The wall didn't just shatter,it disintegrated, melting into a flood of black stone dust that curled upward as if alive. From that writhing haze, she emerged.
The Queen.
Not the figure from Rhea's nightmares, not the cold whispers in her mind,this was the physical horror. Her presence filled the chamber like smoke in lungs, choking the air, dragging the temperature down until Rhea's breath frosted. She was tall, impossibly so, her body a shifting lattice of bone and shadow, crowned by a circlet of blood-red crystal that pulsed in time with the dying labyrinth.
Her eyes—two molten pools of gold,locked on Rhea.
The voice that came was not spoken but forced into their skulls.
"You think you've severed me from my heart. Child, I am the heart."
The sagging brain behind them twitched. Its dead tendrils began to quiver again, twitching like an insect's legs in its final moments.
Kael shifted closer to Rhea, blade drawn, his arm brushing hers. "She's tethered herself to the labyrinth. Killing that thing only made her angry."
The Queen took a single step forward, and the ground cracked under her weight. The stone itself bled, red lines crawling outward from her bare feet.
Rhea swallowed against the tightness in her throat. "What does she want?"
Kael didn't look away from her. "You."
The Queen's lips curved,not a smile, but the suggestion of one. "You have been mine since the night you were born screaming under the moon's curse." Her voice was velvet and venom. "Every pulse of power you've felt, every shadow at the edge of your dreams… that was me, feeding you, shaping you. Now you will return to me."
Her hand rose.
The air thickened. Rhea's body seized as an invisible force wrapped around her limbs. Her wolf roared inside her, clawing to break free, but the pressure was suffocating, cold fingers pressing into her mind.
Kael moved fast. The silver edge of his blade flashed, severing the tendril of magic that had begun to coil around her throat. The Queen's gaze slid to him, and for the first time, something shifted in her expression,mild curiosity.
"Ah. The oathbreaker."
Before Kael could react, she raised her other hand, and the black dust from the wall solidified into a spear. She hurled it.
Kael dodged, barely. The spear embedded into the floor, but instead of stopping, it spread, the black metal flowing like liquid, trying to wrap around his boots. He hacked at it, his blade ringing with each strike, but the living metal was relentless.
Rhea's panic sharpened into fury. Her claws burst through her fingers. She lunged at the Queen—
—only to hit an unseen barrier. Her claws scraped sparks against the invisible wall of force.
The Queen tilted her head. "Still clinging to the animal in you. But the wolf is mine, little moonborn. She always has been."
Something shifted deep in Rhea's chest,her heartbeat stuttering, then syncing with the Queen's pulse. For a horrifying second, she saw herself from inside the Queen's mind, saw her own face like prey in a hunter's gaze.
"No," Rhea growled, forcing herself back into her body.
The Queen's barrier rippled as Rhea slammed her claws into it again, this time channeling the fire she'd barely learned to wield in the Vault. The invisible wall shuddered. The Queen's molten eyes narrowed.
A crack appeared in the barrier.
Kael wrenched free of the black metal at the same moment. "Rhea—now!"
Together, they attacked,Kael's sword cutting, Rhea's claws burning through the weakening wall. The barrier shattered in a burst of searing white light.
The Queen didn't flinch. She simply stepped through the debris, closer, close enough for Rhea to see that her bones were carved with runes, each one glowing faintly.
"You think this is a battle," she said softly. "It is a calling."
And then, before either of them could strike, the chamber floor collapsed.
They were falling into darkness, into heat, into the place beneath the labyrinth.
And her laughter followed them all the way down.