"They said traitors die in the dark, but they never said how cold it would be."
The cold was not like the sharp bite of a winter wind, but the heavy, damp chill of stone soaked in centuries of silence.
Nyra huddled in the farthest corner of the cell, her back pressed to crumbling mortar, knees drawn to her chest. The iron cuffs had bruised her wrists, and her fingers, stiff and bloodless, lay limply on her knees.
A single moonbeam entered through the high window, cutting across her face and spilling down to the stone floor. It illuminated the red sigil scorched onto her tattered cloak: a sun pierced by a crown of thorns.
It was the mark of treason. The brand of a rebel.
She could still feel the moment it had been burned onto the cloth. The heat hadn't touched her skin, but the shame had. Not because it named her a traitor, but because they had named her one- the very people who had begged her to speak, to fight, to lead. And then left her to burn.
She hadn't spoken in three days. The silence was safer. In silence, her thoughts stayed hers alone. In silence, she could pretend she was still human.
They'd told her she'd die at dawn, but dawn had come and gone twice now. Maybe three times? It was hard to tell anymore. No executioner had come. A guard just tossed a stale bread at her feet every night, like scraps for a dog.
Maybe this was the punishment not death, being forgotten beneath the palace she had once tried to overthrow. She knew that the rebellion had failed, but she didn't know who had survived, who had betrayed her.
Or why she dreamed, again and again, of moonlight thicker than blood, of a black sun devouring the sky, and a voice she could never remember when she woke.
She shifted, and the chains clinked. Nyra closed her eyes.
But memory doesn't wait for sleep. It hunts in silence.
When she shut her eyes, it wasn't rest that came. It was memory. It tore through her like shrapnel. The dungeon vanished, and suddenly the sun was too bright.
She stood in the center of the Council Room as an accused. Nobles stood around the room like vultures.
"You led them, Nyra. You spoke the words." Lord Theran's voice was sharp.
"You called it justice," spat another, "I call it treason."
She turned, searching. Her eyes found her sister, Talia, who stood silent in the gallery above with her eyes averted. It was a moment of betrayal.
Nyra took a breath, trying to speak to her, but then she noticed something. Her father's emerald ring gleamed not on her sister's finger, but on Lord Vairen's.
He stood at the edge of the council floor, his hand resting casually on the hilt of his sword. The same sword he'd sworn to her father never to draw in politics. Her father had been dead a week, and already they had carved him out of the palace like rot from an apple.
The image shattered.
Now she was in the square. The air smelled of dust and hope. Her voice rang from the broken fountain, rough and defiant.
"They built their thrones on your bones."
Worn, hungry, and angry faces stared back at her.
"They told you silence was loyalty. I say…"
Then, suddenly, a temple burned in flames. The street was filled with screams and arrows loosed at shadows. She saw a young girl fall. She saw her own hands slick with blood that wasn't hers, and she heard the silence after the rebellion cracked like glass and the nobles answered with blades.
Then a gentler memory pushed through.
She sat on the fountain's edge of the chapel garden, her knees drawn up, boots muddy from the streets. She wasn't Nyra the rebel there. Just Nyra. And he was just a boy then. Just someone who looked at her like she wasn't made for burning.
He kissed her softly and whispered against her lips, "If you walk into the dark, I walk beside you."
Nyra opened her eyes. The cold returned like a punishment. The dream withered in the damp.
Chains tugged at her wrists as she shifted, slow and aching.
"I wasn't the only one who bled for change," she whispered.
She stared at the ceiling, her jaw tight and throat dry.
"Then why am I the only one left?"
There was no answer. There was only silence, only the wait for whatever came next.
It was the hour before dawn when she heard the heavy sound of boots echoing in the corridor. She didn't flinch as the key turned.
If this is death, let it be done. Let it be over.
But the guards who entered were not executioners. There were no axes, no nooses with them. The two guards were cloaked in a Solarian blue uniform, bearing no weapons, only a single scroll sealed in wax. She narrowed her eyes.
"Late for a pardon, aren't you?"
They said nothing. Instead, one of them knelt and broke the seal with gloved fingers, and started reading.
"By royal order, the sentence of treason against the prisoner Nyra Vale is hereby stayed. She shall be transferred immediately into the custody of the Palace of Eclipse. May her steps be guided by the sacred moon."
Nyra stared. Then laughed, her laugh both sharp and disbelieving.
"You're joking,right? Who bribes Death with ink and wax?" Her voice crackled through the cold.
But there was no jest in their silence. She was dragged up roughly, her bones groaning in protest. Her chains were unlocked. Her wrists were red; she rubbed them absently as the guards began their work.
One of them brought a bucket of cold water and threw it in her face; the other cut her hair in brutal strokes. Dark strands fell to the floor like shadows being trimmed. And then a thin, ceremonial cloth was pulled over her head. She clutched it around her body, her teeth clenched. It was not a dress. It was a shroud. She looked down at herself, then up at them.
"The kingdom has chosen a new Eclipse Bride," one of them said.
"Congratulations," the other added.
Nyra didn't answer.
What could she say? Thank you for this mercy that smells like sacrifice?
She stepped forward slowly, barefoot, the stone floor cold as snow.
So this is what it takes to stay alive.
