The wind didn’t howl.
It wept.
High above the battlefield, chains sang their grim melody, clinking in rhythm with the descent of corrupted Lunas—queens long dead, long buried, long mourned. Now defiled. Enslaved. Weaponized.
And leading them was her.
Seren’s mother.
Once radiant, the Luna Queen of fire and stars, now draped in tattered shadows, her silver hair streaked with rot. Her once-bright eyes glowed dimly, their brilliance extinguished by whatever darkness the Queen of Ruin had poured into her.
Seren couldn’t breathe.
Her knees buckled, the heat of her fire dimming for just a heartbeat. A heartbeat that cost everything.
The Queen of Ruin moved.
She didn’t strike. She smiled.
“That pain?” she whispered, chains slithering like serpents around her. “That’s your inheritance. T
