Chapter 36
The moment she gripped the blade, the world began to fold.
Not break.
Not shatter.
Just… rearrange.
Mountains shifted in memory.Maps bled ink.Histories erased their own footnotes.
And above it all, Eliendara stood with the Blade of Unwriting in hand—its edge humming softly like a lullaby sung by forgotten stars.
Kael reached for her. "Are you still—"
"I don't know," she said honestly. "I'm still me. But the world's no longer sure who that is."
Ravien turned, his face paler than before. "Three cities just vanished from my mind. Entire empires… gone from memory. The blade is unraveling prophecy faster than the crown can hold it together."
Eliendara looked down at the Scorched Crown. The metal was cracked now—webs of red light crawling through it like veins about to rupture.
The crown wasn't just burning anymore.
It was dying.
"I thought this would give me control," she whispered.
"It has," came a voice.
From behind them.
Kael drew his sword.
Ravien raised his hand.
But Eliendara already knew who it was.
She turned.
And saw him.
Clad in robes of shadow and crimson silk. No longer wrapped in chains. No longer bound by the seals of the Seventh Gate.
Eyes like galaxies burning in reverse.
Hair dark as midnight thunderclouds.
He stepped forward with a regal calm.
The Seventh.
Lord Solryn Vael.
Once the harbinger of the flame rebellion.Once the lover she betrayed to save the world.Once the reason the crown chose her in the first place.
Now—
Free.
"Welcome back," he said, arms outstretched.
"My Queen of Ash."
The title sent tremors through the ground.
Kael's hand clenched the hilt of his sword. "Stay back."
But Solryn only smiled. "Still protective. That's what I always admired about you, Kael."
He turned back to Eliendara.
"Do you remember me now?"
Fragments flared behind her eyes.
A kiss in the dark.A promise made in blood.A war that never should've happened.
"You lied to me," she said, voice like broken flint.
"I loved you," he replied. "And I still do. But you were made into their seal. I was trying to set you free."
"You killed thousands," she said.
"I tried to stop them from enslaving the gate. You were never meant to contain power. You were born to unleash it."
Eliendara looked at the blade in her hand.
And the truth became horrifyingly clear.
The blade wasn't just meant to rewrite prophecy.
It was meant to open the one gate she wasn't supposed to unlock—
Herself.
Ravien's eyes widened. "You brought the blade here."
Solryn smiled.
"I forged it. In a time that was erased."
Kael stepped forward. "You used her. Then and now."
"No," Solryn said gently. "I gave her a choice."
He reached out a hand toward her.
"Come with me, Eliendara.Finish what we started.Unseal the truth.Let the world burn into what it was meant to be."
She stood frozen.
The blade in one hand.
The dying crown in the other.
The man she once loved before her.
And Kael behind her—silent, waiting, hoping she'd turn back.
The gate inside her chest pulsed once.
And opened its eye.
🔮 Next Chapter Preview – Chapter 37: The Heartgate Awakens
With Solryn returned and the Blade of Unwriting in hand,Eliendara faces the first real choice of her existence.
If she opens the Heartgate…
She becomes more than mortal.
But in doing so, she risks losing the only thing left keeping her human—Kael's love.