The land cracked beneath their march.
Not with weight—but with will.
Serelith's army was unlike any court had ever seen.
No shining banners.
No jeweled carriages.
Only scarred warriors, twilight-born fae, wingless sprites, and stone-skinned oathbreakers—creatures the old courts had discarded.
And yet, they followed.
Not because they feared her.
But because they remembered.
---
They crossed into the northern fringes of the Hollow Court's claimed land.
Fields once golden now lay under rot and frost, twisted by the Hollow Queen's expanding magic.
The closer they came to her seat of power, the more the air felt… brittle.
Reality itself was fraying.
Faelan rode beside Serelith, eyes scanning the sky. "She's bleeding the Veil. Tearing it open piece by piece."
> "To bring Avaeth fully into our world," Serelith replied. "If that happens, no realm will survive it."
> "Then we stop her before the gate is complete."
> "We stop her tonight."
---
That night, they made camp near the ruins of a moon-temple—one that had once worshipped the stars before the gods turned them into weapons.
Serelith stood before the gathered crowd.
> "The courts think we are scattered.
They think power lies in crowns and bloodlines.
But I have seen the god behind the Veil.
And it does not care for thrones.
It listens only to those who dare speak back."
She drew the Codex from her cloak.
It pulsed with living light.
> "This is not prophecy—it is choice.
If we fall, let us fall loud. Let the gods hear our names."
A cry rose—harsh, broken, and furious.
Not pretty.
But true.
---
Far across the cracked plains, in the Hollow Queen's throne hall, Aelric stood bound in a web of spectral thread.
> "They march," he said with a bloodied smile. "She comes for you."
> "Let her," the Queen whispered. "I want her to see what I've built from her mother's ashes."
She stepped down from her throne of bone and starlight.
Behind her, the veil rippled.
A thousand whispers poured through.
And the world began to shift.
> "Open the gate," she commanded. "Let Avaeth see his bride."
---
In the camp, Serelith jolted awake.
The Codex was glowing again—too bright, too hot.
And from the sky above, a rent in the stars yawned open.
A single, massive eye gazed down from the heavens.
Avaeth had arrived.