Selena's POV
The chamber was still.
Silent — save for the crackling torches embedded deep within skull-lined walls. Shadows crawled around me like whispers with claws. I stood alone now. Zack had been escorted to rest by the forest witch, Nyra. He didn't want to leave me — but I had insisted.
Because something had changed.
Not just within me, but around me.
The Trial of the Four had awakened something ancient… and it wasn't just the magic.
I could feel their eyes. Alaïra, Tovian, Nyra — even Ravyn. Watching me not with defiance, but… reverence. Fearful, questioning reverence.
The throne stood before me, dark and jagged, carved from obsidian and bones.
I hadn't sat on it yet.
Maybe I was scared of what would happen if I did.
A faint flicker in the air broke my thoughts. A glimmer — no, a memory. The First Queen's voice drifted across my mind like smoke:
> "Power is not claimed by standing on a throne, Selena. It is claimed when others kneel — even when you don't ask them to."
I turned.
Alaïra, the fallen guardian, dropped to one knee. Her silver-bladed spear lay across both palms, an offering.
Then Tovian, his shadow armor melting into the floor, knelt without a word.
Nyra lowered her head, whispering something in a language older than time.
Only Ravyn remained standing. His eyes met mine — unreadable, unsettling — until he finally bowed his head.
"I'm not ready," I whispered.
"You never will be," he said, "but the curse doesn't care."
I walked toward the throne, every step echoing louder than the last. With each movement, I felt my skin warm, the glowing mark on my chest pulsing in rhythm with the room.
A beat.
A bond.
A burning.
I sat.
And the world shifted.
My blood screamed.
A searing pain ripped across my chest — the mark bursting with light. Visions slammed into my mind — blood-soaked lands, fire raining from skies, Zack crying out in agony as chains of light coiled around his throat—
"STOP!"
I gasped, the throne beneath me trembling. My hands clenched the armrests, breathing ragged.
"You felt it?" Nyra's voice came through the fog.
I nodded slowly.
"The curse responds to the throne. Every time you wield power, it will demand balance. Blood for blood. Love for control."
"What happens if I resist?"
Tovian answered this time, voice low and grim. "Then it takes from the one you love most."
Zack.
My heart lurched. This was the cost. This was the crown I wore now.
I couldn't love him and protect him.
Not at the same time.
I stood.
"I need to break the curse."
Ravyn tilted his head. "Then we must return to where it was born."
A map unfurled in his hand — stitched with threads of night, marked with a single glowing sigil.
The Valley of Forgotten Blood.