The throne hall held a terrible silence that weighed more heavily than any sound could have—a crushing pressure that made breathing itself an act of defiance. Heat radiated from the obsidian floor, though no visible fmes burned within the chamber's confines. The air carried a faint acrid scent that those who had witnessed royal justice before recognized with instinctive dread.

  Serakha stood motionless among the Queen's honour guard, her heartbeat thundering beneath her breastpte with such force she feared others might hear it. Before her, kneeling on the gleaming bck floor, were the remnants of House Tyvan, House Elrin, and House Jor—a dozen nobles in total, their house insignias having been ceremonially burned from their garments before this final audience. Their once-proud postures had crumbled beneath the weight of their situation, and a young boy at the end of the line shook with silent sobs.

  "Accused of treason," the Fme-priest intoned, his voice carrying the formal cadence of ritual rather than natural speech. "Of consorting with exiled blood. Of dishonoring the Fme."

  Serakha's jaw tightened imperceptibly. A lie. All of it. This wasn't justice—it was theatre designed to consolidate power through fear. These families had committed no crime beyond possessing influence that had become inconvenient to the throne.

  Queen Vaetra descended from her throne in a movement so fluid it seemed she floated rather than walked. Her presence distorted the space around her, the air bending as though viewed through intense heat. The chamber fell into deeper silence as she approached the youngest prisoner—a girl no older than ten, whose silver-streaked hair marked her as having particurly strong draconic lineage.

  "What a waste of bloodline," Vaetra mused, her tone carrying the casual disappointment one might express over spilled wine rather than the imminent destruction of ancient noble houses. "But corruption breeds quickly in rotten roots."

  She extended one cwed finger toward the child's forehead.

  What happened next defied conventional understanding of fme. The fire answered not from without but from within—erupting from the girl's mouth, her eyes, between the seams of her very skin. Her small frame contorted as internal heat consumed her from inside out. Her scream never found voice, trapped within a throat that colpsed as muscles contracted beyond natural limits.

  Serakha turned away, but not quickly enough to avoid seeing the second execution begin. An elderly man's body illuminated from within as though his bones had become molten metal. The others broke rank then, their stoicism shattering into primal terror. They attempted to crawl away as dignity abandoned them entirely—but Vaetra continued her methodical work.

  The st one—a woman who had once instructed Serakha in court etiquette—dragged herself forward, leaving dark smears across the polished stone. Her eyes found Serakha's, filled with a mixture of pain and betrayal so raw it cut deeper than any bde.

  "You permitted this," she managed, voice barely audible through damaged vocal cords.

  And then she was gone, her existence erased with a single gesture from the Queen.

  When it was done, Vaetra turned, her appearance pristine despite the devastation surrounding her. No blood marred her ceremonial robes, no ash dusted her perfectly arranged hair. She might have been returning from an afternoon garden stroll rather than an execution.

  "Justice, my dear," she said to Serakha, the words carrying the weight of instruction rather than expnation. "Cruelty becomes kindness when the disease runs this deep."

  Serakha stared at the remnants of what had once been people of consequence, and understood with terrible crity—this hadn't been merely a purge of potential opposition.

  It was a message, written in a nguage only those who wielded power would fully comprehend.

  The Hollow Archives existed in contradiction to everything Heartspire celebrated—darkness instead of fme, silence instead of procmation, forgetting instead of remembrance. The air hung stale and heavy, undisturbed for generations except by those with specific purpose and royal dispensation.

  Selyra moved through the forgotten corridors with practiced stealth, her footsteps occasionally disturbing fragments that had once been records—or perhaps bones—impossible to distinguish after centuries of neglect. Shelf after shelf surrounded her, carved from materials that seemed organic rather than stone, holding scrolls bound in substances better left unidentified and containers preserving specimens that occasionally shifted in their alchemical suspension despite their apparent lifelessness.

  She found what she sought in a chamber sealed with blood-magic—the entrance yielding only after she pressed her palm to its surface and allowed her own essence to mingle with the ancient protection.

