The Binding Vow
The crowns did not care about love.
They cared about balance.
Eira felt it the moment the magic sealed—an invisible chain snapping taut between her ribs and Kaelan's, their heartbeats syncing in a rhythm too precise to be natural. The battlefield around them had transformed into a grotesque chapel: shattered Luminarch armor now pews, their pooled blood turned to dark wine in spectral chalices.
Nyx, perched atop a floating ruin like a demented cherub, raised her hands. "By the power vested in me by, like, destiny or whatever…"She grinned. "You may not kiss the bride."
Kaelan's grip on Eira's hand tightened. "Why not?"
"Because the last vow isn't sealed yet."Nyx's eyes darted to the coffin where the queen thrashed against her binds. "And Mommy Dearest gets a vote."
The coffin screamed open.
---
The Queen's Last Gift
The Celestial Queen emerged, her once-radiant gown now a funeral shroud, her hair white as bone. But it wasn't fury in her eyes—it was fear.
"Fools," she rasped. "You think this bond will save you?"
She lunged, not at Eira or Kaelan, but at Nyx—her fingers closing around the girl's throat.
"You did this," the queen hissed. "You little rat."
Nyx choked out a laugh. "Took you… long enough."
Then she bit the queen's wrist—
and the world split in two.
The First Betrayal (Revealed)
The vision struck like a knife:
_A younger queen weeping over a crib. Not Eira's. Nyx's.
"I'm sorry," the queen whispered as she carved the first mark into her true daughter's wrist. "But the Forgotten must never find you."
Then—the betrayal. Nyx, barely five years old, stealing the crown's blueprints and vanishing into the dark._
The memory shattered.
Nyx stood free, the queen's black blood dripping from her teeth.
"Surprise," she panted. "I'm your real heir."
Eira's crown burned with sudden fury.
---
The Twin Crowns' Choice
Chaos erupted.
The queen screeched, her form unraveling into starlight and rot. Nyx backflipped onto a crumbling pillar, cackling. And Kaelan—
Kaelan moved.
His shadows wrapped around Eira just as the queen's magic struck, the impact sending them skidding across the bloodied grass.
"Plan?" he gritted out.
Eira's gaze locked onto Nyx. "We kill the queen."
"And the other problem?" His eyes flicked to the girl.
Nyx blew them a kiss.
Eira bared her teeth. "We'll see."
Then the crowns spoke—not in words, but in hunger.
They didn't want the queen dead.
They wanted her consumed.
---
The Feast of Queens
It wasn't a battle.
It was a butchery.
Eira took the queen's right arm, her crown's light searing through flesh like sunlight through fog. Kaelan took the left, his shadows devouring the rot.
The queen screamed, not in pain, but in recognition.
"This was always your fate," she gasped as her form dissolved. "To eat the world that made you."
Then Nyx was there—her small hands plunging into the queen's chest.
"And my fate," she whispered, "is to watch."
She ripped out the queen's still-beating heart—
—and offered it to Eira.
"Happy wedding."
---
The Hollow Throne
The heart dissolved into smoke before Eira could refuse.
It slithered into the twin crowns, their power doubling—then tripling—until the air itself shook with the weight of it.
Nyx wiped her hands on her dress. "Oops. Guess you're real monarchs now."
Kaelan's shadows had gone preternaturally still. "Eira."
She followed his gaze.
Where the queen had died, a throne now stood—not of gold or bone, but of nothingness, a hollowed-out silhouette shaped like a crown.
And it was calling them.
Nyx sighed. *"Yeah. That's not creepy at all."
Then the throne spoke:
"Sit."
---
Teaser for Chapter Seventeen: The Eclipse Court
The thrones demand rulers.
Nyx holds the knife.
And the Forgotten?
They're kneeling.