The throne of Elyndral bore its weight in silence. The banners, once proud in silver and azure, now sagged like wilting leaves, the air thick with dust, smoke, and the faint metallic tang of war. Soldiers and nobles, exhausted and weary, lingered at the edges of the hall, whispers of defeat and fear flickering across their faces.
Queen Luna moved with measured grace. Every step precise, her hands folded over the contract that sealed her kingdom's fate. Each heartbeat reminded her of the impossible choice she had made — to protect her people, to survive even in surrender. She could not change the past, nor prevent what was to come, but she could ensure that the lives entrusted to her were spared, even if it cost her own. Her composure was unyielding, yet within her, a subtle weight pressed down, a faint tremor of responsibility she could not ignore.
King Veythar stood beside the crimson dais, his presence commanding every gaze. His eyes glimmered with the satisfaction of power, a predator among the broken, yet disciplined and calculating, reading every move, every hesitation.
The contract was exchanged. Cold hands touched, the inked seal signing the kingdom into the Crimson Dominion. Luna's posture never faltered, but the hall itself seemed to hold its breath. A kingdom had fallen, yet its queen remained, poised in the eye of inevitability.
And then — almost imperceptibly — a ripple moved through the hall. A presence that none could see.
From shadow and silence, the figure appeared. Black as the void, masked, every movement precise, every breath a whisper. Chains hidden beneath her cloak shifted silently as she approached the throne. The Hollow Dagger moved with purpose, unbroken, obedient, existing only to execute the order that had been given.
The queen sensed it, though she did not see. Luna's instincts, honed over years of command, brushed against the edge of awareness — a subtle disturbance, a shadow at the corner of perception. Her body remained calm, a monument to discipline, yet her mind cataloged the anomaly.
And then, it happened.
From the shadows, imperceptible at first, a ripple passed across the floor. A figure emerged — black, silent, and unrelenting. The hall did not see her. Nobles did not see her. Soldiers did not even notice the disturbance in the air. Only one presence, finely attuned, could sense the shift.
The Hollow Dagger.
Clad in darkness, masked in anonymity, the chains beneath her cloak were hidden, her steps as soft as a thought. The assassin moved with the precision of inevitability, approaching the queen without a breath, without hesitation.
Luna, sensing a subtle shift at the corner of her awareness, turned slightly. Not enough to see, not enough to act, but enough to feel — someone was near. Her body remained still. A queen did not panic, even when instinct screamed.
The blade whispered through the air.
A whisper of steel brushed against her throat. Luna felt the cold kiss, the weight of inevitability.
Time fractured. Every motion, every breath, every heartbeat froze in suspension. Dust hung midair. Soldiers paused mid-step. Banners froze mid-wave, trembling silently in the hall's stillness.
And in the hollow pause of reality, the Hollow Dagger perceived what no one else could.
The voice came then, ethereal, both familiar and alien:
"Wow… perfect. But why are you a weapon? You were supposed to be a queen, a monarch, a true ruler. Have you forgotten yourself?"
The words dripped with judgment and wonder, as though the speaker were both in awe and in mourning. The assassin froze, but only momentarily. Her mind remained clear, her purpose singular — obedience. Yet the words penetrated like cold water, reaching into the deepest recesses of something buried. Something she could not yet name.
And then, in the periphery of the assassin's perception, a vision emerged. Chains shattered. A great dragon, immense and ancient, emerged from the ether, scales shimmering like molten silver, eyes ablaze with sorrow and recognition. A voice — deep, resonant, impossibly old — echoed only in the Hollow Dagger's perception:
"My dear child… my daughter… how pitiful you remain, no matter how many lives you may live. So many paths, so many hearts, and yet… always broken. Why… why can you not save yourself?"
The words were soaked in grief, in longing, in a sorrow that stretched across millennia. The dragon's wings unfurled, the chains that had bound it cracking and splintering, sparks of light cascading into the frozen hall.
"You were made to suffer… to bear the weight of others… to forget yourself… and yet still, I cannot reach you. I cannot save you, not yet."
