The Bone Queen stood before me, her borrowed face radiating beauty and malice, stitched from the deepest corner of memory, my mother’s face, but hollowed by ancient cruelty.“Do you not recognize your own blood?” she purred.My voice was steel. “That face is not hers.”She stepped closer, bare feet trailing frost across the bone tiles. “But it was. And I am what she became when the curse devoured her soul.”I froze. “You’re lying.”Selene stood behind her, eyes dark with certainty. “She’s not. I saw it in the scrying flames the night your curse activated. The Bone Queen didn’t just mark you, Lyra. She birthed you.”“No…..”“She didn’t die in childbirth,” Selene whispered. “She became this.”The world tilted, KAEL’S RAMPAGE.Back in Red Hollow, Kael moved like vengeance. He didn’t sleep, didn’t speak, Just killed. Thorne lay chained in a fire circle, bloodied and laughing.“She’s not dead,” Thorne whispered. “She’s just with her real family now.”Kael shoved a blade into his thigh.“Wr
The room cracked with pressure. Thorne’s offer hung between us like venom, tempting, potent, and far too easy.Kael stepped forward, blade half-drawn. “Say another word, and I’ll carve the magic from your bones.”Thorne only smiled. “Temper, temper, baby brother. Is that any way to treat the man who could save her life?”“I don’t want to be saved like that,” I said, voice flat. “I want to be free.”Thorne’s smirk faltered, just barely. “Freedom is expensive. Survival even more so.”I narrowed my eyes. “Then I’ll pay in blood.”He chuckled. “Then you’ll get your war.”We didn’t sleep that night. Kael watched the windows like a feral beast. I poured over prophecy texts by dying candlelight. The spiral mark pulsed beneath my collarbone with each passing hour, burning colder instead of hotter.A sign of convergence.The curse wasn’t just a timer. It was a signal.Thorne lingered, always at the edges, whispering cryptic truths and half-offers.He spoke to Kael when I wasn’t looking. I hear
I didn’t feel the floor. Didn’t feel Kael’s fingers clutching mine, didn’t feel the blood in my mouth. All I felt was the mark. A spiral of black ink etched across the center of my chest, still pulsing with a rhythm not my own. A curse that wasn’t cast, but activated. Behind me, the Divine Familiar fought Selene, their powers shattering pillars and rewriting the sky, but my gaze never left the mark.“Lyra,” Kael rasped, reaching for me. “What is that?”I tried to answer, but the words turned to ash in my throat, because deep, deep inside me…I knew. This wasn’t just a curse, this was a countdown.The clash behind us quieted. The boy, no, the familiar, emerged from the smoke, staggering. His golden skin had cracked like porcelain, revealing glimpses of something far darker beneath.“She’s gone,” he whispered.Gone? I looked around. No body. No blood. Just a jagged hole where Selene had stood.Kael narrowed his eyes. “Gone where?”The familiar tilted his head slowly.“She didn’t run… she
The glass throne burned beneath me, not with fire, but with memory. My memories, pain and bloodline. I couldn’t move, not because I didn’t want to, because the throne, the power I claimed, had already anchored itself into my veins. Across the shattered hall, Kael’s body lay crumpled, fading with every heartbeat I couldn’t reach.“No,” I whispered, voice cracking.But the boy, now fully transformed, stood beside me with a strange calm in his golden eyes.“You accepted divinity,” he said softly. “That means you accepted the cost.”“I didn’t know this was the cost!”His gaze didn’t waver. “You always knew. You just didn’t believe it would ever come down to him.”Rage rose in me like a tsunami, ancient and elemental. “Then unbind me,” I growled. “Let me go to him. I’ll surrender the throne.”“You can’t,” he said. “Not anymore.”My heart dropped.“What?”“You took the glass throne. The only throne forged from prophecy and chaos. It doesn’t let go. Ever.”My voice broke. “Then how do I save
The bone dagger hovered in the air, its tip glinting with old blood and deeper promises. The queen waited, timeless, her gaze unblinking. The altar’s breath had slowed… but my heart raced. Kael knelt across from me, blade at his side, his hands open in surrender. Not to her, but to me.“I don’t know what’s real anymore,” he said quietly. “But I know the way you make me feel.”And yet, his words felt like paper now, floating, weightless, meaningless, because Selene’s spell had done something worse than twist his love. It made me doubt mine. The bone dagger sliced downward suddenly and stopped right above my palm."Choose," the queen whispered. "Blood or bond. Power or pain. Let the veil break."I reached up. My fingers wrapped around the dagger.I heard Kael call my name, but his voice was a blur, drowned by the scream of something ancient and broken tearing loose inside me.I pressed the blade to my palm. A single drop of blood hit the altar, and the earth shook. Not metaphorically, l
The altar groaned like it remembered war. The ancient queen stepped forward, my face carved into something regal and soulless. She wore a crown of hollow thorns, bones weaving in and out of her flowing silver hair like parasites. Her eyes, black, endless, full of knowing, pierced me like blades.Kael moved in front of me. Protective. Defiant.But the queen only chuckled. “Still clinging to your beast, Lyra?”“She’s not choosing you,” Kael growled.“Oh, I’m not the one she needs to choose.” The queen pointed at the boy. “He is the price. I am only the path.”Selene moved to the side of the altar, her expression terrifyingly calm. “Lyra… don’t fight it. You were never meant to live a mortal’s romance. You are a creature of power. Of prophecy.”“And you,” I snapped, “are a traitor.”Selene flinched, but she didn’t deny it. The boy’s voice cut through the tension.“Choose, Lyra. Bind to the bone queen, or walk away, and everything you’ve built will fall. Your pack. Your bloodline. Him.”H