The wind had a voice in Faerun.
Sometimes, it sang through the trees like a lullaby. Other times, it hissed warnings, carried on the breath of the dying. Tonight, it was silent—watching, waiting. The sky above Iris was awash in bruised violet, both moons full and heavy, casting fractured shadows across the land. The silence was not peace. It was the hush before calamity.
They had followed the trail left by the blooming black rose for days. The path wound through woods that whispered secrets and across rivers that remembered the names of the drowned. Every step they took, Faerun seemed to change—growing more unstable, more unreal. Forests aged centuries overnight. Mountains moved. Villages turned to salt.
Now, they stood before what the Thorn Court's oldest records had called No-King's Field.
It wasn't a field anymore.
A jagged plain stretched before them, marred with the broken bones of old wars. Swords jutted from the earth like gravestones. Armored skeletons lay tangled in brambles, clutching rusted standards and rotted banners. The air thrummed with something that didn't belong to this age—or even this realm.
In the center of the wasteland stood the Hollow Crown.
It was not merely a throne—it was a wound in the world. Living thorns wrapped around it in a spiral, bleeding silver sap that steamed against the cold ground. Ancient symbols pulsed faintly along its frame, and its seat shimmered like a reflection in water, never still, never solid.
Iris felt the watch at her neck stir. It ticked once—clear, defiant.
"It should not be here," Thalen said, his voice brittle. "This place… This was erased."
Nyx crouched at the edge of the battlefield, his eyes scanning every shadow. "Even the Thorn Court feared this throne. My grandmother said it was the source of all the bargains time ever made. It chose the first king, and when he vanished… it chose silence."
"Or it was waiting," Iris murmured, her steps slow and uncertain.
With every pace toward the Hollow Crown, the world grew heavier. The color of the sky changed subtly with each footfall—shifting from dusk to midnight, then to the bruised reds of dawn. She passed frozen echoes—ghosts locked in the act of dying, their faces contorted in expressions that flickered between terror and awe.
The ground beneath her trembled as she reached the base of the throne.
Her fingers brushed one of the thorns. It was warm. It pulsed like a heartbeat.
Visions struck.
Not as memories, but as possibilities.
She saw herself atop the Hollow Crown, veiled in light, commanding stars and storms. She saw the Veil healing, flowers blooming in the ruined Garden of Night. Thalen knelt beside her, a golden crown of brambles in his hands.
Then it twisted.
She saw herself alone—crowned in thorns, eyes empty, her voice a curse. The Thorn Court burned. Nyx turned to ash. Thalen stood across from her, sword drawn, sorrow in his eyes.
She staggered back, choking on air.
The throne spoke not with words, but with feeling. It wanted her. But it would not give anything freely.
"It's testing me," she whispered.
Nyx was beside her now, not smirking, not sarcastic. His eyes, for once, were serious. "The Hollow Crown remembers all who've touched it. And none have done so without being… changed."
Thalen didn't move. His posture was taut, his gaze on the throne. "The first king bound time to Faerun with that seat. It was his bargain—to give the realm order in exchange for his name, his soul, and his future."
"He ceased to exist," Nyx added. "Even the stars forgot him."
"And now it's calling you," Thalen finished, turning to Iris. "Because you are the thread left dangling. A seer born in the wrong realm. A heart beating in both worlds."
Iris didn't respond. Her breath came in shallow waves, and the ticking of the watch grew louder in her ears—tick… tick… tick… faster now, pulsing with urgency.
She reached toward the throne again.
This time, the brambles did not resist. They parted for her, revealing a small crevice at the base of the seat. Within it nestled something wrapped in faded silk and bound with strands of hair.
A key. Thorn-shaped. Gleaming with power.
She took it, and time halted.
Everything stopped—the flickering shadows, the whispering winds, even her heartbeat. The world around her fractured like a mirror.
From the shards, a figure emerged.
A woman cloaked in mourning silver, her hair falling like ash across her shoulders. Her eyes were storm-grey. Her face—a mirror of Iris's own, but older. Wiser. Tired.
"You wear the face of my regrets," the woman said, her voice soft and cold. "And yet you may still unmake them."
"Who are you?" Iris asked.
The woman knelt, placing a pale hand over Iris's chest. "I am a fragment. A memory that outlived its purpose. I once bore the Crown. I once broke the realm trying to save it."
"The Seer before me."
The woman smiled, but it was sorrowful. "One of many. But you… You are the last."
Iris tried to pull away, but the woman's grip tightened—not painful, but absolute.
"You must choose," she said. "You are not bound by prophecy. You are the blade meant to cut through it. But every blade must decide what to sever."
"Fate?" Iris asked. "Or freedom?"
The woman nodded once.
And then she was gone.
Time resumed. The battlefield exhaled.
Iris held the thorn-key tight. The Hollow Crown pulsed once, as if acknowledging her, then stilled.
She turned back to Thalen and Nyx.
"I know where the next fragment of the Heart is," she said. Her voice trembled, but it carried weight now. "It lies beneath the Mirror Sea—in the Temple of the Forgotten Name."
Thalen approached her, eyes sharp with a mix of wonder and dread. "Then we leave at dawn."
Nyx hesitated. "And the throne?"
Iris looked back once, the crown looming like a promise unfulfilled.
"Let it wait," she said. "For now."
But as they walked away, brambles slowly began to shift. The Hollow Crown wasn't done.
Not yet.