Mist rose from the Deeping Mire like the breath of a sleeping god—thick, choking, laced with whispers that were not wind.
Serelith stepped through the first veil of fog, Codex at her side, and Faelan just behind her. Aelric trailed in silence, uneasy in the place where shadows seemed to watch.
The Mire was not a place mortals tread. It was older than courts. Older than names.
Some called it a wound in the world.
Others, a forgotten god's grave.
But to Serelith—it felt like home.
---
Each step into the mire twisted the world.
Time stuttered.
Dreams crawled along the edges of thought.
She could hear voices—familiar, painful.
Her mother, before the fire.
Aelric, whispering lies in moonlight.
Faelan, calling her name as if it was sacred.
> "Do you hear them?" she asked softly.
Faelan nodded. "They want us to remember."
> "Or forget who we are," Aelric muttered.
But Serelith didn't falter.
She knew what she had come for.
---
At the heart of the mire stood the Mirror Tree—a great ash turned to crystal, its roots threading through the bones of the world.
Here, Liora had hidden the last piece of the Codex.
Here, the truth of Serelith's birth waited.
And something else.
---
The tree spoke without words.
It showed Serelith a vision.
Not of what would be.
Not of what was.
But of what could have been.
Her, as Queen of the Hollow Court.
Faelan at her side—crownless, broken.
Aelric behind her throne, whispering counsel into her ear.
The world, in flame and twilight.
Power.
Empire.
Devastation.
> "Is this what I become?" she asked the tree.
> "If you choose fear."
> "And if I don't?"
> "Then you must let go of what betrayed you. Even love. Even memory."
Serelith turned to Aelric.
> "You were the first path I chose wrong," she said. "And I forgive you."
His mouth opened, but the words never came.
She turned to Faelan.
> "And you are the path I choose now."
He took her hand.
> "Then we walk it together."
---
The crystal split beneath her touch, and the Codex flared to life—whole now, its full power awakened.
Winds tore through the mire, and the tree shattered into song—notes falling like light.
And from within the earth, something stirred.
A god's heartbeat.
A buried thing, still dreaming.
> "We have to go," Serelith said.
> "What did you awaken?" Faelan asked.
> "Not what," she whispered. "Who."
---
Back in the Hollow Queen's citadel, her lips curled into a smile.
> "The child has opened the gate."
Her shadow stretched behind her—longer, darker, crawling like roots.
> "Then the god beneath the veil will rise. And I will wear its name."