She lifted her chin.
Let them crown her with silence. Let them dress her in the moon's bones. Let them think her broken.Because if she walks into the eclipse, she will not vanish quietly. She will find the Eclipsed King. She will look him in the eye. And if she is successful in killing him, she'll be free. It was her last chance to stay alive.
They marched her through the prison corridors in silence. No chains this time, just two guards at her back, the echo of their boots against the stone. Her bare feet left damp prints on the floor, quickly fading behind her. The air changed as they climbed.
The corridor ended in a wide archway, spilling into the prison courtyard. Nyra squinted against the sudden gray light. Dawn hadn't broken yet, but something was coming.
The sky above was strange, it was gold bleeding into an indigo shadow, as if the sun had begun to rise but been caught, somehow held in eclipse.
She wrapped her arms tightly around herself, not for modesty, but to keep the tremble in her limbs from becoming visible. Around the courtyard walls, prisoners leaned through the bars of their windows silently watching.
As she passed through the outer gate, the city spread before her like a slumbering beast. But it didn't breathe. It didn't move. Shutters were drawn. Doors were sealed. But in windows, people had lit black candles. She knew the ritual. Everyone in Solaria did.
"They light flames for the girls they'll never see again," she whispered.
Once, as a child, she'd helped her mother light one. Now, she was the flame.The guards said nothing as they guided her toward the far end of the courtyard, where the Eclipse Bride's carriage awaited. It was all black wood and iron, draped in veils of silk as pale as bone. The royal eclipse sigil was etched in silver across the side: a sun in full bloom, devoured by a perfect black disc.
Even the horses were shrouded in black cloth, their eyes covered, their hooves wrapped in soft velvet to silence their steps. One of the guards opened the carriage door and gestured.
"In."
She didn't move. She stared at the interior, which was dark, empty, and waiting. Then she took a breath.
"Whatever waits at the end of this ride can't be worse than dying forgotten in a hole," she told herself.
Nyra climbed in. The door shut behind her. The carriage jolted forward. She sat in silence, hands clenched in her lap. She reached for the curtain and pulled it back slowly, letting her eyes find the world beyond.
The streets blurred past in shadows. Market alleys and temple spires and distant palace walls, each one a place she'd once known, now made foreign by silence and absence. And above them all, the palace of Solaria rose like a crown of thorns.
As the carriage curved onto the main road, she glanced up once more and saw how the moon swallowed the sun. Not completely, but it was enough. She pressed a hand to her chest.
The carriage ride grew longer than it should have. The palace wasn't so far, but the shadows stretched, elongated by the hour before dawn.
She didn't sleep. She barely blinked. She was still trying to decide whether that was a warning or a welcome when the carriage stopped. The door opened. Light didn't greet her. There was only a torch glow.
Two new guards stood waiting. They were not prison guards. Neither of them looked her in the eye.
One offered her a bowl of water. The other held a bundle of silk: new robes, darker than the dress she wore now, embroidered with ancient sigils.
She changed without a word. Not because of shame, but because of calculation. They wanted a girl who was docile and desperate, ready to kneel.
Let them think she'd broken in the dark.
But Nyra Vale had shattered once already and rebuilt herself in jagged pieces. When they led her through the corridor, she expected marble and gold, but this part of the palace was different. It was older. The floors were obsidian tile, the walls unadorned, carved with reliefs of moons, eclipses, and veiled women.
How many walked these halls before me?
A cold draft brushed her arms as they passed through a final archway, and suddenly she stood beneath the open sky. A raised platform rose from the heart of the courtyard, encircled by black obelisks carved with Solarian script. In the center of the platform stood a basin of moonstone, filled to the brim with a silver liquid that did not ripple.
On the edges of the courtyard, figures watched in silence: priests, noble witnesses, handmaidens whose faces were hidden behind veils. A woman stepped forward from the shadows. Her robes were layered. Her voice was ancient, echoing without effort.
"Nyra Vale. Accused of sedition. Sentenced to death."
The crowd stirred, faint whispers echoing across the stones. The woman's tone did not change.
"By decree of Solaria and pact with the Eclipsed Realm, your sentence is stayed."
She raised a hand toward the basin.
"You shall serve in sacred rite as the Eclipse Bride."
The silence that followed wasn't hollow. It was ritual. One of the veiled handmaidens stepped forward and placed a metal circlet on Nyra's head, made of dark silver, shaped into twin crescents that touched at the tips. It wasn't a crown. It was a mark of offering.
Nyra said nothing. Then the priests began chanting, the woman pressed her thumb to Nyra's forehead and marked her with silver ash, and the basin began to glow and the air tasted like lightning.
She had gone to sleep expecting death in chains.
And now she stood at the center of a rite older than law, dressed in silk, marked as a divine tribute. Now she was turned from a traitor to a myth, from a prisoner to a bride.
She felt the weight of all the girls before her, felt the hush of the crowd that knew she would not return. She met the priestess's eyes.
"I won't die for your gods," Nyra said quietly.
The priestess didn't flinch.
"Then die for your kingdom."
And somewhere behind the stone walls of the palace, the great Eclipse Bell began to toll.
~~~~~~~END OF THE CHAPTER~~~~~~~