The Hollow Queen did not walk.
She descended.
The sky above the Vale split like torn silk as her procession poured through the rift—no banners, no horns, only silence thick enough to smother the stars.
Serelith watched from the broken temple's threshold, the Codex coiled tight within her, every breath heavy with old fear and new fire.
Faelan stood at her side.
He said nothing.
But when she looked at him, his gaze was not on the Hollow Queen.
It was on her.
And it was full of love.
---
They met on the ruins of sacred ground—once a place of peace, now burned black by fate.
The Hollow Queen stood tall in her armor of shadowglass and ash-gold, her crown glinting with fragments of lost souls. Her eyes were empty mirrors—reflecting every version of Serelith, and none at all.
> "You carry it well," she said.
"The Codex fits you like it once fit me."
Serelith's voice was steady. "Then you know why I won't kneel."
The queen's smile was ancient. "I know exactly why you must."
Behind her, the gods stirred—half-seen forms of wing and flame and memory. Old ones who had fed on destiny for eons. They did not speak. They watched.
Faelan stepped forward. "She chooses her own path."
The queen's gaze flicked to him. "Still loyal to a dream that broke you."
"I rebuilt it."
"Then watch it crumble again."
---
The first strike came not from the queen—but the gods.
A wave of raw power, like a scream folded into light. Serelith raised her hands, and the Codex surged out of her like a living shield, memories spinning into shape—visions of cities, oceans, lost love and rebellion.
The blast shattered around her.
She stepped forward.
And unleashed her own.
The Codex answered her call not with magic, but with remembrance. The battlefield filled with illusions—not false, but possible. A thousand Sereliths, each burning with a different future. Each making a different choice.
The gods hesitated.
For the first time in millennia, they were confused.
And in that moment, Faelan struck.
His blade pierced the veil between realms, tearing through the arm of a divine. The god screamed—not in pain, but in shock.
"You bleed," Faelan whispered. "Good."
---
The Hollow Queen laughed, bitter and bright.
"So this is your rebellion," she said. "A girl made of ghosts. A prince with no court."
Serelith raised her hand.
The Codex pulsed—bright as a newborn sun.
"This is not a rebellion," she said.
"It's a correction."
And she hurled it.
Light exploded across the field, not destroying—but revealing. The gods flinched as their secrets unraveled—truths they buried, fates they rewrote.
The Hollow Queen staggered, her crown cracking.
For a heartbeat, the world held its breath.
Then everything collapsed.
---
When the dust settled, the battlefield was empty.
The gods had retreated.
The queen was gone.
And Serelith fell to her knees, the Codex dimming in her skin.
Faelan caught her, held her.
"You did it," he whispered.
But Serelith's voice was hollow.
"No. That was only the first."
She looked to the east, where the mark of Vaerethryn still glowed on their map.
"The Codex didn't just reveal the truth," she said.
"It awakened something."