidian veins and glowing sigils.
She saw a vast arena, ringed by thrones.
Each throne shattered…
…except one. The one in the center. Still intact. Still pulsing.
And around it… Figures moved. Cloaked in dream-fog. Taller than men. Eyes like broken moons. Seren couldn't look directly at them. Her vision rippled. "Dreamlords."
The word wasn't hers. It came from the throne. "They remember the Queen. They remember what they took."
"You sit where she once stood. But thrones demand more than blood."
"They demand proof."
Suddenly the air snapped. Pain slammed through her chest. Her second bound nightmare screamed inside her a raw, defiant howl. Her sanity meter spiked.
⚠️ Mental Corruption: 18.2%
⚠️ Sync Stability: Threatened – Slot Two Reacting Violently
Seren fell forward, one hand clutching her chest. The throne's glow dimmed. The vision ended. The void began cracking apart like shattered glass. Fractures of light cut the sky.
The world collapsed inward And just before it vanished, she heard one sentence. Not from the throne. Not from the Dreamlords.
From the one who ruled before her. "Daughters bleed in silence. Queens bleed in storms."
Seren's eyes snapped open. But she didn't gasp. Didn't cry. Didn't scream. She just... blinked. The world around her was once again Nightbound dead streets, cracked buildings, and that metallic sky humming faintly above. But something was wrong. Not around her. Inside.
Her breathing was too calm. Her fingers too steady. Her heart wasn't racing. It was... slow. Measured. Like it wasn't entirely hers anymore. She stood up carefully. The throne was gone.
No sign of the void. No echo of the Queen's voice. Just a dull pressure in her chest like a memory she couldn't quite reach. But the mark on her arm pulsed. Stronger than before. Steady now. Regal. And when she looked at her shadow…it bowed.
🩸 [SYSTEM ALERT: ROYAL PROTOCOL ACTIVE – 21.3%]
°Throne Memory Embedded
°Lineage: Partial Sync Stabilized
°Dream Court Status: Observing
°Crown Protocol: Passive Mode – Awaiting Trigger
Warning: Corruption Increasing due to Emotional Suppression
Seren exhaled slowly. "Still climbing?" she whispered.
⚠️ Mental Corruption: 19.9%
Almost 20. Almost... cracking point. A voice stirred inside her. Not the system. Not a nightmare.
Hers. But not from now. From the past. A memory surfaced like a bruise beneath the skin something sharp and small.
She was younger. Much younger.
Maybe seven. Alone. Running barefoot through a hallway. Holding something a broken pendant, cracked glass dripping with a red glow. Someone chased her. A woman's voice screaming her name. "Seren! Stop! That's not yours!"
She turned a corner. Slipped.
The pendant shattered in her hands. And for one breathless second, she saw something behind the mirror on the wall Not herself.
Another girl. Older.
Wearing a crown made of thorns and light. And she whispered: "I was the first. You will be the last."
Seren staggered. The flash vanished. Her hand clutched her chest, not in pain in disbelief. "That… happened. That wasn't a dream."
The system responded immediately.
"Memory Lock #047: Unsealed."
"Bloodline Trait – Unstable Echo – activated."
She laughed once. Dry. Hollow.
"All this time," she whispered. "This thing was waiting for me to remember."
The wind around her shifted. Shadows in the alleyways moved. Something out there had felt it her shift, her change. "Dreamlords are aware. Watching. Measuring."
"Your next bind… will determine allegiance."
Allegiance? She shook her head. "I don't serve. Not them. Not anyone." But even as she said it… her voice trembled. Because now… she wasn't sure who was listening.
And deep inside her skin beneath blood, beneath the bindings, beneath the throne's mark. One more whisper returned. "Daughters bleed in silence. Queens bleed in storms."