The flood had only just receded from the Shadow City, leaving the streets soaked and littered with shattered stone and debris. The Old Mother stood before the colossal gates of the fortress, her skeletal frame swathed in rags that reeked of stale blood and dried brine. Her eyes, clouded with cataracts and centuries of misplaced devotion, swept across the ruined grounds, desperately searching for the faces of her children.
Regret had finally sunk its claws into her heart. Losing two sons had been a bitter pill to swallow, but losing the rest had been madness. She had given everything to the Roots, believing their promises of salvation, only to watch that faith consume everything she cherished.
She shuffled forward, her calloused feet dragging through the wet grit, until she found him. Kaelen lay collapsed against the base of a ruined house, barely breathing, his left foot severed cleanly at the ankle. A dark trail of congealed blood stained the sand behind him. The Old Mother sank to her knees beside him, the grit biting into her weathered skin as she gently cupped his cold cheek. Tears welled in her clouded eyes and spilled down the deep crevices of her face.
In the terrible stillness of his dying breaths, she questioned everything. Her faith. Her life. The decades she had spent bound to the roots that had promised salvation and delivered only ruin. She remembered the zealotry of her youth, the fervour with which she had knelt before the shadows and taught her sons and daughters to be grateful, to kneel, and to offer their devotion to the gods they were bound to serve.
They had once known peace, living quietly and helping her tend the Garden of Souls, until the Council came. They seized her children and forced them into brutal rituals to survive the so-called Judgment of the Old Gods. In that bloody week alone, she had lost half her disciples, while her firstborn had screamed as his soul was torn apart, unable to survive the trial. For years afterward, she had convinced herself that their deaths had meaning.
Now she knew better.
"Mother..." Kaelen's voice was a wet, rasping whisper. He forced his heavy eyelids open, his gaze slowly finding hers. "I did not die in vain..." His breath hitched painfully before he managed to continue. "The Old Gods... had forsaken us."
With the last strength left in his broken body, he reached up and touched her frail hand.
The moment their skin met, something raw and chaotic surged from his dying frame into hers. Ancient power raced through her veins like liquid ice, making her heart hammer violently against her ribs as it burrowed deeper into her flesh.
The Old Mother stared into her son's fading eyes and slowly nodded. For one agonizing moment, she felt everything he had left behind—not memories, but the weight of his final conviction. The faith he had carried all his life was gone, stripped bare by the truth he had discovered at the end.
Then the power consumed her.
"Wait for your mother," she whispered, her voice cracking.
Kaelen's body suddenly buckled. His skin tightened against his bones, his flesh withered, and within seconds he became little more than a hollow shell of rag and bone. Every remaining fragment of his life had been ripped from him and consumed by the dark wellspring now burning inside his mother.
The ancient, corrupt power of the old gods enveloped her like a suffocating blanket. She plunged her fingers into the wet sand, gripping the very earth of Dorne as though she meant to tear it apart. Her voice echoed across the Shadow City with an unnerving second cadence beneath it, vibrating through the bedrock as she cried, "I defile this land... I defile my fate! Succumb to the power of the Old Gods... I hate..."
The force erupted from her body with enough violence to buckle the air around her. Dust spiralled upward, shattered stones rolled across the ground, and the night sky above Sunspear twisted into a violent shade of violet.
Before her feet could touch the ground again, the air snapped apart. Thaddues materialized directly in front of her, his arrival sending a sharp crack across the battlefield as displaced air blasted outward. His hand clamped around her withered throat like an iron vise while his wand was already raised in his right hand, its tip glowing with the unmistakable emerald light of the Killing Curse.
He had one chance to stop her before the corrupted magic fully bloomed.
"Too late, young man," she rasped, her lips pulling back into a ghastly smile.
Before the killing curse could erupt from his wand, the old woman's back split open with a wet, sickening tear. Bone snapped through flesh as geysers of crimson blood burst from her spine, curling around her body like living tentacles. None of it touched the ground; instead, the blood folded inward, swallowing her collapsing corpse as something enormous began pushing its way through.
The mass expanded with terrifying speed, bubbling and twisting into a grotesque union of flesh, marrow, blood, and shadow. Its shape refused to remain fixed, with limbs forming from its bulk only to dissolve moments later and become thick, rope-like tendrils. A roar rolled across Sunspear, sounding like grinding stone mixed with the screams of countless souls, and then the thing surged outward.
The first wave swallowed the sand beneath it before consuming the shattered stones and iron fixtures scattered across the courtyard. People who had survived the flood but caught in its path vanished without even having time to flee, their bodies dragged into the writhing mass as it swept through the outer districts. In less than three seconds, half of the Shadow City had disappeared beneath the spreading horror, while hundreds of screams rose above the destruction before abruptly falling silent.
Thaddues was hurled backward. He struck the wet sand hard, rolled several times, and finally caught himself on one knee as he tried to understand what had happened. "What has gone wrong?" he muttered, his breath hitching when he looked down at his right hand.
The flesh on his palm—the same hand that had touched the old woman's neck—was already blackening. Skin peeled away in dark flakes while a foul rot crept toward his wrist, eating through flesh with alarming speed. Then he heard the system, delivering the reality he desperately did not want to hear.
