Chapter 11: Fire in the Veins
Before she was the Bone Queen, she was Miralen.
A prodigy of Daltigoth's arcane academies. A child of wealth, of silk robes and ivory quills. But too curious — too drawn to the old texts buried beneath the tower. Forbidden languages. Fragmented rituals. Things the Circle insisted were "dangerous." "Unnatural." "Mad."
But madness, she discovered, was only power others feared.
The rot began when her brother died in the Cataclysm. Crushed beneath the sea. Her family mourned and moved on.
Miralen did not.
She found a name in a forgotten page. Takhisis. Queen of Darkness. And a whispered promise:
> "Bring me bones, and I shall give you blood."
The pact was struck in shadow. The price was steep.
And when she returned to the surface, her eyes glowed like mourning lamps — and her name had been buried with her brother.
Only the Bone Queen remained.
---
—Now—
The wind howled across the Plains of Dust, hot and dry. Dust devils danced in the distance like ghosts rehearsing for battle.
Lira rode a shaggy gray pony that was somehow angrier than she was.
"This thing hates me," she complained. "It bit my sleeve. Twice."
Kaela, riding ahead, didn't turn. "Maybe stop kicking it in the ribs."
"I was encouraging it!"
Thalen's horse snorted beside her. "You tried to feed it sourberries."
"They're snackberries!"
Despite herself, Kaela laughed.
It was the first sound of peace they'd had since Kalaman. Even the shadows around Thalen seemed lighter today. But that didn't mean they were safe.
Every village they passed was tense. One burned. Another completely abandoned. And at night, the horizon always glowed orange — distant dragonfire or something far worse.
They camped at the edge of a forgotten grove, trees gnarled and blackened by old magic. The staff was wrapped in layers of cloth, locked in a case Kaela refused to leave.
Lira sat by the fire, munching jerky with dramatic chewing.
Thalen watched her.
"You didn't flinch," he said suddenly.
She blinked. "Huh?"
"When you faced the gate. You were afraid, but you didn't run."
Lira chewed slower. "Well," she said, "when I was eight, I got chased by a possum with glowing eyes. Once you survive that, you learn how to panic efficiently."
Kaela muttered, "It's a miracle we're alive."
Lira grinned, firelight flickering in her eyes.
"It's a miracle I haven't named the staff yet."
---
—Elsewhere—
The Dragon Army camp crackled with firelight and discipline. Tents stretched like a dull scar across the land. Soldiers drilled in grim silence.
Inside the tent of Commander Veyron, all was quiet.
Until a man stepped through the back flap, breathless, cloak soaked in marsh water.
He dropped something onto the commander's desk: a broken draconian scale.
"Defector?" Veyron asked, amused.
The man — tall, dark-eyed, haunted — gave a single nod.
"I'm not here to beg for my life," he said. "I'm here to end hers."
"Whose?" Veyron frowned.
The man leaned in.
> "The Bone Queen."
A pause.
Then Veyron laughed. "You and half the continent."
"I know where her next gate is."
That stopped the laughter.
The man — a former Bone Priest named Kerris — pulled a torn scrap of parchment from his belt. It shimmered with faint black sigils.
> "She's bleeding the world. But I can stop her. I just need help."
And far from there, around a small fire, Lira sneezed.
Kaela blinked. "Cold?"
"No," Lira murmured. "Ominous foreshadowing."