The Frostveil Range grew crueler as they pressed north. Blizzards howled without mercy, wind carrying shards of ice that cut like blades. Thorne flew low, wings straining against the gale, Elara cradled against his chest beneath a shared cloak woven with minor warmth echoes. The first fragment's absorbed shard rested in a pouch at her belt cool, silent, but every few hours it pulsed once, pointing them onward like a cold compass.
By the third day, the peaks thinned into a high plateau ringed by sheer cliffs. At its heart rose the Citadel of Forgotten Queens: a fortress of black basalt and frost-rimed spires, half-buried in eternal snow. Towers leaned like broken fingers; banners long shredded fluttered in rags from parapets. No lights burned in the windows. No sentries patrolled the walls. Yet the resonance sang clearer, sharper, laced with something ancient and grieving.
Thorne landed on a shattered balcony overlooking the main gate. Snow crunched underfoot as Elara stepped down. The absorbed shard vibrated harder now almost painfully.
"It's here," she said. "Stronger than the first. Older."
Thorne scanned the courtyard below empty, but footprints marred the fresh powder: too many, too deliberate. "Someone or something beat us."
They descended cracked stairs into the citadel's heart. The halls were vast, lined with statues of crowned women queens from eras before the Empire, faces serene or fierce, hands outstretched as if offering echoes. Many statues were cracked; some missing heads or arms. Echoes of old power lingered in the stone faint, mournful.
At the end of the grand hall stood a sealed inner sanctum: double doors of frost-veined obsidian, etched with the same broken-crown symbol they'd seen in Hollowmere.
Elara placed her palm on the door. The resonance flared golden light meeting violet shadow beneath the ice. The doors groaned open.
Inside: a circular chamber lit by floating amethyst crystals. At the center, atop a dais of black ice, stood the second fragment larger, more defined. It wore the form of a tall queen in flowing robes of shadow and frost, crown of jagged violet thorns. Its face was almost beautiful until it smiled, revealing rows of needle teeth.
Welcome, daughter of Isolde, it said. And her cursed consort.
Elara tensed. "You know us."
I am Memory, the fragment replied. The Devourer's first mind, shed when the queens bound me. I remember every Binding. Every betrayal. Every queen who failed.
Thorne's wings flared. "Then you remember how they won."
They won nothing. Memory gestured. The amethyst crystals brightened projecting holographic echoes around the chamber: queens of old, standing in circles, linking hands, bleeding into orbs of light. One by one, they faded consumed by the very chains they forged.
They bound me, Memory continued, but the price was their own souls. Piece by piece. Your ancestor Isolde was the last. She sealed me deepest… and paid most dearly.
Elara felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold. Isolde's voice usually calm whispered in her mind: She speaks half-truth. I chose the price. I chose to protect.
Memory stepped down from the dais. You carry her echo. You carry her guilt. Join me, Anchor. Release what remains of her. Let the old chains shatter. Let power flow free no more sacrifice, no more fading queens.
Thorne growled. "We've heard that offer before. Same lie, different mouth."
Memory's violet eyes narrowed. Then witness the cost of refusal.
The chamber shifted reality bending. The floor became a frozen lake; statues around them animated, stepping down as spectral queens. They moved in slow, mournful circles eyes glowing violet, mouths open in silent screams.
One approached Elara face identical to Isolde's in her memories.
Child, the specter whispered. I failed. I bound what should have been destroyed. Now you carry my burden. Let it go. Let it end.
Elara's hand trembled. The resonance flickered doubt creeping in like frost on glass.
Thorne stepped between them curse-flame igniting along his arms. "She's not yours to claim."
Memory laughed soft, echoing. She already is.
The spectral queens closed in reaching for Elara, for Thorne. Cold hands brushed skin; memories flooded unbidden: Isolde's final Binding, her life-force bleeding into the seal, her last thought: Forgive me, future ones.
Elara staggered. "Stop "
Thorne roared wings snapping wide. Black fire exploded outward, shattering the nearest specters into shards of light. He grabbed Elara's hand pulling her close.
"Feel me," he said fiercely. "Not them. Me."
The resonance surged golden warmth flooding back, pushing the cold away. Elara gripped his hand tighter.
"I'm here," she breathed. "We're here."
Memory's form flickered smile faltering. You resist. But you cannot destroy memory.
Elara straightened. "We don't need to destroy it. We need to remember better."
She channeled the absorbed first fragment's insight combined with Sovereign Pyre and Isolde's wisdom. Golden chains erupted not to bind, but to illuminate. They wrapped the spectral queens not trapping them, but filling them with light.
One by one, the specters brightened violet fading to gold. Faces softened. Screams became sighs of release. They bowed grateful then dissolved into motes that drifted upward, vanishing through the ceiling.
Memory staggered. What have you done?
"Given them peace," Elara said. "The queens you trapped. The memories you twisted. They're free now."
Thorne advanced flame roaring hotter. "And you're next."
The fragment lashed out violet thorns whipping toward them.
Elara and Thorne moved as one chains and fire merging into a blazing spear. It struck Memory's core chest cracking open.
The fragment screamed high, final.
The amethyst crystals dimmed. The ice spire crumbled.
A second dark shard fell smaller, quieter.
Elara picked it up. The resonance absorbed it instantly.
[Devourer Fragment (Memory) – Neutralized][Eternal Resonance Upgraded: Echo Recall – Access purified memories of past queens for guidance in battle. Current count: 2/7 detected.]
Thorne exhaled wings folding. "Two down."
Elara looked at the empty dais. "And the queens are resting easier."
Outside, the blizzard had stopped. Sunlight pierced the clouds weak, but real.
They stepped back into the world above.
But the resonance already hummed again pointing west, toward distant seas.
The hunt continued.
And the Devourer remembered.
[End of Chapter 3 – Volume 2]