Chapter 2 - The Girl Beneath the Ruins
1019 Words
Elara POV
I was screaming.
I think.
My mouth was open, my throat burned, but the sound around me was louder than anything human. Wind tore through the café in violent circles. Tables flipped. Glass rained from broken windows. Shadows crawled up the walls like living things searching for me.
The crown was fused to my hands.
I tried to drop it.
It would not move.
Pain blazed through my arms, racing into my chest, my skull, my spine. My knees hit the cracked floor hard enough to bruise.
“Take it off!” I cried.
The stranger was beside me in an instant.
“You cannot.”
“That is not helpful!”
He grabbed my shoulders as another surge of power ripped through me. Black light burst from the crown, knocking chairs across the room.
Outside, people were running through the street.
Inside, the walls were shaking.
“Look at me,” he ordered.
I wanted to refuse.
Instead, I looked up.
His eyes were no longer black.
They glowed silver.
“Breathe,” he said.
“I hate you.”
“Reasonable. Breathe anyway.”
Another pulse slammed through my body. I gasped, and with it came something worse than pain
Memories.
Not mine.
A stone castle under a blood-red sky.
Armored soldiers kneeling.
A woman with dark hair wearing the crown.
Fire swallowing towers.
A child crying in the dark.
Then
A man with silver eyes screaming my name.
I tore away from the vision with a violent sob.
“What was that?”
“The crown awakening.”
“It showed me things!”
“It remembers.”
I stared at him like he was insane.
“The crown remembers?” I repeated.
“Yes.”
“That sentence should not exist.”
A crash interrupted us.
The front wall of the café caved inward.
Dust filled the air as a creature bigger than the others forced itself through the rubble. It stood on two legs, skin stretched over muscle, horns curling from its skull.
Its red eyes fixed on me.
The crown burned hotter.
The beast bowed.
I blinked.
“What?”
The stranger swore under his breath.
“That is bad.”
“How is bowing bad?”
“Because it recognizes you.”
Before I could ask what that meant, the creature roared so loudly the ceiling lights dropped.
Then it charged.
The stranger shoved me aside.
Steel flashed in his hand a black blade I swear had not existed a second earlier.
He met the monster head-on.
The impact split the floor.
I crawled backward through broken glass, shaking so hard my teeth clicked. He moved like violence given shape slashing, twisting, striking faster than thought.
But the beast was stronger than the others.
It threw him across the room.
He crashed through the counter.
My heart lurched.
Why did I care?
Because he was the only person here who understood any of this.
The monster turned toward me.
Each step made the floor tremble.
I scrambled backward until my spine hit a fallen table.
Nowhere left to go.
The crown pulsed once.
Heat flooded my hands.
Then a voice whispered inside me again.
Command it.
“No.”
The beast raised one clawed arm.
Command it.
“I don’t know how!”
Its claws came down.
I screamed and thrust the crown forward.
Black fire exploded from the stones.
The blast hit the creature square in the chest and launched it through the broken wall into the street.
Everything went still.
Smoke curled from my fingers.
I stared at my hands.
“I did that.”
The stranger rose from the wrecked counter, blood at the corner of his mouth.
“Yes,” he said grimly. “And now they all know where you are.”
Sirens were louder now.
People outside were shouting.
Phones were recording.
Wonderful.
I stood shakily. “Tell me what’s happening.”
“No time.”
“You keep saying that!”
“Because it remains true.”
He strode toward me, wiping blood from his lip.
“I need answers.”
“You need to survive.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
He stopped inches away.
Up close, I noticed the cut on his cheek healing in real time.
That should have shocked me.
I was too tired.
“Your mother hid you for nineteen years,” he said quietly. “Tonight the seal broke.”
My stomach dropped.
“What seal?”
“The one hiding what you are.”
I laughed weakly. “Please don’t say chosen one.”
His mouth almost twitched.
“No.”
“Good.”
“You are heir to a dead throne.”
That was somehow worse.
Before I could speak, the ground beneath us rumbled.
Not trembled.
Opened.
Cracks raced across the floor in jagged lines. The remains of the café collapsed inward.
I yelped as the tiles beneath my feet gave way.
The stranger lunged.
Too late.
I fell into darkness.
Stone scraped my arms as I dropped through dust and debris. I hit hard, pain shooting through my side.
Above me, the hole sealed with a thunderous crash.
Silence.
Total blackness.
Then blue flames ignited one by one along the walls.
I pushed myself up slowly.
I wasn’t in a basement.
I was in a chamber.
Ancient stone pillars surrounded me. Symbols covered the walls. Broken statues knelt around a circular platform at the center.
And on that platform stood a massive throne carved from black crystal.
Something moved behind it.
A woman stepped forward.
She wore torn royal robes. Her skin was pale as moonlight. Her eyes glowed red.
And though half her body was transparent, she smiled like she had been waiting centuries.
“You have her face,” she said softly.
I stumbled back. “You’re dead.”
“Mostly.”
My hand tightened around the crown.
“Who are you?”
She bowed her head.
“I am the queen they betrayed.”
Her gaze lifted to mine.
“And you, child... are my blood.”
- Writer
- chap_listContents
- likeADD