Chapter 11 — The Hollow Throne
1840 Words
The wind howled through the ruined corridors of Vaelith, carrying with it the scent of dust, cold metal, and the faint, haunting whisper of magic long abandoned. Even in ruin, the once-sacred palace felt alive, watchful, restless, aware of the two figures entering its broken heart.
Eirena stepped first.
She moved slowly, each footfall echoing in the cavernous chamber as if the Hollow Throne itself were listening. The shadows clung to her, drawn to the starlight pulsing gently beneath her skin. The Dream Shard nestled between her ribs seemed to vibrate, resonating with the ancient structure around them.
Kael followed closely, keeping his hand near the hilt of his blade not because he believed a weapon could protect him here, but because it grounded him. The deeper they ventured into the throne chamber, the more oppressive the air became, thick with the remnants of power too old to die.
He swallowed hard.
“This place feels wrong.”
Eirena didn’t answer. Her eyes were distant, glazed with a mix of memory and dread. She knew this chamber. She had stood here as a child in dreams she had dismissed as nightmares. She had heard whispers here long before she knew the voices belonged to stars and to a woman who called herself Queen.
The Hollow Throne loomed ahead.
It was carved from a single slab of nightstone, its surface the color of void and frost. Empty, yet humming faintly. Fractured, yet dangerous. Spires of broken crystal rose behind it like skeletal wings, each one still flickering with faint celestial light as if refusing extinction.
Kael drew a slow breath.
“So this is it.”
Eirena nodded.
“This is where her reign began.”
Her voice was barely above a whisper.
“And where mine ends… or begins.”
For a moment, neither moved.
The throne exuded something cold and ancient, a hunger woven into its very shape. It was beautiful in the way a dying star is beautiful majestic, sorrowful, and terrifying.
Kael stepped beside her.
“What are you feeling?”
“Everything,” she murmured. “And nothing. It’s like the air remembers me. Like the stone is waiting.”
“For what?”
Her lips pressed into a thin line.
“For me to sit.”
“No.” Kael’s hand shot out, gripping her wrist. “Absolutely not. We don’t even know what that thing would do to you.”
Her gaze flickered toward him. “I do know.”
Kael’s heart dropped.
“You’re not serious.”
She looked away, eyes tracing the jagged seam splitting the throne down the middle.
“It’s calling me, Kael. The shard reacts to it. My blood reacts to it. If I don’t answer soon, the magic inside me will tear itself apart.”
Kael tightened his grip.
“Then we find another way.”
“There is no other way.”
“There always is.”
Eirena’s expression softened, but only slightly. “Your hope is admirable. Dangerous, but admirable.”
Kael exhaled through his nose. “And your martyr complex is exhausting.”
“Martyrdom implies choice,” she said quietly. “I never had one.”
“Then I’ll help you make one.”
Her gaze snapped to his, eyes glowing faintly with celestial fire. “Do not offer what you cannot keep.”
He stepped closer.
“Eirena, look at me. You are not alone in this.”
The chamber seemed to dim around them, as if the throne itself resented the interruption. Dust drifted from the ceiling. The echoes of their breaths grew sharper, faster.
Eirena pulled her hand from his, stepping forward.
Kael’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“Eirena… please.”
She didn’t turn.
“I have to understand. I have to see what she left behind.”
Kael cursed softly under his breath but followed her.
Eirena approached the Hollow Throne like a moth drawn to a flame that could burn the wings from her. The air shivered, warping slightly as if reality itself recoiled.
The throne whispered.
Not in words. Not at first.
It whispered in pulses of cold air, flickering light, the groan of ancient stone shifting beneath invisible weight.
Kael felt it too. His breath fogged. Gooseflesh erupted on his arms.
“What’s happening?”
Eirena’s voice trembled.
“It’s waking.”
A crack of light rippled across the fractured throne thin as a hairline fracture, bright as a fallen star. The Dream Shard in Eirena’s chest flared in response.
The connection was instantaneous. Violent.
Eirena gasped, clutching her chest.
Kael lunged.
“Eirena!”
She staggered forward instead of back, as if pulled.
Kael grabbed her shoulder, but energy lashed out like a whip, throwing him across the chamber. He hit the ground hard, air exploding from his lungs.
“KAEL!”
Eirena reached for him, but it was too late.
The throne had chosen.
A vortex of light and shadow erupted around her, lifting her off her feet. Her hair whipped around her face like a silver storm. The shard blazed beneath her ribs, burning through her skin in flickers of starlight.
The whispers became voices layered, harmonic, terrifying.
QUEEN.
HEIR.
STARBORN.
The throne recognized her.
Kael struggled to rise, every muscle screaming.
“Stop! Let her go!”
But the throne was listening only to the magic in Eirena’s blood.
Eirena’s vision fractured.
Suddenly she stood in the throne chamber as it had been centuries before. Gleaming. Whole. Filled with starlight instead of ruin. The throne was complete, its wings full and sharp, its power a constant, gentle hum.