The Hollow Dagger felt the pulse of the voice, the resonance in her veins, the ghost of memory brushing against something she could not name. She remained still. She did not flinch. She did not hesitate. She did not weep. She absorbed the moment as she absorbed every command — a vessel without emotion, yet a witness to the heart of grief.
"My dear child," the voice continued, vibrating through the suspended hall, "do not fall into the hands of the Pillar of Seven Deadly Sins. Greed, deception, and power… Listen. Listen to the deepest voices of your memory. You are…"
The chains binding the dragon weakened. They cracked and twisted, unraveling as though acknowledging a call long forgotten. A power older than kingdoms stirred, the remnants of an inheritance she did not yet understand.
The assassin did not flinch. She remained impassive. Her body, her mind, her very essence — an instrument perfected in obedience. The tableau remained frozen: Queen Luna at the edge of mortality, the king and court suspended in time, and the Hollow Dagger, a silent shadow, unmoved by the flow of magic or memory.
And then, without warning, time resumed.
Queen Luna, unaware of the vision, felt only the faintest disturbance. She did not see the dragon, nor hear the lament. Yet her body instinctively froze, the weight of inevitability pressing upon her. Her hands gripped the contract. Her breath remained steady. A queen does not weep. A queen does not falter.
The blade moved.
In one fluid, perfect motion, the Hollow Dagger struck. Luna's life left her with the precision of inevitability. The court gasped, though no one had truly comprehended the frozen tableau, the impossibility of the act. The assassin stepped back, unseen, chains concealed, unthinking, obedient.
Time resumed completly .
The banners fluttered. Nobles whispered, soldiers shifted, and the contract lay signed, a testament to surrender. Luna's body fell, silent and majestic, a queen in death as she had been in life.
Yet only one presence had seen the dragon, heard the voice, felt the weight of grief, and understood the magnitude of what had been orchestrated. Only the Hollow Dagger had perceived the cracks in time, the chains weakening, the ancient lament of a father who could not save his daughter, who could only call to her across the void.
She remembered the words of the Dragon like mighty creature and the blood flowing in her brain remembered every words and actions,
"My child… my daughter… always pitiful, always bound… wake. Listen. Remember. You are not merely what they make of you…"
The chains around the dragon withered, light spilling into a distant corner of memory, illuminating something long buried. And still, the Hollow Dagger did not hesitate. She did not pause. She did not falter. The command remained supreme. The mission remained singular.
And in the silence that followed, she vanished. From the hall, from the throne room, from the eyes of the court. She returned to the distant, unbroken shadow of the Crimson Dominion palace, teleported as silently as she had arrived. The frozen moment, the dragon, the voice, all remained her secret — a hidden truth amidst a world that saw only obedience and death.
The banners of Elyndral fluttered, the hall settled, and the court whispered over the fallen queen. Nothing had changed in the perception of the world. And yet, the Hollow Dagger carried a fragment of truth, a pulse of memory, a seed of something long forgotten, waiting in silence.
Even in her absence, the assassin's presence lingered. The shadow she left behind seemed to stretch across the banners, across the blood-stained floors, across the minds of everyone present. A cold silence settled over the palace like a funeral shroud.
In that frozen instant, the echo of the dragon's chains unraveling remained, a whisper of something greater, something beyond the understanding of kings, queens, and even the instrument of death itself.
The Hollow Dagger remained obedient, unthinking, and unfeeling. She was a weapon without memory, without flicker, without hesitation. She had been crafted for this purpose alone: to obey, to strike, and to vanish. And as the halls of the Crimson Dominion absorbed the pulse of victory, she awaited the next command, unaware of the truths that swirled around her — of pasts suppressed, of inheritances unclaimed, of power that even she had yet to comprehend.
And somewhere, in the vast expanse of fate and magic, a voice whispered again, faint, fleeting, and distant:
"Do not fall… my child… listen…"
But the Hollow Dagger moved on, a shadow among shadows, silent, inexorable, unbroken.