--
Host warning! Ancient Entity Manifestation Successfully! Threat Level system unable to measure.
--
Thaddues gritted his teeth and forced magic through his ruined hand.
A modified Vulnera Sanentur slowed the decay, but it could not restore what had already been destroyed, leaving his palm charred and raw. He pushed himself upright and stared at the horror ahead of him, watching as its enormous body continued to change.
Tendrils the size of towers rose from the mass and whipped through the air, smashing buildings apart. Each impact sent shockwaves across the surrounding streets, knocking loose stones from walls and sending debris tumbling through the ruins. Thaddues tightened his grip on his wand as an unfamiliar dread settled in his stomach.
Can I even defeat this thing that even the system can't measure?
The question barely had time to form before the wind carried another sound to him. Children were crying somewhere beyond the carnage. Sunspear guards shouted orders through the chaos, while families called desperately for one another among the ruins of the flood-ravaged lower city.
Thaddues turned toward the Gate of Sunspear and saw Princess Dareya standing upon the high parapet above the main archway. Her hair whipped wildly in the desert wind, yet she had not fled. She stood at the edge of the wall, staring down through the destruction at him, terror plain in her eyes but something else beneath it.
Trust.
Something hardened inside Thaddues' chest. Whatever fear had taken hold of him was pushed aside by a colder, simpler resolve.
He would not stand by and watch another person die while he still had the strength to fight.
He raised his wand and aimed at the center of the writhing mass, drawing upon every ounce of power he could force through his body. His jaw tightened as he poured his intent into the spell, and then he shouted,
"AVADA KEDAVRA!"
A torrent of emerald light exploded from the tip of his wand. The Killing Curse tore across the battlefield with such force that it illuminated the violet sky as it struck the creature directly in the center. The impact shook the ground beneath Thaddeus' feet, punching a massive hole through the creature and blasting its bulk backward across the sand.
Dust and vaporized blood erupted around the wound as the creature was driven dozens of yards through the ruins. For one brief moment, Thaddues thought he had done it.
Then the wound began to move.
Thick, vascular roots burst from the edges of the hole, twisting together as the creature rebuilt its missing flesh. Then several tendrils shot straight toward Thaddues while another enormous cluster veered toward the open gates behind him, seeking the people sheltering inside.
"No!" Thaddues snarled.
He thrust his left hand toward the palace and forced the words through his mind without speaking them. "Protego Maxima." A translucent golden dome snapped into existence over the Gate of Sunspear just as the bloody roots crashed into it.
The impact sounded like a siege engine striking a fortress wall. The barrier bowed inward, spiderweb cracks spreading across its surface as Thaddues dug his boots into the sand and fought to keep it standing. The roots struck again, and the entire dome shuddered violently, but it held.
Sensing the strain, Thaddues swung his wand in a wide arc toward the advancing tendrils. "CONFINGO!" The blasting curse detonated among them, ripping several roots apart and sending chunks of blackened flesh raining across the battlefield.
For a heartbeat, there was nothing but smoke.
Then the severed pieces moved.
The chunks twitched against the scorched earth, roots pushing through flesh as twisted branches unfolded from the remains. Dozens of smaller tree monsters dragged themselves free, their grotesque bodies formed from gnarled roots, splintered bone, and rotting meat. Their limbs were twisted branches, their bark split by jagged mouths lined with needle-like teeth. Knotted growths bulged from their trunks, and clusters of pale, lidless eyes opened between the cracks in their bark as they lurched toward their prey.
The creatures scattered immediately.
Some rushed toward the streets of the Shadow City while others swarmed toward the walls of Sunspear. Thaddues barely had time to react before the first wave reached the fortress.
"Shit!"
He slashed his wand toward the nearest cluster. "Confringo!" An explosion tore through several creatures, scattering pieces of them across the stone. Before the remains could settle, he struck another group with "Reducto!", pulverizing them against the wall.
More came.
His left arm trembled as he maintained the protective dome, and every second the ward remained active drained another portion of his reserves. He could not abandon the gate, yet every creature he allowed through brought the horror closer to the people behind him.
Then he saw a cluster slipping past his field of vision.
They were already halfway up the wall.
Straight toward Dareya.
The princess drew a spear as the creatures reached the crest. A guard immediately stepped in front of her, weapon raised, as the abominations crawled over the wall, their jagged limbs gouging deep into its weathered surface.
Then the sky split open.
A vast crimson shadow swept across Sunspear, blotting out the stars above the fortress. Heat rolled over the ramparts, and the air filled with the sharp smell of ozone, sulfur, and burning flesh.
Dareya looked upward.
A dragon's roar shook the night.
Then a voice rang across the battlefield.
"DRACARYS!"
The sky caught fire.
Meleys descended through the clouds, crimson wings spread wide as dragonfire poured from her jaws. The crawling abominations vanished beneath the flames, reduced to ash before they could reach Dareya.
Princess Rhaenys Targaryen, the Queen Who Never Was, swept over the ramparts astride Meleys, silver hair streaming behind her. Her gaze found Thaddues through the flames.
She gave him a single, sharp nod.
Thaddues returned it.
Meleys roared overhead, drowning out the Entity's shriek.
The Red Queen had come.
TBC
Fr.
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