The Hollow Mountains had fallen.
It took less than three nights.
Liora's army swept through the smoldering underbelly of the dwarven stronghold like a plague wrapped in bone and fire. The fire serpents—once considered living gods—were torn apart by bone dragons and bound into servitude. Their molten blood now ran through necrotic forges, fueling weapons no mortal had ever wielded. The Deepforge was silent. Its once-golden halls now echoed with the march of the dead.
From a throne of fused dragonbone and dwarven gold, Liora gazed out across her new domain. She no longer felt awe when conquering. Only emptiness, like each victory carved away another piece of who she used to be. Yet she didn't stop. She couldn't.
A bone-dragon landed on the balcony with a seismic thud, its skeletal wings folding as a rider dismounted. Not one of hers.
Liora stood instantly.
The rider removed their helm—an obsidian circlet with sharp horns—revealing a gaunt, pale face marked with sigils of death magic. His eyes glowed a sickly violet.
"You are trespassing," Liora said, her tone quiet but venom-laced.
"I come not as foe, but as kin," the man said, offering a slow, theatrical bow. "I am Ralorin the Pale, Warden of the Hollow Paths. First among the Undying Court. We watched your rise with fascination... and concern."
Liora did not sit. "Speak quickly."
Ralorin smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "There are rules, Bone Queen. You've broken them."
"I make my own."
"There are powers older than us. Sanctions placed on necromancers who grow too bold. You've raised dragons, broken blood-oaths, seized sacred cities. The balance is shifting."
"Good," she said. "Let it shift until it shatters."
Ralorin's grin faltered. "Then you leave us no choice. We will test your claim to power. If you survive... the Court may bow."
"And if I don't?"
"You'll be returned to the soil."
She tilted her head. "Send your best."
He raised two fingers to his mouth and whistled.
The walls shook. A great roar followed. From the skies descended a terrifying fusion of life and undeath—a twin-headed bone wyvern carrying a knight wrapped in violet flame. One head wept ash. The other breathed silence.
Ralorin stepped back into the shadows and vanished, leaving only a parting whisper:
"Let the Trial of Bone and Flame begin."
The knight dismounted midair, armor clanking like funeral bells. Liora stepped forward, conjuring her staff. The shadows around her deepened, responding to her fury.
They clashed midair above the Hollow Mountains.
Magic collided in bolts of green and purple, screaming across the battlefield. Liora commanded a storm of spears from the earth, twisted from molten bones and soul-iron. The knight blocked them with runes carved into the air. They moved like lightning, faster than most mortals could see.
She snarled and summoned her corrupted war-beast from the depths. The knight called upon soulfire to split it in half with one devastating swing. It shrieked and collapsed into ash.
But Liora was already behind him.
She drove her staff into the knight's back, and it screamed—not from pain, but from the souls she injected into its core. They clawed and ripped from within, dragging the knight down.
The wyvern roared in protest and dove.
Liora turned, catching it with both hands. She muttered an ancient incantation, and the creature froze midair, its bones splintering under her control. She forced it to the ground, then shattered it with a final, whispered word.
The battlefield fell silent.
Only she stood.
Ralorin's voice echoed from nowhere and everywhere. "You have passed."
Liora spat on the ground. "Your court is dead to me."
"Then you will face us all."
That night, the stars flickered like dying candles.
Liora returned to her private chambers, where a fragment of Kael's old journal sat untouched on a stone pedestal. She hadn't read it in weeks. Not since his death.
She told herself it didn't matter. That Kael's betrayal—his lies—deserved to rot with his corpse.
But something pulled her toward it now.
She opened it.
Most pages were filled with half-written spells, theories of resurrection, and dreams of empire.
But one page—one she'd never seen before—was hidden behind an illusionary rune.
She blinked, and it revealed itself.
"To whoever finds this: My name is not Kael Dareth. That was never my name."
Liora's breath caught in her throat.
"I was sent by the Obsidian Order, long before I met Liora. My task was to observe her rise… and if necessary, stop it. I failed. But I never expected to care. I never expected to love her. My death is deserved. But if she ever reads this... I beg her to understand: She was always meant to be more than this. And the gods—those cruel, ancient bastards—are lying to her."
Liora staggered back, the journal falling from her hands.
Everything—every memory, every moment—was unraveling.
She clenched her fists, her nails digging into her palms until blood dripped onto the floor.
"I'll burn them all," she whispered. "Even the gods."
And far above her, hidden in the Astral Veil, the divine turned their gaze toward her at last.
Cliffhanger:Deep within the Abyssal Sea, a forgotten goddess awakens. Her eyes open for the first time in millennia, and she whispers Liora's true name—a name even Liora has forgotten.