Episode 5
1537 Words
BLOOD MAKES NO PROMISES
Smoke rose in pillars from the fractured throne room.
Lira stood with her blade leveled, breath ragged, facing the demon her ancestors had foolishly bound — Sevrin, the parasite who whispered through generations, always pretending to serve while waiting for the right heir to devour.
Now he stood unshackled.
And Lira had just made herself his chosen enemy.
“You bleed power,” Sevrin murmured, his form shifting between monstrous and man — one breath fire and bone, the next a silver-haired figure in noble robes, tall and elegant, with a voice like silk across broken glass. “I could make you a queen.”
“I already am,” Lira spat.
“Not yet,” he said, stepping closer. “But soon. All you have to do is give in.”
She lunged.
Blade met shadow — and passed through.
He vanished, reforming behind her in a ripple of flame. She whirled just in time to block his claws with the flat of her sword. Sparks burst on impact. Her body shuddered from the force.
“You think you understand power,” he said. “But you only taste its edges. The Vale bloodline was meant to be a weapon, not a chain. You’re still playing by rules that died a century ago.”
“I make my own rules.”
He grinned. “Then make this choice: kneel and reign — or burn trying to stand.”
She struck again, angling the Blade of Memory into his ribs.
This time, it cut.
Not flesh.
Memory.
Sevrin screamed — not from pain, but from fury.
“You dare?” he roared, voice echoing into every stone. “I was ancient before your bloodline crawled from the dirt!”
“And you’re still nothing without us,” she growled.
He reeled back.
And vanished.
Gone in a gust of scorched wind.
Silence returned.
Lira dropped to one knee, shaking.
The Blade of Memory trembled in her hand, faint pulses racing up her arm like heartbeats from another time. It had wounded Sevrin — not much, but enough to prove he could be hurt.
Which meant he could be defeated.
But not alone.
Not yet.
Later, in the depths of the forbidden library, Lira lit candles with a flick of her hand. Their flickering glow illuminated the torn parchment she’d taken from the book Sevrin wrote — a ritual long lost to even the most ancient records.
The Binding Reversal.
The spell that could sever House Vale’s link to the demon, once and for all.
But it required three things — and she only had one.
The Blade of Memory.
The second was the Bone Crown.
It had belonged to Elenore Vale, forged from the remains of her enemies — and said to grant her the vision to see through lies, into souls. Lira suspected it was buried with her.
The problem?
No one knew where Elenore’s tomb was.
But someone might.
Celestine.
Her sister had vanished after Sevrin’s emergence — fled, most likely, but not without a plan. She would not surrender the crown to Lira willingly, even if she had it.
And Lira didn’t have time to wait.
Not with the third element of the ritual — the Willing Curse — already binding itself to her. A living soul, marked by vengeance, willing to sacrifice their freedom to fuel the magic.
She’d felt it forming in her ever since the blade accepted her.
Her blood was changing.
And if she didn’t act soon, she might become the curse herself.
She called for Varian at dawn.
The former Captain of the Guard had once been her father’s sword hand — before being exiled for refusing to kneel to Celestine after the funeral. Lira found him in the ruins of the watchtower, nursing an old wound and a deep distrust.
“You should be dead,” he said when he saw her.
“I was,” Lira replied. “Now I’m something else.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You’ve got his scent.”
“Sevrin’s?”
“No. Your father’s. When he wanted something, you couldn’t stop him. He looked at the world like it owed him. You look at it like you’re ready to burn it down.”
“I am.”
Varian’s expression didn’t change. “Then what do you need?”
They rode east.
Toward the Wailing Bluffs — cliffs so steep and windswept they howled even without a breeze. Legend said Elenore Vale had thrown her last enemy from those heights — and then vanished into the earth with her secrets.
Lira believed her tomb was hidden there.
They reached the cliffs by nightfall. The wind cut sharp across their skin, carrying voices only the cursed could hear.
