The air was heavy, unnatural.
It no longer smelled of only blood and ash — but of something sour, invasive, wrong. A battlefield should have reeked of sweat, steel, and fire, but now the ridge of Elyndral quivered with a different stench: the slow decay of will itself.
The tenth day had come.
At first, the signs whispered. A soldier gripped his spear tighter only to watch his own hand betray him, trembling until the weapon clattered to the ground. Another staggered, veins turning black as though ink bled beneath his skin. Mages tried to summon light, but their chants faltered into coughs that spat crimson foam. Even the warhorses buckled, foam dripping from their mouths, their eyes rolling back white in terror.
The Vector Swarm had bloomed.
It was no sickness. No simple poison. It was a weapon of dominion — invisible threads that wove themselves into flesh and memory, unraveling thought until obedience seeped into the marrow.
And atop her ridge, Princess Seliora watched the spectacle as though it were theater.
Her lips parted, and laughter spilled forth.
Low, rolling laughter that curdled the blood of even her own soldiers. It was not mirth. It was indulgence.
"Do you hear it?" she raised her voice, pale fingers lifted high. Crimson firelight bled across her rings, dripping red against the dusk. "The sound of Elyndral's veins surrendering. Their will unraveling."
Her laughter grew, sharper, cutting through the cries of the collapsing army.
"This… is the harvest of the Crimson Dominion."
---
On the opposite slope, Queen Luna stood unmoving.
Her armor gleamed dull beneath the dust and blood. Her blade lay sheathed at her side. Around her, soldiers crumpled into silence, but she did not move to them, did not scream, did not falter. Her eyes burned as she watched, but her jaw set firm.
A queen did not weep before wolves.
Her fingers clenched within her cloak. She had believed, even as dawn broke on this tenth day, that Elyndral could endure. That perhaps the whispered antidote of the Dominion was real, something she might wrench from their grasp, steal or bargain for.
But as her people's breath faltered, as veins blackened in slow obedience, she saw the truth.
There was no antidote. Only mockery.
---
The Dominion's heralds came.
Their words cut like iron: one day to negotiate. One day before Elyndral's mountains were wiped clean of life.
And so, the ridge of the fallen became a court.
At dusk, Luna stepped into the Crimson Pavilion.
The banners draped from its ceiling did not hang still — they rippled, long and vein-like, as though alive, as though the tent itself breathed. Incense tried to veil the air, but beneath it, the carpets still stank of blood. Every noble of Dominion leaned forward in their chairs, eyes gleaming with hunger.
Seliora reclined in her throne-like seat, Kaelith beside her, silent as carved stone. Yet it was Seliora who radiated dominion, her voice curling through the pavilion like smoke.
"So the queen comes," she purred. "Tell me, Luna — do you still believe in bargaining? Do you still believe in cures? In miracles?"
Luna's cloak fell still. Her voice cut through the murmurs, sharp and steel-bound.
"Before I surrender, show me the antidote."
The hall stilled.
Seliora tilted her head, eyes glinting serpentine, lips curling in cruel amusement.
"And if I do not?"
"My people are dying," Luna said, folding her hands before her, regal in restraint. "If you demand my throne, my crown, then prove you hold what you claim. Prove you can save them."
For a breath, silence hung.
Then Seliora's laugh split it open. This time, cruel, unrestrained. It echoed against crimson silk and stone, rattling even her nobles into uneasy mirth.
"An antidote?" she hissed between laughter. "Do you not see, little queen? There is no antidote. The swarm is not a plague to be healed. It is dominion. It does not sicken — it binds. It whispers into marrow. Even now your people's minds bend toward us. Their loyalty bleeds from them into me. Into us."
Her smile stretched, fangs bared in delight.
"And still you ask for proof. As though you stand sovereign. As though you are not already mine."
Luna's silence weighed heavier than defiance.
It was Kaelith who spoke next, his voice like frozen iron.
"You will receive mercy only when your seal is given. One day, Luna. One day to surrender Elyndral into the Crimson Dominion. Refuse, and your mountains burn to ash."
Luna's breath was steady. Her grief sat deep, but her crown did not tremble.
"For their lives," she said slowly, each word tempered steel, "I will sign. But know this — I do not yield out of fear. I yield out of duty."
Seliora leaned forward, eyes glimmering cruelly.
"And a true monarch," she whispered, "knows duty is a chain for the weak. The strong do not bow. The strong devour. Survival is not won by honor — it is carved by the fittest."
The nobles cheered, drinking her venom like wine.
Luna's voice broke through their noise, quiet, edged with steel.
"Then answer me this, Seliora. Why? Why launch this war upon Elyndral with no word, no warning?"
Seliora's laughter softened, yet grew darker still. She leaned forward, her voice lowering to a predator's whisper.
"Because this is not war. This is culling. And in the Crimson Dominion, only the ruthless endure."
---
And in the shadow of Luna's absent throne, a figure sat.
The Nameless Assassin.
The Crown's Hollow Dagger.
Cloaked in black, masked in silence, her form seemed carved from the absence of light itself. Chains lay hidden in her robes, her breath unheard, her thoughts nonexistent.
She did not move. She did not speak.
She was not alive in the way mortals were.
She was obedience.
Order made flesh.
And as Seliora laughed, as Luna clenched her grief into a blade of pride, as nobles whispered and torches guttered, the Hollow Dagger waited in silence — seated upon the throne of Elyndral, patient as a shadow, the true weight of surrender.