The Iron Vale wasn't made of stone.
It was carved into obsidian and silence.
A fortress beneath a ruined mountain, soaked in silver, forgotten by the stars. Once used by Queen Myra to torture dissenters and train assassins, it now pulsed with something colder—a revival masked as reverence.
"When the dead return, they come not with breath, but with memory sharpened to a blade."
Caelina approached the outer perimeter under a stolen cloak of duskroot fibers. Her scent masked. Her heartbeat shallow.
Inside, Elara waited.
Alive… or changed.
Getting in wasn't hard.
The Pureborn, drunk with victory, had grown overconfident.
It was what lay inside that reeked of nightmare.
The first corridor was lined with murals.
Not of gods.
Not of wolves.
Of Myra.
Her eyes glowed silver in every one.
Sometimes calm.
Sometimes wild.
Always watching.
Caelina passed in silence, every hair on her skin bristling.
The longer she walked, the colder her blood ran.
Until the whispers began.
Not audible.
Under her skin.
"You left us.
You should have stayed dead.
You were made. Not born."
She shook them off.
This was not magic.
This was conditioning.
A girl passed her in the corridor. Barefoot. Eyes dulled. Maybe sixteen. She carried a tray of knives like fruit.
She paused. Stared at Caelina.
Then whispered:
"The First Daughter lives."
Caelina froze.
"What did you say?"
The girl smiled faintly. "We all heard the howl beneath the salt. The Vale did too. That's why they brought her."
"Her?"
"Elara."
Then she was gone—vanishing into one of the doorless halls like mist.
Caelina pressed deeper into the fortress.
Guards passed, faceless beneath silver masks.
No one stopped her.
No one questioned the cloak.
And that was the first sign.
Too easy is not a gift.
It is a trap dressed in stillness.
The cell block was in the belly of the mountain.
A circular vault of ten chambers, each carved from blackened quartz.
One door stood open.
Caelina crept in.
Chains. Blood. No Elara.
Just a single word scrawled in claw on the far wall:
"RUN"
A hand clamped over her mouth.
A whisper in her ear.
"You shouldn't have come alone."
Caelina twisted, blade ready—
But stopped.
It was Elara.
Bleeding. Pale. Eyes sharp.
"I left that message two nights ago. They let it stay."
"You escaped?"
Elara gave a tight nod. "They don't want me dead. They want me to see what they're building."
"And what is that?"
Elara led her through a hidden vent crawlway toward the Echo Chamber—once Myra's throne room.
They peered through a fracture in the wall.
What they saw made Caelina's stomach turn:
Children. No older than twelve.
Painted in ash and silver.
Chanting Myra's name in rhythm.
Their bodies half-shifted.
Controlled.
At the center, a woman stood.
Not Myra.
But her mirror.
Same stance. Same smile.
Same madness.
Zela was wrong.
Myra wasn't alive.
But someone had made another.
Caelina whispered, "A puppet?"
Elara's voice cracked. "No. A daughter."
The Pureborn hadn't resurrected Myra.
They'd replicated her.
Trained her.
Filled her with doctrine and silver-fire.
"Her name is Miren," Elara whispered. "She believes she's the true heir. Born of blood rituals and—"
She stopped.
Footsteps.
Close.
Then a voice—mellow, mocking, unmistakable:
"The false bride and the moon's dog.
Did you think the Vale wouldn't feel your trespass?"
The wall behind them breathed.
Then split.
They were no longer hidden.
Miren stood at the far end.
Her eyes shimmered not with silver… but mercury.
And she smiled like winter.
"You came to free her," she said.
"But you've walked into your own prison."
The doors slammed shut.
Flame runes flared along the chamber.
And in every shadowed crevice… wolves stepped forward.
Not living. Not dead.
Silver-veined. Glass-eyed. Engineered.
The Pureborn had been busy.
Caelina stepped forward, unflinching.
"Miren, you don't have to be this."
"I was made to be this."
Elara growled. "That's a lie."
"Is it?" Miren said softly. "Ask her what the sea showed her. Ask her if she still believes blood makes you good."
She turned to Caelina.
"I know what you are. I can smell it. You're not full wolf anymore, are you?"
Caelina's hand dropped to her blade.
"No," she whispered.
"I'm something worse."