The cathedral was no longer a sanctuary; it was a throat, and the kingdom was screaming through it.
Asteria felt the air turn into something uncomfortably sharp and thick like a physical weight that pressed against her lungs until every breath felt like inhaling glass. The fog rolling off the Queen's body wasn't just a mist – it was a heavy, psychic sludge that turned the world into a blurred nightmare of weeping marble and distorted shadows.
She looked towards the centre dais, where Valerius was locked in a horrific, high-speed dance with Halesia. The Architect was losing. Even from the pews, Asteria could hear the sickening thud of his body hitting the stone and the wet, ragged sound of his breathing. He was one of the lords, a transcendent being beyond the pinnacle of power achievable for mortals – yet against the Queen's erratic, absolute dominance, he looked like a man trying to stop an avalanche with his bare hands.
'Why aren't they helping him?!' She screamed internally, gritting her teeth. 'He's dying!'
But as a shockwave of force rippled out from the Queen, Asteria understood. They were fighting the collapse, the collapse of their home. They were the only thing keeping the miles of glass above them from vaporizing the thousands of souls trapped in the pews. They were protectors in their own ways and in their own right.
The pressure intensified. Asteria felt a sudden, crippling weight slam into her shoulders – the raw manifestation of Halesia's Will. It forced her to her knees, her forehead nearly touching the cold, mirrored floor. Her heart hammered a frantic rhythm against her ribs, and for a heartbeat, the instinct to simply lie down and surrender was overwhelming.
'...Damnation... what the spell was that...' she huffed, 'Not today, Asteria. Get up.'
She gripped the hilt of her stolen jian. The sword hummed against her palm, a cold vibration that seemed to slice through the Queen's pressure. If she wanted to leave this nightmare – if she wanted to see a sun that wasn't a lie – she had to move.
Asteria forced herself up, her joints popping with the effort. She looked at the floor. Embedded in the glass were glowing stones, pulsing with the same glow of the Queen's madness. Every person in the pews was staring at those stones, their eyes glazes, their souls tethered to their Sovereign.
'They look hard as hell, can I even break them?' Asteria audibly sighed, anxious at whatever she can do. 'I guess I'll have to try anyway, right?'
She lunged towards the nearest stone. She didn't know if the jian could break something forged of what might as well have been divine intention, but as the blade descended, the star-forged metal sang her praises.
CRACK.
The stone shattered – it dissolved. The light vanished and the people in the closest pews gasped, their bodies jerking as if they'd been hit by lightning. Asteria didn't wait; she couldn't afford to wait – she had to run, and run she did.
She became a blur of dark silk and the rotting sun above. She sprinted from row to row, herding the dazed subjects like sheep toward the great doors. Every time the jian struck a stone, the intangible will of the Cathedral faltered, weakening the Queen's hold.
"Get out!" She screamed at a mother clutching a crying child. "Don't look back! Run!"
The chaos was absolute. The screams of awakening citizens mingled with the thunderous impacts of the duel behind her. Shockwaves continued to roll through the air, each one a hammer that threatened to shatter her bones. She felt like a gnat dodging the footsteps of giants, her morality a fragile, fluttering thing in the face of such titanic power.
Finally, the last of the pews were clear. The nave was empty, save for the debris and the six figures in the centre of the storm.
Asteria turned to the altar.
Valerius' warning echoed in her mind: The Queen cannot get close to the altar else everything falls apart. But as Asteria looked at the massive block of glass, she felt something she hadn't expected.
In her chest, the Sovereign's Spark – the golden heat she had stolen – began to pull. It wasn't the frantic hunger it had shown before. It was a deep, mournful ache. It was a magnetic tug that moved her feet forward before her mind could protest. It felt like a child reaching for her mother.
'Put it back,' A voice that wasn't a voice whispered in her marrow. 'Let this madness end.'
She began to run towards the dais. The pressure here was astronomical. Every step felt like wading through deep water.
Ten feet away.
Five.
She saw Valerius ht the ground, his eyes flickering out. She saw Halesia turn, the mask weeping a literal flood of disgusting, indigo light that stained the white marble red.
The Queen's movements were no longer erratic. For one terrifying second, Halesia's sanity seemed to snap into a singular, razor-sharp focus. She ignored the lords. She ignored the half-dead Valerius on the floor in front of her. She saw the thief reaching for the heart of her world.
"Don't take them away from me..."
The voice was a ragged sob, choking on its own breahs. Halesia lunged, her crystalline claws outstretched, her white gown fluttering like a broken wing.
"Please..." The Queen wailed, the mask pulsing with a desperate, agonizing light. "I can't lose them... not today... not again!"
"I'm sorry," Asteria whispered – it was true; she was apologetic – but she didn't regret her actions.
When her hand finally made contact with the cool surface, it felt as though her own soul was being shredded to ribbons.
A pristine, divine light erupted from her fingertips – a gold far cleaner than she ever imagined, purged of the corruption and madness of its previous host. The Spark didn't simply leave Asteria's soul; it was inhaled – violently drawn back into its original housing within the heart of this glass house of god.
Halesia's eyes tore open in a frenzy. A bitter smile carved itself across her lips, widening with such unnatural force that it seemed ready to split her face towards her ears.
That was the opening – a singular heartbeat of vulnerability Valerius had been destroying his body to find. Every ounce of pain he had endured, every century of torment and strife and calculated despair, converged into this exact moment.
CRACK.
His hands, the intangible light hardening into blades along his forearms, slammed into Halesia's nigh-crumbling form. The impact wasn't just to strike her – no.
It shattered her, carving deep, splintering fissures across her skin as if she were nothing more than a discarded porcelain doll.
Before the pain split Asteria's vision, she heard the familiar, condescending voice of the spell almost laugh.
[The Glass Gambit.
...
The Trial's objective has been updated. "The Kingdom of Aethelgard is a ticking time bomb. Will you be the hand that hastens its fall or will you prevent its demise?"
What choice will you make, Queen of Nightmare?]
'Wha-' Her own thoughts were cut off before she could form them.
The spell seemed... amused at her antics.
[The Queen has made her choice.]