Silence.
For the first time in what felt like centuries, the city of Elaros stood still.
No screams. No clash of steel. No blood-soaked chanting.
Just a soft, eerie silence—like the world was holding its breath.
The ruins still smoldered, ash blanketing the ground like snow. Statues had crumbled, palaces had fallen, but the Queen of Shadows had been destroyed. At least… that's what they believed.
Mira stood atop the remnants of the obsidian throne. The wind tangled her hair, and her tattered cloak fluttered behind her like a broken banner.
She stared out at the fallen city, her hands trembling.
"Is this… victory?" she asked herself.
She didn't know.
Because though the battle had ended, the war—her war—was far from over.
Below the palace steps, Serya coordinated the survivors.
Healers moved quickly, tending to wounds that bled more magic than blood. Children huddled together, orphaned by shadows. Warriors limped, their faces blank with exhaustion and grief.
The people looked up at Mira—eyes filled with questions, fear, and something far more dangerous: hope.
"Queen Mira," someone whispered.
The name passed from mouth to mouth like wildfire.
Queen.
Mira flinched at the word.
Later that night, the council gathered in the Temple of Echoes—what was left of it.
Only four of the original twelve councilors had survived. The rest were either killed in the uprising or consumed by Venra's shadows.
And yet, they looked to Mira like she had the answers.
"We must crown you," said Elder Lysen, a thin man with a voice like parchment.
"I didn't do this to wear a crown," Mira replied.
"You're all we have," said another. "The people need a symbol."
"I'm not a symbol," she snapped, then softened. "I'm just trying to hold things together."
Serya stepped beside her, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Maybe that's what makes you worthy."
But Mira looked away.
Because deep inside her, something was stirring.
The black fire… still burned.
That night, she dreamt of Venra.
Not the monstrous version—but a woman in a garden.
Venra sat on a bench beneath a blood moon, wearing a crown of silver. Her hands were stained with ink, not blood, as she turned the pages of an ancient grimoire.
"You think it's over, don't you?" she said without looking up.
Mira stared at her. "You're dead."
Venra smiled. "My body, yes. But not my legacy."
"You left Kaelin alive."
Venra finally looked at her. "A child raised in a world of fear… she will become what they whisper."
Mira stepped forward. "She's not you."
"She doesn't need to be," Venra said. "She only needs to be forgotten, until it's too late."
Mira reached for her blade, but the dream began to melt.
Venra's final words echoed as Mira jolted awake:
"Black magic always finds its way home."
The next morning, Kaelin was gone.
Her bed was untouched. No signs of a struggle. No spell residue.
Gone.
Serya stood by the empty cot, face pale. "She couldn't have left on foot. Not in her condition."
"She didn't walk out," Mira whispered. "She vanished."
A cold knot twisted in her stomach.
Was it Venra's final curse?
Or something worse?
Mira ordered search parties, but none returned with any trace.
And as the days passed, rumors began to bloom like weeds.
That the child had been taken by the shadows.
That Mira was hiding her.
That Mira herself had become the new Black Queen.
Whispers turned into questions. Questions into suspicion.
During a council session, Elder Lysen finally said it aloud.
"You cannot expect the people to trust you while the vessel of evil walks free."
"She's a child," Mira snapped.
"She's a weapon. One you refuse to disarm."
Serya stood. "Enough! We were there. Mira saved us all."
But the doubt was already growing.
Lysen continued, "You speak of saving, yet the black fire still lives inside you."
The room went still.
Even Serya's expression faltered.
Mira's voice was cold. "If I hadn't used it, none of us would be alive."
"And now you expect us to believe you won't use it again?"
She rose from her chair.
"Maybe the question isn't whether I'll use it," she said, her voice sharp as steel. "Maybe the question is—if you're so afraid of power, why are you still sitting in that chair?"
Lysen paled.
She left the room.
That night, she didn't sleep.
Instead, she returned to the catacombs beneath the palace—where the oldest relics had been hidden since the beginning of the kingdom.
She walked the forgotten halls, torch in hand, passing walls carved with spells so old even the council didn't remember them.
At the end of the hall, she found what she was looking for.
A mirror.
Not just any mirror.
The Veilglass.
Said to reflect not the body—but the soul.
Mira lit three black candles. Spoke the incantation. Stepped before it.
And gasped.
Her reflection was not hers.
It was Venra's.
Smiling.
"Mira," the voice whispered from the mirror. "You can run from the crown. But not the curse."
She shattered it with her sword.
But the voice remained.
Inside her mind.
Serya found her there, blood on her hands, shards of mirror at her feet.
"What are you doing?" she asked, horrified.
"She's still here," Mira said. "Inside me. I feel her."
Serya stepped closer. "You're stronger than her. You proved that."
"What if I didn't destroy her? What if I just… inherited her throne?"
Serya's eyes softened. "Then make it your own."
In the days that followed, Mira kept her distance.
She trained alone. Read texts that should've been burned. Studied magic forbidden by every crown before hers.
Not to use it.
But to understand it.
The darkness was no longer a stranger. It was family.
Then, on the seventh night since Kaelin vanished, a scout returned.
Breathless.
Bleeding.
He dropped to his knees before Mira.
"We found her."
Mira stepped forward. "Where?"
"West of the Asherian Forest… near the Bleeding Hills."
Mira's heart dropped. "That land is cursed."
"Not anymore," the scout whispered. "It's… blooming. But the flowers—"
"What about them?"
"They're made of bone."
She left that night.
Alone.
Serya tried to stop her.
"You don't know what's waiting for you there."
"I think I do," Mira said quietly.
"You don't have to do this alone."
"Yes, I do."
She rode for three days through scorched fields and haunted woodlands.
The skies darkened with each mile.
By the time she reached the Bleeding Hills, the moon had turned red again.
And there—on a throne of skulls wrapped in thorny vines—sat Kaelin.
No longer a child.
No longer innocent.
She rose slowly as Mira dismounted.
Her eyes were molten gold. Her gown stitched from shadows.
And on her head—
A crown of bone.
"Hello, Mira," Kaelin said.
Not timid. Not afraid.
Royal.
Venra's voice—her essence—echoed beneath the girl's tone.
"I told you," the voice said inside Mira's mind. "Black magic always finds its way home."