Lahat ng Kabanata ng CROWNED BY BLOOD: Kabanata 61 - Kabanata 70

The silence in Hollowshade had changed. It was no longer comforted. It watched with invisible eyes from every shadow, every corner, every space between heartbeats.The palace halls echoed with the shuffle of servants too afraid to speak, their footsteps quick and purposeful as they scurried through corridors like mice avoiding a prowling cat. Windows were shuttered throughout the castle, not by royal command but by primal instinct. The staff moved with the desperate efficiency of those who knew they lived at the mercy of something barely contained. Even the tapestries seemed to hang heavier, weighed down by the oppressive atmosphere that had settled over my domain like a funeral shroud.Wolves no longer howled for me in the distant forests. They whimpered.I barely noticed when my footsteps stopped making sound. The realization came gradually, the absence of clicking heels on marble, the lack of echoes in empty hallways. I moved through my own castle like a ghost, leaving only the fain

They whisper that a storm is coming through the corridors of my castle, their voices carrying on currents of fear and uncertainty that seep through stone and mortar like poison. Servants duck their heads when I pass, nobles avert their eyes, and even my most trusted advisors speak in hushed tones behind closed doors. But I am the storm. I am the lightning that splits the sky and the thunder that shakes the earth to its foundations. And I no longer fear the tempest that rages within my own heart.The great clock in the tower had just struck midnight when I signed the decree, its bronze hands pointing toward a future I would forge with blood and iron if necessary. The ink was still wet from my claws, not a pen, for such human instruments felt too fragile for the weight of what I was decreeing. My own talons had scratched the words into parchment like prophecy carved in stone, each letter a promise of protection and a threat of retribution in equal measure.By Royal Mandate of Queen Luna

They gathered like frightened sheep, herded by whispers and summons into the heart of my domain. The High Court was full to the brim nobles in their ceremonial silver-trimmed cloaks, their faces pale as winter moons beneath elaborate masks of composure; council elders clutching their trembling scrolls like prayers to forgotten gods; the guards lining the marble walls stiff as stone sentinels, their hands resting on sword hilts they hoped they'd never need to draw. The great hall stretched before me, its vaulted ceiling disappearing into shadows that seemed to pulse with their own malevolent life. A hush thick as smoke blanketed the chamber, broken only by the steady rhythm of my heels against the floor. Each step echoed like a funeral bell, marking time until the inevitable. I could taste their terror on my tongue, metallic, sweet and intoxicating. It fed the beast that prowled under my skin. They thought this was a trial. They thought democracy still had meaning in a realm ruled

They call me a tyrant now. The word follows me through the corridors like a shadow, whispered behind trembling hands and spoken in hushed tones when they think I cannot hear. I see it burning in their eyes even when they kneel before my throne, especially when they press their foreheads to the cold marble floor in submission. Fear and hatred war with desperate self-preservation in their expressions, creating a cocktail of emotions that once might have broken my heart. Now it only feeds the darkness that has taken root in my chest like a poisonous vine.But I am no longer the gentle queen, the merciful ruler they prayed for in their moments of weakness. That version of myself is no more. Now a sovereign who rules not through love, but through absolute, unquestionable power.The transformation began at dusk three days ago when I dismissed the entire royal guard with a single, irrevocable decree.Some of the veteran soldiers tried to protest, their voices rising in desperate pleas about

The sky bled violet.Not the gentle purple of twilight or the rich amethyst of royal banners, but something raw and wounded the color of bruises that never heal, of magic torn from its moorings and left to hemorrhage across the heavens. Veins of shadow threaded through the clouds like dying stars collapsing inward, each pulse sending ripples through reality itself. The very air tasted of copper and endings.I stood at the balcony of the shattered throne room, glass crunching beneath my bare feet with each small movement. The wind hissed through fractured windows and bone-laced banners that had once proclaimed the glory of my lineage, now serving as monuments to everything I'd destroyed in the name of preservation. From this height, I could see the entire kingdom spread before me like a map drawn in ash and sorrow.And I watched the veil between worlds tear itself open slowly, hungrily, like a wound that had finally grown tired of pretending to heal.The barrier that kept our reality s