(Apollo)
“Nothing… forbidden, my king,” the shadow demon said meekly.
“What did happen?” Apollo asked softly. almost too softly.
“She…” Aethan’s gaze flicked up, a flicker of something like awe in it. “She lit the runes, Majesty. Wherever she walked. The old ones. The Queen’s marks. The palace… liked her.”
The air seemed to tighten around the word Queen. Apollo’s fingers closed reflexively. The soul on his chains spasmed.
The Queen, again. Her ghost had no right to still haunt his halls. He had burned that throne to slag. He had watched her banners melt. History was supposed to stay dead.
He had felt it himself already—flashes of something in Adelaide’s magic that tasted older than anything that belonged to a mortal. But Cael had named it Emberflame when he reported, and Apollo had l
