The palace doors never opened without a name. And yet tonight, they did.
Without warning, the great iron-bound gates parted with a slow, echoing groan. A gust of cold wind rushed through the marbled corridor, scattering shadows and setting flames flickering in their sconces. One of the inner gates creaked wide, slow and deliberate, despite no messenger announcing a visitor's arrival.
The guards at the threshold stiffened, hands tightening on their spears with primal chill that spoke of things no training could steel them against. Someone had entered. Someone known far beyond the borders of Evarion, a name spoken in whispers, half in reverence and half in fear. Someone famous for glimpsing the threads of fate. But, infamous for how often those threads ended in blood. And tonight, she had come uninvited.
None moved to stop her. None dared lay a hand on her, nor even think of escorting her as one might a guest. It was whispered that she despised touch, that to brush against her was to invite fevered visions or a curse that lingered for life. Once, long ago, she had been a beautiful noble daughter of Evarion, radiant in halls such as these. But an accident in her youth; an accident never spoken of without lowered voices had shattered her body and her mind, twisting grace into a presence both lunatic and dreadful.
She simply walked past locked gates that unlatched themselves, moving with purpose through the heart of Evarion palace until she stood before the Queen's palace doors.
At the far end of the hall on the dais, the Queen slowly rose from her seat. She already knew.
"She's here."
Not a minute later, footsteps echoed on the polished stone floor, like a prophecy coming true. Just... inevitable. And then, she stepped through the doorway. With eyes like burnt glass and secrets, taking in the Queen's palace as if she'd been here before. Because maybe, in some thread of time, she had.
She was a woman cloaked in faded violet robes that shimmered like fog in moonlight. Her hands were bare, long-fingered and lined with silver rings that didn't catch light, but swallowed it. Around her neck hung bones. Real ones. Small and carved with unreadable runes. And she walked like a shadow that had learned to wear skin. Her hood was still up, face half-concealed but her mouth was visible, and it was moving. She was murmuring to herself, her voice crackling with something not quite human.
"Zzzk---zkkk----zkkkkkz----zzzzzkk"
No greetings were offered. Neither a bow. Just quiet, cryptic phrases were heard that floated the hall like smoke as she drifted deeper into the hall.
"Zzzk...The thread was white. Then red. Now black."
"A wrong stitch,... Zzzzk...torn through time."
"Zzzzk...Two stories… stitched like a wound."
"The end already happened. But now it begins again."
Each sentence landed like a riddle wrapped in dread, laced with the hum of some forgotten magic. The torches lining the walls seemed to dim with every word. And on the dais, the Queen remained still but her fingers curled tightly around her arms, unease rising in her throat like acid, sharp and bitter.
Finally, her voice cut through the charged silence.
"Lady Virelle…" the Queen said, looking down at the uninvited guest.
The hooded woman did not stop walking but she paused her muttering just long enough to whisper:
"Zkkt...Do not call me that."
"That name belongs to who I was... zzzt... not what I see."
Her voice fractured at the edges, as if part machine. Behind her, the castle groaned, like the kind of low creaking wood makes in old homes before a storm.
She came to a halt at the base of the Queen's dais. The firelight flickered wildly now, struggling to hold shape around her. Slowly, she raised her head and the hood slid back. Her face was pale, ageless. Lips chapped from too many winters, cheekbones sharp enough to cut through lies. But it was her eyes that stilled the room. Like pearls soaked in milk and grief. White, entirely. No pupil, no iris. As if omen wrapped in flesh.
She stood at the edge of the Queen's dais, still as stone, still murmuring until the Queen took a slow breath and found her voice.
"You are welcome here, Lady—"
"Zkkt—shhhh— Don't."
The woman lifted her one hand. It wasn't a gesture of arrogance, nor was it meant to halt or command. And no one took offense. Everyone in the chamber, from guards to nobles to the Queen herself, knew that this was her way. But it was final. The Queen's words dried in her throat.
"Zzzk...Your palace is already cracked."
"Your story is bleeding.....Zzzzk."
The King, who until now had remained seated at his Queen's side, silent and watchful, choosing only to accompany her as a steadying presence shifted at last. But the witch's gaze was not on him. Instead, her head turned slightly, the motion unnervingly fluid. Her milky-white eyes, fixed themselves in the Queen's direction. Those pale eyes, that didn't quite see, and yet they seemed to pierce everything like light through fog.
"You should prepare a wedding dress,....Queen of Elarion."
The Queen frowned. "A wedding dress....… yes, we are in proc—"
But the witch's voice echoed over hers, soft yet cutting, like silk drawn across glass.
"----Shhhhhh" She said, raising her finger.
The Queen's sentence faltered and dissolved on her tongue. Then suddenly, the witch's eyes, still blank and moon-pale, turned toward something far beyond the hall, as if she were watching a scene play out not in the present, but in a future already unraveling.
"Zzzt....The wrong vows will be spoken beneath a darkened sky."
"The prince of fire and ruin will place a crown of ash upon golden hair."
Then she whispered, lower now, as if confessing it to the shadows:
"Zzzkt—--Destiny has marked her tonight."
"Her braid undone…"
"her silks torn…"
"her cheek bloodied by teeth she did not see—"
"These are not wounds. Zzzkkt----- They are signatures. His signatures."
One of the Queen's young maids, trembling despite herself, blurted out:
"What do you mean? Whose wounds? Whose fate?"
Her voice cracked as soon as the words left her, and she clapped a hand to her mouth, horrified at her own daring. Few noble ladies gasped, a few guards glanced sharply at her, as if expecting the Queen to strike her down for speaking out of turn.
Her head snapped toward the maid with such suddenness the girl nearly stumbled backward, skirts tangling around her ankles. A faint smile curved the witch's lips, something caught between pity and cruelty.
"Curious, little soul? You will know… you all will know, when time decides. Zzzkt—the story has found her."
She took one slow step back, eyes still white and wide and her head now upturned with a laugh in her face. Both her hands raised up in joy,
"The story has found her. Zkk—zzkkk...wanting it or not .....she is in hinge."
"The hinge on which the tale will turn!"
And just like that, she was gone. As if she had never truly been there to begin with. Only silence remained, heavy and unbroken, leaving the onlookers to wrestle with the riddle of her words… and to dread what doom they were now bound to expect.