Varian dismounted first. “How do we find a tomb that doesn’t want to be found?”
“We ask the one who built it.”
She pulled a scrap of bone from her pocket — the finger bone of a long-dead Vale ancestor — and whispered a summoning spell in the old tongue.
The wind died.
And from the shadows, a woman stepped forth.
Elenore Vale.
Or the echo of her.
Her hair was moonlight silver, her dress black as mourning, and her eyes... empty.
“Child,” she said, voice low and cold. “You walk in my wake.”
“I walk to fix what you broke,” Lira said.
Elenore tilted her head. “Do you even know what that is?”
“You fed Sevrin. Bound him with blood. Made this curse a legacy.”
“I made us strong,” Elenore snapped. “You think freedom is noble? You’d rather be prey?”
“I’d rather choose what hunts me.”
Elenore studied her. “You’ve found the blade. You seek the crown. But what will you give when it’s time to pay the curse?”
“Myself.”
The specter smiled.
“Then follow.”
Elenore led them to a cave beneath the cliffs, hidden behind a veil of mist and warded against all but Vale blood. At the entrance, Lira cut her palm and let the blood drip across the runes. They flared, then parted.
Inside, bones lined the walls. Hundreds — maybe thousands. Warriors who had died defending Elenore’s reign. Their spirits stirred as Lira passed, whispering warnings.
At the chamber’s center sat a stone sarcophagus, carved with the story of her rise: a child bride, a murdered husband, a throne seized in fire. And on its lid rested the Bone Crown.
It was beautiful.
And terrifying.
Made of human and beast, gold woven through bone, each tooth and horn engraved with spells of sight.
When Lira touched it, visions poured through her mind.
Celestine speaking to Sevrin beneath the throne. Her mother poisoning her tea on her sixteenth birthday. Noble houses plotting her death before she was even born.
Lies.
All of them.
Unraveled.
The crown showed her everything.
And it whispered one truth above them all:
You cannot trust anyone born of Vale blood.
They returned to House Vale under stormlight.
The sky boiled above, thunder shaking the halls.
And standing at the gates was Celestine.
Flanked by nobles in stolen armor, her hands glowing with borrowed magic, the old sigil of the House repainted crimson.
“You’ve turned our name to ash,” Celestine called out. “You’ll not walk these halls again.”
“I’m not asking permission,” Lira replied.
She raised the Blade of Memory.
The Bone Crown burned on her head.
And behind her, Varian drew steel.
Celestine sneered. “Then die with your heresy.”
The battle erupted like lightning.
Lira fought not just with her blade, but with memory.
Each s***h tore the past from her enemies. She stripped lies from tongues, secrets from bones. She used the truth like poison.
Celestine countered with stolen magic — fragments of Sevrin’s power, gifted to her in exchange for loyalty.
The demon watched from the shadows, pleased by the chaos.
But he’d underestimated Lira.
She didn’t want to win this war.
She wanted to end it.
At the height of the battle, Lira called upon the ritual.
The Blade. The Crown. The Curse.
She stood atop the broken throne, blood pouring from her eyes and palms.
Sevrin appeared before her in his full form — wings of fire, a body stitched from history’s worst mistakes.
“You would cast me out?” he laughed. “Without me, you are nothing.”
“I’m what you made,” she said.
“And I regret it.”
“You should.”
She stabbed the blade through her own heart.
Magic exploded.
The Bone Crown shattered.
The throne cracked.
And Sevrin screamed.
Bound no longer to House Vale, but to the curse Lira offered him — herself, willingly, fully, without fear.
She took him inside her body.
And caged him.
Forever.
When the dust settled, the nobles fled.
Varian knelt.
Celestine lay unconscious.
And Lira Vale stood alone — no longer heir, no longer pawn, no longer prey.
She was queen.
But not of thrones or titles.
She was queen of truth.
Of blood.
And soon… of vengeance.
- Writer
