Interlude — The Queen Beyond the Veil
793 Words
Before the stars were born, she had already been awake.
Before the first spark ignited the void, she had already learned how to extinguish it.
She was the beginning dressed as the end, and the end disguised as a crown.
She was the Queen.
Suspended beyond the veil, she drifted in the hollow realm between thought and reality. Her domain was a cathedral of starlight long since devoured, an endless expanse built from memory, from ruin, from the remnants of galaxies she had crushed in her palm like dying embers.
Everything here was silent.
Everything except the beat she felt through the veil.
Her heir’s heartbeat.
Eirena.
A name formed of warmth and rebellion, two things the Queen had no use for.
She watched the girl from the other side of existence. Through cracks in the veil. Through rifts left behind by dying worlds. Through the thin places where the universe forgot to breathe.
At first, Eirena had been nothing. A child born on a world the Queen had allowed to live out of indifference. A spark too small to bother snuffing.
But then...
The throne fell.
Her throne.
Eirena touched it.
Eirena broke it.
Eirena awakened the ember buried within its core.
Her ember.
The Queen felt the moment the girl’s hand brushed the remnants of her power. Felt the cosmic seed unravel, latch, and fuse itself to soft mortal flesh.
Felt her heir awaken.
At first, she had been amused.
Then intrigued.
And now,
Now she was wrath incarnate wrapped in starlight.
The veil trembled as she traced her fingers along it. The barrier shimmered like stretched glass, fragile and ready to fracture. Violet cracks webbed outward where her touch lingered.
Every crack sang of inevitability.
The Queen’s voice travelled through them like smoke.
“You run from me.”
Her tone held no frustration. No desperation.
Only inevitability.
“You do not yet understand the magnitude of what you hold.”
Her presence drifted along the thin fractures, weaving through them like a cosmic serpent. She could feel Eirena struggling on the other side, feel her fear, her pulse, her resistance.
Resistance was admirable.
She would break beautifully.
The Queen closed her eyes, letting the tether between them tighten. Through it, she tasted the girl’s thoughts, her emotions, her attachments.
One in particular.
Kael.
A warrior of little consequence. Fleeting. Mortal. Temporary.
But dangerous to her plans.
The Queen’s lip barely curved. A hint of amusement, a whisper of disdain.
Mortals were so predictable.
They cling to each other.
They believe love can save them.
They forget the stars do not care who they love.
The Queen pressed her palm against the veil. Energy pulsed outward, rippling through the barrier like a heartbeat, her heartbeat, ancient and unyielding.
On the other hand, she felt Eirena flinch.
Felt her pain.
Felt the ember recoil but not with fear.
With longing.
The Queen’s smile deepened by a fraction.
“You deny me,” she whispered.
“But the ember remembers its maker.”
She let her voice seep through the cracks, her presence brushing against Eirena’s thoughts like cold fingers on warm skin.
“You are bound to me. Born of my overshadow. Forged in the ashes of a crown you cannot escape.”
The veil shuddered again.
Small fractures broke further, expanding like petals of a monstrous flower unfurling.
The Queen could almost hear Eirena’s breath on the other side, ragged, terrified, defiant.
She admired that.
It would make her fall all the sweeter.
“Come to me,” she whispered, letting her voice thread into the girl’s bones.
“Come home.”
The Queen breathed out—and galaxies flickered into darkness.
She could feel the crack widening enough to pass a fragment of herself through. Enough to send an envoy, a whisper, a shadow.
But she wanted more.
She wanted all of her.
The veil pulsed.
It would soon break.
She would walk through the ruins of her old throne room. She would reclaim what was hers. She would stand before the girl who dared to shatter her crown and she would see.
Would Eirena bow?
Or burn?
Either way, she belonged to her.
The Queen lowered her head, closing her violet eyes as the universe trembled around her.
“You cannot outrun your origin.”
“You cannot resist what you were born for.”
“And you cannot hide from me, heir.”
Her fingers curled.
The veil cracked like ice under a blade.
Soon.
Soon she would descend.
Soon she would reclaim her crown.
Soon she would place her hand beneath Eirena’s chin and whisper:
“Welcome home.”
The Queen opened her eyes.
They blazed with violet fire.
And the veil…
Finally began to break.
- Writer
