All Chapters of CROWNED BY BLOOD: Chapter 51 - Chapter 59

The cosmic winds no longer hummed in harmony.From the astral sanctum, I watched the stars pulse with uneasy rhythm. In the beginning, this place, our refuge between realms, had been a haven of clarity and peace. But now, something was... off. Not broken. Just bent. Like a melody almost perfect, except for one note forever out of tune.Kai Jr. had stopped speaking entirely.He would sit alone in the meditation chamber for hours, eyes vacant and fixed on a particular corner that pulsed faintly with shadow. When I entered the room, the shadows dispersed, but never completely. He never said what he saw. When I asked, he only blinked, as though waking from a trance he didn't understand.Alexander had become combative. Not physically violent yet but his energy flared hotter with each day. Every minor disagreement with Seraphina, every shift in celestial tide, sent his power sparking off him like wildfire. Once, when one of the celestial scholars tried to adjust a protective glyph on his wr

I should have felt relief returning to Hollowshade.The ancient stones still remembered me, whispered my name through the marble floors and shadowed corridors. The sentries bowed, the mages stood aside, and the High Court lowered their heads in reverence. But something in the air was wrong. Too quiet. Too cold. As though the palace had braced itself for grief it didn’t know how to name.My children were no better.Alexander collapsed during morning sparring, mid-lunge. One moment he was channeling his inner flame with precision, the next he dropped to his knees, gasping, eyes wide as if he were drowning in air. And then he began to speak.Not speak. Chant.A language I didn’t recognize clawed its way out of his mouth. It wasn't an ancient werewolf tongue, nor one of the high dialects from the celestial archives. The sound was guttural and hollow, like wind dragging over bones.I knelt beside him, cradling his head as he trembled. His body was burning, his veins glowing faintly gold bu

The archives beneath Hollowshade were colder than I remembered. Each step down the spiraling stone staircase drained warmth from my bones, dust clinging to the air like ash. I moved past broken stone reliefs, a warrior with his sword raised, a mother cradling a child whose features had been erased by time. The sight made my heart clench. My own children Alexander, Seraphina, Kai Jr. were they destined for such obscurity?The hollowed-out tomes lined the walls like ribs of some great beast, their knowledge consumed by flame or rot. Only their bindings remained, leather covers faded to the color of old bone. Deeper into the restricted wing I went, where shadows bled from the walls like wounds. The darkness had weight, pressing against my skin like oil. My fingertips brushed old glyphs etched by hands long buried, feeling the faint vibration of magic still clinging to the stone.Celestina's voice echoed in my mind: "Some knowledge buries more than it reveals." But I had no choice. Peace

No one could help me.Not the fae who owed me blood debts stretching back centuries, their ethereal faces twisting with regret as they turned away from my pleas. Not the witches who once lit candles to my name in midnight rituals, their ancient covens falling silent when I spoke my children's names. Not even the priests who sang under starfall, their holy voices cracking as they glimpsed the darkness clinging to my soul like oil. All their wisdom, all their accumulated power, all their carefully hoarded rites useless against what consumed my children.I hadn't slept in three days. The marks beneath my eyes were not shadows anymore; they were bruises of grief carved deep into flesh, purple-black reminders of every sleepless hour spent watching my children fade. My hands trembled constantly now, a palsy born of desperation and magical exhaustion. And still, I searched. From twilight plains where reality bent like heated glass to astral vaults where knowledge crystallized into geometric

The cold wasn't just around me it was inside me, sewn into the marrow of my bones. Every breath I took felt like inhaling shards of winter. My limbs were stiff, my skin clammy and too tight over muscles that didn't feel like mine. I flexed my fingers, and the sound they made like frost snapping against old bark made my stomach turn.The crown, once a weight of honor, now felt like a shackle. I reached up to touch it, but my hand trembled. The gold was cracked along its spine, jagged like the pieces of myself I no longer recognized.Where was everyone?I pulled myself upright, knees shaking, bracing against the cold slab of the throne. The chamber echoed with my breath. No guards. No council. No distant footsteps or rustle of robes. Just silence and the faint scent of ash and iron lingering in the air.The silence pressed against my ears like water. I strained to hear anything that would tell me the world still turned beyond these walls. But there was nothing. Not even the distant clat