Darkness was no longer around her.
It was inside her.
Isabella sat upon the living throne, its pulse matching the rhythm of her own heart—or what was left of it. The crown had seeped into her veins, a river of molten night flowing through her blood. Her skin glimmered faintly, etched with curling black sigils that pulsed like wounds refusing to close.
Her body was her own.
Her will was not.
The Endless King stood before her like a shadow made flesh, a god sculpted in bone and gold-veined night. Its voice poured through her mind like oil.
"You resist still. Admirable. Futile."
Her fingers clawed at the throne's arms, nails breaking against the living stone.
"I… won't… bow…"
A laugh rolled through the void, vast and cold.
> "You already have. The moment you touched the crown, the gates began to hunger for you. You are no longer Isabella Veyne."
She lifted her head, eyes burning with the last embers of defiance.
"I will always be Isabella."
The King leaned close, its faceless mask reflecting her fractured soul.
> "Then why can you no longer remember his face?"
Her breath caught.
Her mind clawed at fragments—eyes like storms, hands that held her when the world burned, a name that once tasted like salvation.
But the image slipped through her fingers like smoke.
Alexander.
Alexander—
Who was Alexander?
---
The First Oath
The King's hand brushed her cheek, and the touch was ice and fire.
> "You do not need him. You need only me. I will give you the world that broke you. I will set every throne at your feet. All you must do is speak the oath."
Isabella's lips trembled. Chains pulsed around her wrists, feeding whispers into her marrow. She saw visions—armies kneeling, stars bleeding light into her hands, kingdoms crumbling at her name. And gods help her… part of her wanted it.
Her voice cracked like glass as she spoke:
"What… is the oath?"
The King's laughter was thunder and graves opening.
> "Say these words, and eternity will bow:
'I am the Crown. I am the Gate. I am the End.'"
The words slithered against her tongue like venom, begging to be spoken. Her pulse thundered as she opened her mouth—
And then—
A whisper.
Small. Fragile. Distant.
Isabella.
Her head snapped up, eyes wide. The name echoed through the void, faint but fierce, like a blade cutting through chains.
Alexander.
She gasped, clutching at the sound like a drowning soul clutches air. The oath died on her lips, and the chains hissed, tightening in fury.
The King's faceless mask tilted, and for the first time, its voice sharpened.
"Ah. The Gatebreaker stirs."
---
The Second Gate Trembles
The void shuddered. Far beyond, a roar tore through the endless dark, shaking the throne and splitting the silence like war drums.
The Endless King turned toward the sound, its vast shadow stretching across eternity.
"He comes. How exquisite."
Its gaze returned to her, hunger blazing in its eyeless depths.
"Then let him. For when he arrives, little queen, you will not know whether to kill him… or kneel beside me and watch him burn."
Isabella's scream broke against the void as the chains sank deeper, pulling her closer to the darkness inside herself.