CHAPTER.8
436 Words
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Chapter 8: The Chamber of Thorns
Selene didn’t remember how she got there.
One moment, she was kneeling beside the cursed creek, shaking, breathless… and the next, her feet were pulling her deeper into the forest. Not with logic — with instinct. With bond.
Something ancient beneath her skin guided her. A pull so fierce, it felt like her bones were singing. She didn’t know where it would end, only that it wasn’t hers anymore.
It belonged to him.
To them.
To the prophecy.
The ground beneath her became uneven, gnarled, almost breathing. A mouth in the forest opened wide — vines curling like fingers, stone steps leading into blackness.
Her heart stuttered. It looked like the entrance to the underworld.
But she stepped inside.
The air thickened with age and grief. Moss clung to her boots. The deeper she walked, the more the walls pulsed — like a heartbeat — like they were alive.
And then…
She found it.
A room of thorns.
The chamber was vast, circular, and its walls were covered in ancient roots like ribs, glowing faintly blue. In the center stood a throne — not of gold or bone — but of glass and bramble.
And on it sat a crown.
Midnight black, wrapped in dying roses.
The Abyss Crown.
Selene’s breath hitched. “This… this isn’t real.”
But her hand reached for it anyway.
Before she could touch it —
A scream split through the chamber.
Her name.
“Selene!”
Valerian.
He stood at the entrance of the chamber, eyes wild, voice raw. He had torn through time to find her. His cloak burned away. His fangs visible. His control, gone.
“Don’t touch it,” he rasped. “It will mark you.”
Selene stepped back. “It called to me.”
Valerian entered the room like a storm. Shadows wrapped around him, but they didn’t touch her. He kept them at bay, even now.
“You’re not ready,” he said. “And once you wear the Abyss Crown, there’s no turning back. It’s a throne of fire. It consumes whoever dares sit upon it.”
“Then why is it here?” she whispered.
“Because the world is about to burn.”
—
Meanwhile, in the Blood Citadel, Lucien stood before a hidden council of elders — all cloaked, all faceless.
“She found it,” Lucien said.
“And him?” the eldest asked.
Lucien nodded. “The King’s heart is no longer in our hands.”
The room darkened.
A voice hissed from the shadows:
> “Then we rip it
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