Discomfort seeped into every corner of Vasier Palace, carried by whispers and wary glances that filled the void left by Venessa’s absence. Tales of high seas and a doomed voyage spread like wildfire—The Rising Crescent had never reached its destination. Why had the queen’s mother risked such perilous waters for a pilgrimage when safer shores lay waiting?

  Queen Marguen withdrew into herself, retreating behind the suffocating walls of grief and isolation. Her mother’s final words circled endlessly in her thoughts, offering no solace. Even the sharp ceremonial thud of halberds failed to stir her as the quartermaster, Cestmir, was announced into the chamber.

  He entered with deliberate precision, his burnished armor a relic from another time, preserved for moments such as these. Bowing low, he spoke.

  “My queen, my heart aches for your loss. Venessa was a beloved regent, and I can only imagine the mother she was to you. But tragedy, it seems, strikes twice. Pragian still stands, while Sir Tristan’s army lies in ruin.”

  Marguen’s gaze remained distant, her expression unmoved. Slowly, she turned to her royal advisor, Davos, and asked, “What happened to my fool?”

  Davos’s response was curt. “Gone.” Then, with a flick of his hand, he ushered Cestmir forward. “Listen, my queen. He brings important news.”

  “Oh… of course.” Marguen drawled, her voice trailing off into lethargic whispers. “Cestmir, tell me. What brought about Sir Tristan’s defeat?”

  “Hubris, Your Majesty,” Cestmir said with quiet disdain. “He believed gold could buy victory, but no amount of coin can substitute for skill or experience.”

  “Or faith,” Davos interjected. “Sir Tristan, as we know, lacked the grace of God, and perhaps his fate was divinely sealed.”

  Cestmir, refusing to engage with Davos’s provocation, addressed the queen directly. “Sir Bradfrey has returned from his northern campaign.”

  “He wasn’t summoned,” Davos snapped.

  “That is for Sir Bradfrey to explain,” Cestmir replied. “My concern is preparing for the escalating pagan threat. Time is no ally, Your Majesty.”

  “That will be all, Cestmir,” Marguen murmured, waving him away as though dismissing a troublesome memory.

  Cestmir departed with quiet awkwardness, his presence fading like a forgotten patch in a grand tapestry. His exit, however, gave way to the arrival of Vasier’s shining idol.

  Sir Bradfrey entered the chamber as though walking into a sunlit stage, his polished armor catching the light like a holy relic. The Templar Amos followed close behind, his red cross proudly displayed—a beacon of righteous zeal.

  Behind them, unnoticed by most, walked Anneliese. Her achievements, though well known in the north, meant nothing here. In the eyes of Vasier’s court, she was a mere accessory to Sir Bradfrey’s glory.

  “Cestmir,” Sir Bradfrey called as he passed the vacating quartermaster. “What troubles you?”

  “I pray you fare better than your predecessor,” Cestmir muttered with a dry edge. “Else God save you.”

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  His remark faded into the air, unacknowledged by courtiers who dismissed Cestmir as effortlessly as a dimming flame curses the rising sun. Anneliese, too, was cast aside, her presence drowned beneath the glowing adulation showered upon Sir Bradfrey. Yet their indifference granted her something rare—solitude.

  She embraced it, taking in the palace with quiet awe. The vibrant tapestries, gilded moldings, and radiant chandeliers wove a world beyond anything her imagination had dared to conjure. Every surface shimmered, every corner drowning in excess and opulence.

  And then it struck her.

  The walls warped, their colors distorting like water rippling over shattered glass. Two worlds converged in her vision—one physical, one spectral. A chilling draft coiled through the room, carrying whispers from unseen depths. In the darkest corner, sinister red eyes flickered to life, scanning the void with hungry intent, searching for the one who dared intrude.

  “Oh, Lascivious,” came a low, hissing voice. “We meet again.”

  The presence was invisible to the Queen’s chambers, but its malice radiated through Anneliese’s sixth sense. Anneliese’s soul shifted, pulled into the spectral realm alongside her eternal tormentor. Lascivious, the spectral ghost-king tethered to her being, emerged at her side. Before them loomed a shapeless monstrosity—Id, the ancient demon. Smoky tendrils coiled menacingly, its essence anchored to its vessel: Bishop Arcadius.

  “It’s you, from the darkness?” Anneliese asked.

  “I am the bishop. I am the church. I am... God,” the demon rasped, its voice weaving into Anneliese’s thoughts like a sinister hymn.

  “Are you lost, child?” Arcadius whispered, his presence intertwined between the converging realms of magic and reality.

  “I’m a child of the cross. I mean you no harm,” said Anneliese. Conversing within the same telepathic link, while her body continued to act in unconscious conformity to the deliberations between Sir Bradfrey and Queen Marguen.

  “But your spirit says otherwise,” Arcadius intoned darkly.

  Lascivious, protective for once, surged forward to shield her mind from the demon’s grasp. “It is an ancient born of impulse and corruption. A nihilist who services only its own desires.”

  “Poor Lascivious,” Id hissed mockingly. “You rise to fall to fall again. Have you not learned your place?”

  “I will rebuild what you destroyed,” Lascivious growled.

  “Rebuild?” Arcadius sneered. “Build your sanctuary in the void where it belongs. The physical realm is no place for ghosts clinging to scraps of forgotten magic.”

  “Build your grave and be forgotten,” Id whispered.

  Anneliese stepped forward, her voice cutting through the tension. “You’re erasing paganism,” she said calmly. “Not just its people, but its memory. Its history.”

  “The injustices of the past have no place in the perfect future,” Arcadius replied coldly.

  “We are the scorned and vengeful,” Id whispered, circling her with devious intent.

  “Who’s truly in control? You or your ancient?” Lascivious demanded, his spectral form moving to block Id’s sightlines to Anneliese.

  “Neither,” Arcadius replied. “We are the collective memories of pagan persecution. The echoes of their pain—living and dead.”

  “Then perhaps we are not so different, you and I,” Anneliese said, stepping outside of Lascivious’s shadow. “I, too, have been wronged. But unlike you, I remain in control.”

  Id hissed in muffled delight. “Oh, the fire. The hatred. It burns beautiful.”

  “Says the girl who exists only through pagan magic,” Lascivious muttered. His words trailed off into the void as Anneliese’s consciousness snapped back into the physical realm.

  The spectral world vanishing before her blinking eyes, just in time for her to hear Sir Bradfrey’s pitch. “Draconian only wishes to be left alone. If sparing him allows us to bring Kulum to justice, then it is a cost we can afford.”

  “I will save them,” Anneliese declared. “Permit me to go to Pragian, and I will convert them —or bring justice to all who resist.”

  The court fell silent. Davos sneered. “She speaks.”

  “Enough,” Bishop Arcadius interrupted, emerging from the shadows to stand beside the queen. “A saint has come to save Pragian’s soul.”

  Sir Bradfrey faltered, his measured words caught in his throat, blind to the shadowy hand placed upon the queen’s neck.

  Queen Marguen rose slowly, her frail frame swaying as though lifted by an unseen force. Her scepter hung limp at her side, its gilded surface dulled by the emptiness in her eyes.

  “I don’t care,” she said. “Convert them. Kill them. Make a desert and call it peace. Just rid me of this burden.”