The palace was too quiet.
Not the quiet of peace, nor the quiet of reverence. It was the silence of suffocation, when voices no longer dared rise above the weight pressing down upon them.
Within the hall of Elyndral, light from the high windows slanted across the marble, gilded pillars rising like bones of a dying giant. Once, this hall had echoed with music, with petitions, with festivals. Now, it smelled faintly of iron and smoke, the scent of soldiers brought in from the dying fields, their bodies carried through side corridors where the common people could not see.
They were dying quietly, those loyal men and women. Their veins blackened by the unseen swarm. Their lips cracked, tongues heavy, breath shallow. The healers whispered it could not be cured with roots nor with light. And outside the palace walls, the people whispered too — not of hope, but of submission.
If surrender could save them, then surrender was not shame. It was survival.
And so, all eyes turned to their queen.
Luna sat upon her throne, the weight of crown and kingdom balanced upon her shoulders as though carved in stone. Her armor was unpolished, still streaked with dust and blood from the ridges. Her blade had not been cleaned, though it no longer mattered. In her lap rested the scroll, parchment edged in crimson wax, the contract that would bind Elyndral to the Crimson Dominion.
Her fingers did not tremble. Her face did not move.
It was not that she felt nothing. No. She felt too much.
The sight of her soldiers collapsing in the courtyard. The sound of children coughing as if choked by invisible hands. The silence of her generals, once proud, now bent under inevitability.
Every sensation pressed against her chest, a storm of grief, rage, humiliation, duty. She felt it all — but she let none of it surface. To her people, she was unmoving stone. To her enemies, she was unreadable shadow. A queen who did not shatter, even when her world crumbled.
Because a queen did not weep before wolves.
The nobles around her murmured in low voices, but none raised an objection. What protest remained had already burned away on the battlefield. They did not look at her with defiance. They looked at her with pleading, with the silent begging of those who had nothing left but their queen's final act.
When the herald of the Crimson Dominion entered, draped in scarlet and black, the hush deepened further. He set the ink, the seal, the sharpened quill. His voice was cold as he announced:
"One day has passed. The terms stand. Sign, and your people live under the Dominion's hand. Refuse, and tomorrow they all die."
Luna's gaze lowered to the parchment.
Her hand hovered above the quill. For a heartbeat, she allowed herself to imagine another choice. To refuse. To lift her sword again. To call upon her people's courage one last time. But she could still hear the coughing. She could still see the veins. She could still feel the life bleeding out of her kingdom in silence.
No, there was no choice.
She took the quill.
Pressed it to ink.
And signed.
The seal of Elyndral was pressed into wax, binding the contract. In that moment, her kingdom was not her own.
There was no cheer, no applause. Only silence.
The silence of chains slipping quietly into place.
Luna leaned back against the throne, exhaling once. A queen's sigh — quiet, cold, resigned.
But she was not alone on that throne.
In the shadows just beside her, unseen by many, stood the Hollow Dagger. The nameless assassin. Black-clad, masked, faceless. Neither guard nor advisor, neither servant nor noble. She did not move. She did not breathe too loudly. She was only presence — patient, waiting, absolute.
She was not here for the contract. Not here for the grief of Elyndral. She was here for one reason only: to obey when order came. Until then, she was stillness itself.
And yet—
As Luna's hand left the quill, the assassin's gaze fixed upon her profile. Not with thought. Not with desire. She was not meant to feel such things. But for a fleeting instant, something shifted.
A flicker. A jolt beneath the ribs.
It was nothing she could name. Nothing she could understand. The curse bound her tightly, thoughts dulled to obedience, memory ground into dust. But in the silence of the hall, as Luna's pale fingers tightened on the armrest of the throne, something stirred.
A face, blurred and faceless, passed like a phantom across her mind. Not Luna's. Not anyone she could place. Just the echo of someone who had once mattered. A trace buried so deep it should never surface.
She blinked once. It was gone.
Her stillness did not break. She remained as she had always been — a dagger without thought, an extension of order.
But beneath the mask, her breath had shifted. Only slightly.
Luna did not notice. She stared ahead, her eyes distant, seeing the end of her kingdom carved into ink and wax.
The nobles bowed their heads, some in shame, some in relief. The herald withdrew, satisfied. Outside, the bells of Dominion rang in mocking triumph, crimson banners already unfurling over Elyndral's towers.
The queen did not rise.
The assassin did not move.
The throne of Elyndral had become the Silent Throne.
And in its silence, both ruler and weapon carried the weight of a kingdom's death. One by choice, the other by command. Both bound, both waiting — one for the mercy of time, the other for the moment order would finally come.
The hall emptied slowly, but the silence did not. It lingered like a living thing, wrapping itself around the throne, around the queen who had surrendered, and around the assassin who could not remember why her chest still ached faintly from a face she could never recall.
The kingdom had fallen.
The contract was sealed.
But the Silent Throne was not yet finished.