Dreamloop
Eleanor blinked—and the cathedral was gone.
She stood in a rose garden, warm sun on her face. Her hands were clean. Her gown was silk. A woman's laughter echoed from a marble balcony—her mother's voice.
"You're late for your coronation, love," the woman called. "Come quickly."
Eleanor took a step forward—and hesitated.
Ashryn wasn't here.
The Veins weren't here.
The Queen had never existed.
Then she saw her reflection in a pond.
Her eyes were black.
The Rift-Seer's Trick
The Rift-Seer stood behind her in the reflection. It had no face. Only eyes—too many, too wet, too knowing.
"There is peace in falsehood."
Its voice was soundless and cold.
"Stay here. Be whole. Be happy."
The garden shivered. The roses blinked.
She turned slowly.
And saw a thousand doors open in the sky—each leading to another lie.
One showed her holding a child.
Another, ruling a peaceful realm.
Another, dying quietly in Ashryn's arms.
Each reality offered her peace.
But none of them had truth.
Ashryn's Anchor
Somewhere, faintly, Eleanor heard a scream.
Then a stabbing heat in her arm.
She gasped—and the garden cracked like glass.
Ashryn was above her, blood on her hands, dagger trembling.
"You were gone!" Ashryn shouted. "You stopped breathing!"
Eleanor coughed seawater. "The Vein… the Rift-Seer… it's still here."
"No. It's watching. Waiting."
Around them, the walls of the cathedral flexed—like a throat about to swallow.
And the Vein pulsed beneath the floor.
Not offering power.
But asking to be known.
The Third Vein's Choice
The Rift-Seer stood by the altar now.
Silent.
Eleanor stepped toward it, bleeding from one arm, shaking.
It didn't speak.
Didn't threaten.
It simply stood.
Eleanor stared at the Third Vein, now glowing behind a wall of bone coral and inked crystal.
She didn't touch it.
But it opened to her anyway.
And whispered a truth.
"We are not your power. We are your debt."
She fell to her knees as memories vanished—laughter, pain, names.
In their place: clarity. Resolve.
She wasn't the Queen reborn.
She was the Queen's undoing.
The Choir of Hollow Saints
Far away in Drosskar, Kael Varnoss stood inside a blood-circle.
His skin was marked with verses from the Titan Testament. He held a chalice carved from a prophet's skull.
Before him rose the Choir of Hollow Saints—twelve floating beings, hooded and eyeless, who chanted in broken tongues.
They spoke without mouths:
"You seek to end her?"
"We seek to end choice."
Kael offered blood, then his own memory—his daughter's name.
They drank it gladly.
Then they sang.
The sound bent the air.
And they vanished, summoned to hunt.
Escape
The cathedral cracked.
Water rushed in.
Eleanor grabbed Ashryn and ran.
Tideborne rose from the walls, shrieking—but the Third Vein flared once and they withered, blind to her presence.
They burst out of the temple as it collapsed into the sea.
On the rocks above, Marek waited, lantern in hand, Hollow Star moored beside him.
"You lived," he said.
Eleanor didn't speak.
Her hand trembled.
Ashryn helped her aboard.
"What did it cost this time?" she whispered.
Eleanor's eyes were hollow.
"My brother's voice."
The Rift Trembles
In a space where time meant nothing, the Rift pulsed.
Its many eyes turned.
"Three Veins broken. Two remain."
It hissed.
"She knows what she is not. Soon she will learn what she is."
And the Rift shivered.
Because even it could feel it:
The end was no longer just waking.
It was watching.