Beneath the Thorn Court, beyond stone crypts and wards laced with blood-silver, Serelith stood before the sealed vault.
The Codex pulsed with memory.
With recognition.
As if it had once been part of this place.
Faelan touched her shoulder gently. "Are you ready?"
She nodded.
Together, they pressed their palms to the sigils etched into the vault door.
A breath of ancient air escaped as it cracked open—and inside, lay a sarcophagus wrapped in vines of iron and moonlace.
And upon it, a single name:
> Liora.
---
The murals on the walls told the story no court dared speak aloud.
Long before the Hollow Queen's reign, there had been Liora, a queen born of balance and mercy. She ruled both light and dark, held the Codex not as a weapon but as a guide.
She had kept the realms in peace.
Until she vanished.
Until her sister—the one now known as the Hollow Queen—took the Codex and corrupted it to rule by fear.
Serelith's fingers trembled as she traced the face carved into Liora's tomb.
She looked eerily like her.
> "This isn't a coincidence," she whispered. "I was chosen. Because I'm her blood."
Faelan stepped closer. "You're the last of her line."
Serelith turned to Aelric, who had followed silently into the vault.
> "Did you know?" she demanded.
> "Only pieces," he said.
> "You lied," she snapped. "You always did."
---
And memory flooded in.
---
Three years ago, Serelith stood on the cliffs of Varnel, wind whipping her cloak, the night she trusted Aelric with the Codex's first awakening.
He had kissed her that night—soft, hesitant, trembling with some unspoken thing.
He had sworn to protect her.
And by morning, he was gone.
Taking her only map, her protection wards, and the whisper of the Codex's location with him.
She had searched for weeks.
And never found him.
Until now.
---
Back in the vault, her voice was cold steel.
> "You left me to die. You knew the Hollow Court was hunting me."
> "I did what I had to," Aelric said quietly. "I thought if I took their interest away from you, you'd be safe. I never expected you to survive on your own."
Faelan stepped forward, barely containing his fury. "But she did. She survived. And you helped the people trying to kill her."
Aelric met Serelith's gaze.
> "I'll never be able to undo that. But I am here now."
> "You don't get to be here," Serelith said. "Not after what you did."
And yet, a flicker of sadness lived in her voice.
Because once, a part of her had loved him.
Not anymore.
But still.
Once.
---
The Codex flared with gold-blue fire, awakening fully now within her. Its voice rang clear in her mind.
> "The blood of Liora flows. The balance may yet return."
Faelan reached for her hand.
She didn't pull away.
> "We end this," she said.
> "We begin it," he corrected softly.
---
Far away, across a bleeding sky, the Hollow Queen stepped through the veil.
Her crown now burned with shadows of gods.
And behind her followed an army of broken things—forgotten kings, revenants of old, and the dreamless horrors that fed on magic long buried.
> "Let them find truth," she whispered. "I will bring them ruin."