Chapter 18 — The Queen Steps Through
1631 Words
The Sanctum did not shatter when the Queen arrived.
It folded.
The air bent around her presence like metal softened by flame, the crystalline floor warping, bowing and submitting before she even stepped fully into the chamber.
Eirena felt it first, a pressure behind her ribs, as if a giant hand gripped her lungs and slowly squeezed.
Her breath caught. Her pulse staggered.
Kael burst into the chamber just as the atmosphere cracked.
“Eirena!”
His voice was ripped away mid-syllable, swallowed by the suffocating pull of the Queen’s arrival.
The air around him shimmered, his silhouette flickering as if reality struggled to keep hold of him. But he forced himself forward one brutal step at a time, fighting pressure that should have crushed him flat.
“Kael!” Eirena cried, stumbling toward him.
The chamber plunged into a cold violet glow.
And the Queen stepped through the veil.
She did not walk.
She unfolded, her form materializing like a shadow cast by a star that was no longer there. Her gown whispered across the crystalline floor like liquid night. A veil of burning starlight drifted behind her in tendrils that hissed and writhed like smoke in reverse, pulling inward instead of outward.
And her eyes.
Violet.
Abyssal.
Alive.
They fixed on Eirena the way a predator fixes on its fated prey.
“Child.”
The word echoed through the chamber, soft as silk, heavy as gravity.
Eirena’s knees trembled but she did not kneel.
The Queen’s head tilted slightly, strands of starlight drifting around her like a halo sharpened to knives.
“You have awakened it,” the Queen whispered. “How… unexpected.”
Kael shoved himself between them, sword raised. His stance was firm, but his voice betrayed the strain on his body.
“You’re not touching her.”
For a moment, the Queen simply stared at him.
And at that moment, everything stalled.
Then she smiled.
Not with warmth.
Not with mirth.
With recognition.
“You,” she said, amused. “You are the little warrior who thinks love can change fate.”
Kael’s grip tightened. “It already has.”
A faint hum, like a cosmic laugh, rippled from her.
“Love is a mortal’s excuse for fear.”
Eirena stepped forward, placing a hand on Kael’s shoulder. The contact steadied her more than him.
“Why are you here?” Eirena asked, her voice stronger than she expected.
The Queen’s gaze slid back to her slowly, deliberately.
“To reclaim what is mine.”
She lifted a hand elegant, pale, adorned with rings forged from collapsed star-cores.
Her fingers curled slightly, and Eirena felt it.
A tug.
Inside her chest, the ember pulsed violently, drawn as if by invisible threads. The pain tore through her like a hooked blade, dragging something ancient and writhing toward the Queen’s outstretched hand.
Eirena gasped, staggering.
“No,” Kael growled.
He swung.
The moment his blade crossed into the Queen’s aura, it slowed, dragged, warped, as if time wrapped itself around the steel.
The Queen merely flicked her gaze at him.
Kael’s sword cracked.
The shockwave hurled him backwards, slamming him into a crystalline pillar with a force that made the entire Sanctum ring like a struck bell.
“KAEL!” Eirena cried.
He slumped to the floor, dazed, coughing.
The Queen lowered her hand. “He should not have interfered.”
A burning fury ignited in Eirena.
“You hurt him.”
“He placed himself between us,” the Queen replied. “A foolish place to die.”
Eirena’s vision wavered with rising heat. White-gold light seeped through her veins, flickering under her skin like molten constellations.
The Queen watched with quiet hunger.
“Your awakening has not settled,” she murmured. “Good. That makes you pliable.”
Eirena’s heart hammered. “I’m not yours.”
The Queen smiled again, almost sad this time. “You are my last echo. My only heir.”
“I’m not your heir. I’m not your weapon.”
“Oh, child…” the Queen whispered, stepping closer. The air around her warped with each movement. “You misunderstand.”
She reached out not with power, but with her hand.
“I do not want to wield you.”
Her fingertips brushed the air near Eirena’s cheek.
“I want you beside me.”
The words hit her harder than any attack.
Beside her?
As what?
An heir? A daughter? A replacement for the Starborn she destroyed?
Eirena forced herself to breathe.
“I won’t help you,” she said quietly.
The Queen’s expression softened terrifyingly gentle.
“You already have.”
She lifted both hands now, and the chamber pulsed.
Eirena felt the ember inside her flare hotter, brighter, responding to the Queen’s presence like metal responding to a magnet.