And seated upon it was her mother.
Not the monstrous figure of shadows and decay she knew in nightmares. But a radiant queen, young, beautiful, crowned in living starlight.
The Hollow Queen smiled.
“Daughter.”
Eirena’s heart clenched. “You’re not real.”
“I am memory,” the Queen replied. “I am truth preserved. And I am the shadow that shaped your fate.”
Eirena stepped back, but the vision held her.
“Why show me this?”
“Because you must understand,” the Queen said, rising from the throne. “A crown is not a gift. It is a sacrifice. A burden. A curse that demands everything and gives nothing.”
“I don’t want it.”
The Queen laughed softly. “Then why did you come here, Eirena?”
“Because I needed answers.”
“You need acceptance.”
“I need freedom.”
“There is no freedom for those born of the crown.”
Eirena trembled. The shards of her mother’s truth stabbed into her like ice.
“I won’t become you,” she whispered.
The Queen stepped closer, cupping Eirena’s cheek with a hand of starlight.
“You already are.”
Eirena jerked away, but the Queen dissolved into dust and stars, her voice echoing:
“Claim the crown… or die by its absence.”
The vision shattered.
Kael crawled toward Eirena against a gale of magic pushing him back. The winds cut his skin, slicing into him like shards of frozen light.
His eyes watered.
“Eirena! Fight it!”
Her body convulsed in midair, back arching, fingers curled as if pulling invisible threads.
The throne’s energy surged. The chamber shook. Cracks split across the walls. The pillars trembled like brittle bones.
Kael forced himself forward, inch by inch.
“I’m here! I’m not leaving you!”
Her scream sliced through him.
The invisible barrier around her pulsed again, slamming him backward but he dug his fingers into the stone and dragged himself forward with a raw, animal sound.
He would reach her.
He had to reach her.
Eirena’s feet finally touched the ground but she did not stand. She hovered, suspended by threads of starlight.
Then her knees bent.
Her back straightened.
Her head lifted.
She was being lowered onto the throne.
“No…” she gasped, struggling. “No!”
The throne’s voice filled her skull.
YOU ARE QUEEN BY BLOOD.
YOU ARE QUEEN BY BIRTH.
YOU ARE QUEEN BY FATE.
“No!” she screamed, thrashing, fighting the invisible pull. “I refuse! I refuse!”
But the throne did not understand refusal.
It understood only possession.
Her body inched closer, the cold stone nearing her spine.
Kael’s roar echoed through the chamber.
“LET HER GO!”
He lunged and broke through the barrier just as Eirena’s back touched the throne.
Light exploded.
Kael reached her, arms wrapping around her shoulders, pulling her against him.
A surge of power crackled between them—her magic colliding with his presence, her fear bleeding into his strength.
The throne reacted violently.
Cracks spiderwebbed across its surface. The crystal wings behind it splintered with sounds like screaming stars.
The entire palace began to tremble. Dust and shards of stone rained from above.
Eirena clutched Kael’s shirt, burying her face in his shoulder.
“I don’t want it,” she whispered fiercely.
“I know,” he said, holding her tighter. “Then don’t take it.”
“But it won’t let me go.”
“Then I’ll tear you free.”
Eirena’s breath hitched.
“You can’t.”
“Watch me.”
He gripped her waist, bracing his eyes against the blinding starlight, and pulled.
The throne shrieked—an otherworldly sound that ripped through their bones.
The air fractured.
The magic writhed.
The throne cracked fully, splitting in two.
Light burst outward in a wave that consumed the chamber, the palace, the world itself.
And then the Hollow Throne collapsed.
The wings shattered.
The seat crumbled.
The power holding Eirena snapped like a broken chain.
She fell into Kael’s arms.
The storm died.
Silence swallowed the ruins.
Dust settled softly in the chamber like gray snow. Where the Hollow Throne had once stood, there remained only broken shards of nightstone glowing faintly with dying light.
Eirena trembled in Kael’s embrace, drained, her skin pale, her veins flickering faintly with fading starlight.
Kael cupped her face.
“Eirena. Look at me. Are you”
“I’m not hurt,” she whispered.
“But something is… different.”
“Different how?”
She shook her head. “The throne’s bond is gone. I felt it break. But something else woke in its place.”
Kael frowned. “What does that mean?”
Eirena gazed at the shattered throne.
“That crown was never meant to rule forever. It was meant to imprison.”
“Imprison who?”
She looked at him and the fear in her eyes chilled him to his core.
“Her,” Eirena whispered.
“And now… she’s awake.”
Kael’s blood ran cold.
“The Queen?”
Eirena nodded slowly.
“No,” she said softly, voice trembling with a truth she didn’t want to speak.
“Not just the Queen.”
Her pulse flickered with faint starlight.
“The thing she kept sealed. The thing she feared most.”
She swallowed hard.
“The Shadow Between Stars.”
- Writer
