The King's Funeral and the Rise of the Queen
Silence.
The sky wept black rain as the death bells tolled from the peak of Iradhel Tower. The chimes sounded like a mournful song from a world that had forgotten how to love. Behind the thin mist and the white lilies falling over the palace courtyard, a black coffin gilded with gold was lowered—honored by force, not by love.
King Kaeron Raventhorn was dead.
And today, the palace stood in a silence more terrifying than death itself.
While nobles, high priests, and envoys from the five kingdoms gathered in the grand courtyard of Caerthorn Palace, Queen Seraphine—once known as the Wolf Queen—stood motionless beside the coffin, cloaked in a long black robe that showed no trace of grief.
Her face was pale as marble, her silver eyes empty, tearless, unmoved. As if the death of her husband was nothing more than a cold wind drifting through a foggy morning. None of them knew that the woman standing there… was no longer the one they once knew.
---
She didn't know who she was when she opened her eyes.
Pain. Weight. Her breath caught as she awoke in a room filled with the scent of incense, blood, and silk. Her hands trembled as she stared into a silver mirror beside the bed, seeing the reflection of a woman she didn't recognize.
Pale skin. Sharp eyes. Thin lips. The face of a queen. The face of an executioner.
"I… am not her," she whispered. But the voice wasn't hers. It echoed with heaviness and shook her chest.
A cold sensation crawled down her spine. Strange memories slithered into her mind—visions of a palace soaked in blood, servants screaming, and a boy crying in terror as his mother drew her sword.
This body… had killed.
This body… was feared.
And now, her soul—from a world shattered by betrayal—was trapped in the body of Queen Seraphine.
---
Back to the day of the funeral.
Behind the line of priests stood a boy with shoulder-length black hair and hawk-like eyes, dressed in a robe of midnight blue. He was Prince Kaelion. The young prince, last of royal blood, a flickering hope and a smoldering grudge.
Kaelion didn't look at his mother. He stood a step behind, eyes cold and hollow. As if he refused to acknowledge her presence and chose to mourn alone, in silence, with the scars he'd carried quietly all these years.
The new Seraphine—the soul from another world—tried to look at the boy. But Kaelion never turned. He wouldn't meet her gaze.
And that was when the pain truly began.
Not because she lost the King… but because her own son was afraid of her.
---
The ceremony passed like a ghost—soulless, a ritual.
The high priest began to chant prayers, but their voices were drowned by thunder. The ground cracked beneath their feet.
Some called it the Earth's sorrow. Others said it was the Queen struggling to contain the darkness within her.
But no one knew—the power dwelling inside Seraphine's body… did not belong to any human.
---
That night, after the funeral, Seraphine sat alone in the throne room.
The palace staff had left early, some out of fear, others unwilling to gaze upon the woman they called "a butcher wearing a crown."
There, she held a dark golden crown—the late King's.
She stared at it for a long time before whispering, "You died with honor, while I must live with a curse."
Suddenly, nausea struck her. She stumbled. Her hands shook. Her chest burned.
Blood trickled from her nose, then from her ears. Her stomach throbbed with pain.
She collapsed to her knees, gasping for breath.
And on the cold marble floor, that voice returned.
"Your blood has called to me."
"You have opened the first gate."
From the shadowed corner of the room, a tall figure emerged with eyes glowing red—embers that never faded.
His form was made of the night itself—dark, cold, unblinking.
Seraphine—or the soul within her—stared at the figure.
"Are you… the Angel of Death?"
The figure smirked.
"I am no angel. I am their downfall. I am Rai'el, Demon God of the Fourth Dimension. And you, Queen Seraphine… are the keeper of my soul."
---
There is no escape from fate.
Seraphine now stands at a crossroad: to keep the throne with a mask of blood, or to open her heart and be shattered by a world ready to tear her apart.
But what she never expected was…
She is pregnant.
And it is not a human child growing in her womb.
But a child of mixed blood—a legacy of two realms, a fusion of light and darkness.
A child who could either unite the world… or burn it to the ground.
Outside the palace, the priests began to suspect something unnatural within the Queen.
The nobles started preparing their armies.
And Kaelion—her own son—overheard the guards whispering that his mother… was no longer human.
But that night, while a storm raged beyond the towers, Seraphine stood before Kaelion's chamber.
She opened the door hesitantly. The boy turned, his eyes sharp with fury.
"What do you want?" he spat.
Seraphine didn't answer. She simply walked forward… and hugged him from behind.
Instantly, Kaelion froze.
His body stiffened. His eyes widened.
"Mother… never hugged me," he whispered.
Seraphine held back her tears.
"One of us," she said softly, "has to start learning how to be human."
---
Elsewhere, in the realm of shadows, Rai'el touched his left chest.
There, his heart—long dead for thousands of years—
beat for the first time.
And the world prepared… for a forbidden love between a human queen and a demon god that would reshape the destiny of all existence.