Not a single star dared to twinkle above the Realm of Darkness.
This land knew no dawn. A heavy gloom clung to the sky like a dying breath, choking out even the memory of light. No bird sang, no breeze whispered. Only silence… stretched thin over a world that never forgot pain.
In the heart of this forsaken land stood the Palace of Ashen Bone — a crooked structure built from grief and bound by blood-oaths. Its towers spiraled like broken fingers into the smog-filled sky. Thorned vines coiled across the stone, pulsing faintly as if alive. The palace did not simply stand—it brooded.
Inside, the throne hall lay draped in shadows. Dark marble floors mirrored the crimson torches lining the walls. Their flickering light was too weak to fully pierce the veil that cloaked the room. At the center, atop a dais carved with forgotten runes, sat Queen Vishkaniya.
Her presence poisoned the air.
Veiled in a robe spun from obsidian thread, she looked more specter than sovereign. Her eyes, the color of dried blood, gleamed beneath a silver crown shaped like interwoven thorns. Her hair flowed behind her like spilled ink, and where her bare feet touched the floor, frost cracked the stone.
Beside her stood three antelope-like creatures—black as void, with glowing violet eyes. They were guardians, or perhaps spies. They never spoke, only watched.
But it was the girl on her left who seemed most out of place.
Delicate. Almost angelic.
Her name was Zareen. She had the grace of her mother, Queen Ayela of the Realm of Light—but none of her warmth. Her beauty was cold, like a mirror reflecting someone else’s sorrow. Though she lived in the Realm of Darkness, she did not belong here. Not fully.
And Vishkaniya knew it.
“You look more like her each day,” the Queen hissed, her voice slithering like smoke. “But your eyes… no. They are mine.”
Zareen said nothing.
A silence stretched between them, heavy and unkind.
Then the Queen turned toward the mirror behind her—a tall, tarnished relic carved with strange symbols. She raised her hand, and the surface rippled. A scene emerged: the Realm of Light. Its skies, golden. Its gardens, alive. And at the center of it all—Elara.
The girl with the amulet.
The girl who could not be touched.
Vishkaniya’s lips curled into a grim smile. “She lives in the light… but I see her. I hear her laughter. Her dreams. Her fears.” Her fingers tightened into a claw. “That amulet she wears... it shields her. Cursed thing. It reeks of Ayela’s spellcraft.”
“She doesn't know who she is,” whispered Zareen, her voice barely more than a breath.
“No,” Vishkaniya agreed. “But she will soon. And on her eighteenth birthday, everything will change. The light will crown her Queen… and that’s when I will strike.”
A sudden wind stirred in the throne room, though no windows were open. The torches flared.
“Why do you hate her so much?” Zareen asked quietly.
Vishkaniya’s expression hardened. “Because she was never meant to exist.”
She rose from the throne, her steps echoing across the hall like the tolling of a death bell. “She is the mistake Ayela made when she chose hope over honor. When she spared a life she should have ended.”
As the Queen stepped closer to the mirror, a flicker of something—perhaps pain, perhaps memory—passed through her eyes. But it vanished just as quickly.
“Light and Darkness were not always enemies,” she murmured. “Once, we were sisters.”
Zareen looked up, startled. “You and Ayela…?”
But Vishkaniya waved her hand, and the mirror darkened again. “That story is not for tonight.”
A beat passed.
Then she turned toward her guardians and spoke in a language older than time. The creatures stirred, heads bowing.
“The preparations begin now. Her dreams will be twisted. Her path—haunted. We shall remind her that the darkness remembers.”
Suddenly, a low hum began to vibrate through the palace floor. From the cracks beneath the dais, a black mist rose, curling around the Queen’s feet. It pulsed, alive. Hungry.
Zareen stepped back.
“And what if the light protects her?” she asked, her voice trembling.
Vishkaniya turned slowly. Her eyes glowed like embers.
“Then we burn the light.”
To Be Continued...
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