“STOP!” Eirena cried, digging her heels into the floor as the pull intensified.
The Queen’s voice turned into silk-wrapped command.
“Let go.”
“No!”
“LET GO.”
The force struck like a tidal wave.
Power ripped through Eirena, her back arching as if lightning speared through her spine. Her scream echoed through the Sanctum, her hands clawing at the air as she felt the ember unravelling inside her.
Kael staggered back to his feet.
He didn’t hesitate.
He didn’t think.
He charged.
The Queen didn’t turn.
She didn’t raise her hand.
She didn’t even blink.
She whispered a single word.
“Enough.”
The air around Kael solidified into translucent chains of violet energy that snapped around his limbs mid-stride, yanking him off the ground. His sword clattered away, skittering across the floor out of reach.
The Queen’s gaze flicked lazily toward him.
“You exhaust me, mortal.”
“Let him go!” Eirena screamed.
Her voice cracked with rage and something else.
Power.
Light burst from her skin in violent pulses, leaving scorched cracks along the floor. A wind whipped around her, howling like a storm bending planets.
The Queen paused.
Her expression sharpened.
“Oh,” she whispered. “There you are.”
Eirena staggered forward as her body flooded with raw energy, blinding, overwhelming. Her hair whipped behind her, glowing at the tips like threads of supernova fire.
Her eyes burned.
But she could not control it.
Every atom felt stretched.
Every breath felt too heavy.
Every heartbeat felt like it might tear her open.
“S-stop,” she gasped, clutching her chest. “I, I can’t.”
The Queen stepped close.
For the first time, her voice was soft with something real.
Not hunger.
Not possession.
Something dangerously close to compassion.
“Let me take it,” the Queen whispered, her palm brushing Eirena’s cheek. “You were not meant to carry what destroyed a god.”
Eirena trembled.
The Queen leaned forward, her forehead nearly touching hers.
“Give it to me, child.”
The ember inside her responded, thrashing, burning, and wanting her.
The Queen.
Eirena’s vision blurred.
“No…” She staggered backwards. “No. I won’t. I won’t give you anything.”
The Queen’s voice hardened.
“Then you will be consumed by it.”
Eirena sucked in a sharp breath as her body spasmed.
The light surged,
spiked,
exploded.
Kael’s voice cut through it all.
“EIRENA!”
It grounded her for one precious second.
She seized it like a rope in a storm.
The light faltered, sputtered, withdrawing enough for her to breathe.
The Queen’s eyes narrowed.
“You resist me for him?”
Eirena lifted trembling hands. “I resist you for myself.”
And then...
The Sanctum roared.
The light around Eirena surged upward, swirling into an enormous column that blasted toward the vaulted ceiling. The chamber shook, pillars cracking, shards of crystal whipping through the air.
The Queen shielded her face with a flick of her hand, her composure fracturing at last.
Eirena floated, feet lifting off the ground, the raw power of the awakening tearing through her like wildfire.
Kael screamed her name again, but she couldn’t hear him anymore.
The Queen’s voice rang out through the storm:
“ENOUGH!”
She thrust her hand forward.
Power slammed into the rising column and bent it.
It curved like a ribbon of light, forced sideways directly toward the Queen.
Their powers collided in an explosion that sent both of them flying backwards.
Eirena hit the crystalline floor hard, stars bursting across her vision.
The Queen staggered but stayed standing, robes tattered at the edges where Eirena’s light had burned through them.
Her expression was no longer patient.
No longer amused.
No longer gentle.
It was furious.
“You dare,” the Queen whispered, voice shaking the chamber, “raise your power against me?”
Eirena pushed to her knees, hair falling around her face in glowing strands. “I’m not yours.”
The Queen stepped forward.
“Then I will break you.”
Another wave of power surged from her, violet and crushing.
Eirena braced.
Kael tore free from the chains with a roar that didn’t sound human and slammed into the Queen with the force of a falling star.
The Queen’s eyes snapped wide as they both went crashing into the far wall.
Eirena gasped.
She had never seen Kael move like that.
Never seen him filled with that kind of ferocity.
The Queen recovered instantly too fast and flung him away with a flick of her fingers, violent enough to send splinters of crystal flying on impact.
He didn’t get up.
“KAEL!” Eirena screamed.
The Queen turned back to her.
“This ends now.”
Her hand rose glowing with violet fire, and at the same time, Eirena’s body erupted with white-gold light.
The two forces collided in a blinding flash,
And the Sanctum collapsed.
- Writer
