The earth groaned beneath Solvyris.
It was not a tremor, not truly. But something deeper—a pulse. A heartbeat not born of the Wellspring or the flame, but something colder. Hungrier. Older.
Seris felt it before she heard it. A vibration in her bones. A cold that fire could not banish.
She stood atop the Citadel's spire, the Sovereign's Crown balanced on her brow, its threads of flame-glass pulsing dimly as if sensing the same thing she did.
Kaelen joined her in silence, his expression drawn. "The Elders say the Wellspring is… shifting."
Seris turned. "Not shifting. Retreating. It fears what's coming."
He hesitated. "You think it's the Shadow Unbound."
"I don't think," she said softly. "I know."
From below, horns sounded—the low, mournful call of a realm preparing for war.
---
They gathered again in the Hall of Pyres. Ashra, her flame-bound robes newly etched with Pact runes. Arin, bruised but burning with purpose. The Council of Elders, more silent now than ever before.
Seris raised the ancient shard of mirror they had taken from the Hall of Echoes. Within it, a sliver of the Mirror Queen's essence still pulsed—but it was fading. Not dying, but being… devoured.
"The Shadow isn't a being," Seris said. "It's hunger. It wears crowns, names, faces—but it isn't any of those things. It consumes the forgotten. It feeds on what we hide."
Elder Maen's voice rasped like dry coals. "Then how do we fight what does not live?"
"With what does," Kaelen said. "With memory. With flame. With unity."
Seris held the shard higher. "There's a place in the forgotten north—the Vale of Thorns. The last throne of the Forgotten King lies there. And buried beneath it… the original Crown of Shadow."
Gasps echoed.
Arin stepped forward. "That's a myth."
"No," Ashra said quietly. "It's a warning."
Seris nodded. "If we can find it… perhaps we can understand the Shadow's shape. Maybe even bind it."
"But what if it binds you instead?" Kaelen asked.
Seris met his eyes. "Then you pull me back."
---
The journey north was grueling.
The Vale had not seen sun in centuries. No map showed its true path. The roads twisted, forests whispered in forgotten tongues, and the wind carried screams that had never belonged to the living.
Seris led the way, her fire dimmed but constant. The Sovereign's Crown did not gleam in this place. Here, even light feared itself.
Ashra marked the runes behind them, keeping the path tethered. Kaelen scouted ahead, blades drawn. Arin walked close, a flicker of blue fire wrapped around his wrist like a warding charm.
Finally, after six days of silence and shadow, they reached it.
A throne of black stone. Half-buried in frost, half-choked by roots of dead trees. And atop it—no crown.
But beneath it…
Seris knelt, pressing her palm to the frozen ground. Flame seeped downward, slow and deliberate. It curled around something hard.
She withdrew it.
Not a crown.
A fragment.
Twisted, charred, almost melted. It throbbed in her hand like a dying heartbeat.
"This is all that remains?" Kaelen asked.
"No," Seris whispered. "This is all that was left."
Suddenly the sky above them broke open.
Not with storm. Not with flame.
With darkness.
A figure descended—cloaked in shifting black, eyes like endless wells. Its face was featureless, yet everyone saw what they feared most in its presence.
It didn't speak.
It didn't need to.
Seris stepped forward, fragment in hand.
"Are you the Shadow Unbound?" she asked.
The figure tilted its head.
And she felt it.
Yes.
---
What happened next was not a battle.
It was a conversation of force.
The fragment in Seris's hand pulsed, drawing fire and memory and fear all at once. The Shadow reached for it—reached for her—and she felt her mind begin to fray.
Kaelen shouted, but his voice felt miles away.
Ashra's flame shot toward the figure, but was swallowed whole.
Only Arin remained close enough to act.
He dropped to one knee beside her, his flame mingling with hers.
"Don't fight it," he whispered. "Shape it."
Seris clenched the shard.
She didn't burn it.
She forged it.
In her hands, the fragment twisted. Changed. Melted and reformed.
From ash and void came something new.
A crown—not of Shadow. Not of Fire.
But of Balance.
The figure recoiled.
Seris rose.
"You are not forgotten," she whispered. "You are the fear we hide. But I see you now."
She placed the new crown on the Forgotten Throne.
Not to rule.
To remember.
The Shadow screamed—a sound of a thousand silences breaking—and vanished like smoke torn apart by dawn.
---
Later, Seris stood once more beneath the stars.
Kaelen joined her.
"You didn't claim the Shadow Crown," he said.
"No," she replied. "I gave it a home. That was all it wanted."
Ashra and Arin emerged behind them, both weary but whole.
Arin grinned. "So what now, Sovereign?"
Seris looked up at the stars.
"We build something new".