The throne moved on its own.
Not gliding, not levitating, but clawing across the fractured marble with gouging shrieks—like something buried beneath had finally decided to rise. Its limbs unfolded from the shadows, jagged arms of celestial iron and mirror-glass, slamming into the ground with unnatural weight. The Aurelian Sigil etched into its surface pulsed erratically, like a heartbeat being resuscitated.
Verena stepped forward, eyes narrowing. "That's not mine."
Beatrice, still cradling a half-severed illusion of her narrative self, whispered, "Then whose is it?"
The throne answered. A voice split through the space—not heard, but remembered. Each word tasted of betrayal, of half-finished stories, of lives that had been rewritten a thousand times.
"You abandoned your origin. So I became it."
