The Queen They Buried Novels & Stories

Phoenix sobbed. The breakdown was total. The Queen of Rebirth was dead, buried under the rubble of a mother’s catastrophic failure. Her legs gave out, her knees slamming into the grit of the cave floor with a bone-jarring thud she didn't even register. Tears—hot, salt-heavy, and uncontrollable—cascaded down her face, cutting tracks through the gray soot on her cheeks. She bit her lip so hard the iron taste of blood flooded her mouth, a desperate, futile attempt to anchor herself as her mind spiraled into the image of her son becoming nothing more than a pile of gray dust in a New York basement she never truly escaped.

After mourning her for what seemed like hours, he announced her death to Zevara and Magnus. Zevara wasn’t too sad; she wasn’t excited either. She simply watched in silence as Silas placed her bagged body at the back of an SUV and drove towards his pack in the East. He buried her in the royal cemetery where queens and kings were laid to rest—even though she wasn’t one. But to him, she was his queen, and she would forever live in his heart.

She was really, really gone. “We’ll do a proper queen’s burial,”Jace muttered under his breath as their entire pack was shuddering, crying, and howling from the pain of their king and the pain of losing their new queen. “She was a part of us already, We’ll send her off like one.”

“Something worse.” Killian’s face was grim. “Then why does no one remember it?” Because I buried it. The words weren’t Lyra’s. They came from within - from the First Queen herself. "She buried it." Lyra’s hands trembled. Before she could question further, the torches flared again - and the chamber rumbled. The vibration started low, almost a hum beneath their feet, but it quickly escalated. The walls shuddered. Scrolls tumbled from their shelves, parchment scattering across the floor. Dust rained down from the stone ceiling, and an ominous crack echoed somewhere in the depths of the archive.

There were only ten guards besides Cerina, Seraphine, Landon, and Rowan. Inside of the temple, a wall of solid rock stood around the altar. The way that it gleamed in the light of the burning candles on the altar, I thought it had to be solid marble. The faces of several women were carved in the stone, and it was clear by the outline of large sliding drawers that these were their tombs. "This is your mother's final resting place," Cerina said to Rosalie. "All of the queens are buried here. The first queen is buried in the earth below the temple, and her power filters up through the ground, collecting the strength from the others, and protecting our lands."

The elder replied, "Custom demands that the Queen be buried on a full moon, and the next full moon is only a few days away. Only after the Queen is buried shall the next successor be announced." Out of curiosity, I asked, "Who is the next successor?" The chief guard chimed in, saying, "It's you, my lady, since the Queen never had any children." The elder interrupted, revealing, "That's what everybody thinks. The Queen had a child during her younger days, once mated to the dragon king, and they had a son together." I questioned, "Where is he? How come I've never seen him around?"

I let out a sigh of relief and got off the couch, smiling at Sophia and Asher even though they weren’t smiling. We were all dressed in casual black outfits, and as soon as we were gathered, we left the palace, walking to the burial site—a place I discovered was actually the royal family's burial site. Although Laura’s burial chamber was within the palace, the royal family had a designated site for the late royals to rest. “Before now, I knew he buried Laura on palace grounds because he wanted her close, but now I want to believe the goddess guided him not to bury her in the royal burial site because she is a fake-ass person,” Liya murmured to me.

Everyone turned toward him. He looked at the woman. "No..." The woman smiled. "You finally remember." The First King staggered forward. "The kingdom wasn't destroyed." The First Queen stared at him. "What are you saying?" His voice shook. "We didn't lose the First Kingdom." He looked at Celine. "We buried it." Celine's heart pounded. "Why?" The First King closed his eyes. Because the answer clearly hurt him. "Because something was coming." The Hunger beneath the city began to move.

She was finally asking about her mother, and she had no idea. “Um… Willow…” Queenie let her words trail. She started breathing heavily. The mangled body she saw at the morgue flashed before her eyes. She saw the body after the fact, but Rose saw everything happening before her eyes. If Queenie, being an adult, could not face that, how did Rose handle that? And everyone knew the answer. Rose buried that memory deep in a corner of her mind. She buried it so deep that she was not even able to access it.

Then she leaned closer and whispered, “You have won, human. But I’ll be back for your funeral because you are not getting out of all this alive.” Zelda’s eyes narrowed. Before she could respond, Kiara turned around and walked away with the guards waiting for her. Zelda remained standing there, watching her leave, Kiara’s final words echoing in her head.