  Within y a single scroll wrapped in material that resembled dried skin, bound with a braid of silver-scaled hair. She unwrapped it with hands that remained steady despite the gravity of her discovery.

  The Severance Rite had not been merely an exile, as official histories cimed. It had been systematic destruction.

  The scroll detailed the Wing Drowning—infants with distinguishing features submerged in volcanic ore as their mothers were forced to bear witness. Wings removed from the sughtered and dispyed from castle battlements as warning against impurity. One queen had commissioned them sewn into ceremonial robes.

  And then—her designation. Not a name, but a clinical notation: "Subject Thirteen."

  A slight dispcement of air behind her.

  She pivoted instantly, unsheathing the curved dagger at her thigh in a movement too fluid to follow with untrained eyes.

  A Bckguard—one of the Queen's personal assassins—lunged from shadow, dual bdes slicing through the space Selyra had occupied milliseconds earlier. She twisted away, calcuting angles with instinctive precision, then countered with a ssh that opened his thigh to bone. As he stumbled, she seized his wrist and applied carefully measured force until the joint separated with an audible sound. His mask muted his cry as she drove his head against a nearby shelf until resistance gave way.

  His struggle ended when her bde found the vulnerable junction beneath his jaw.

  She held him upright as life departed, studying the emptying eyes behind his mask with clinical interest.

  "I was beginning to fear I'd been forgotten," she murmured, the words carrying satisfaction rather than regret.

  She cimed his mask as trophy and evidence. The rest she left behind.

  The training yard y abandoned in predawn stillness, the air carrying a metallic scent that those with battlefield experience would immediately recognize. Moonlight revealed what torchlight would have mercifully obscured—the remains of three pace guards arranged with deliberate precision across the training ground's centre. Their wounds suggested not frenzied violence but methodical purpose, symbols carved into exposed flesh with surgical precision.

  A warning. A signature. A challenge.

  Serakha recognized it instantly, her hand moving to her bde's hilt before conscious thought directed the action.

  "You need not hide," she called to the shadows, her voice steady despite the grim tableau before her. "I know your work."

  Selyra emerged from darkness into moonlight, her bare feet making no sound against stone that should have announced each step. Blood had dried across her skin in patterns that resembled ritual markings rather than battle stains. Her expression carried neither remorse nor excitement—only focused intensity, like a predator assessing potential prey.

  "You don't appear surprised," she observed, head tilting slightly.

  "I've outgrown surprise where you're concerned," Serakha replied, drawing her bde with practiced efficiency.

  They moved toward each other with identical purpose.

  Their confrontation transcended ordinary combat—each strike containing perfect bance between control and abandon, every movement reflecting training so ingrained it had become instinct. Serakha's bde found purchase along Selyra's side, meeting resistance that suggested contact with bone. The forbidden daughter merely smiled, pivoting to score her own bde across Serakha's jaw—a shallow cut that nonetheless burned with unnatural intensity.

  They grappled like creatures from legend rather than mere mortals, each impact echoing across the empty courtyard. Selyra drove her forehead against Serakha's with calcuted force, then seized her ceremonial braid to gain leverage for a devastating knee strike that drove breath from lungs and brought bile rising in Serakha's throat.

  She colpsed to stone—and felt cold metal press against her lips.

  "Still believe yourself the chosen heir?" Selyra whispered, words carrying genuine curiosity beneath contempt. "Your blood doesn't even flow correctly."

  Serakha responded with defiance rather than words, spattering blood across the other woman's face.

  Selyra didn't recoil. Instead, she tasted it with deliberate provocation.

  Yet she withheld the killing stroke that hung between them like unspoken promise.

  She stood, violet eyes reflecting moonlight with unnatural intensity.

  "When I cim the throne," she said with quiet certainty, "you'll recognize this moment as mercy rather than weakness."

  Then she receded into shadow with impossible grace, leaving Serakha alone with implications more threatening than violence.

  The Fmeheart Mirror waited in its eternal chamber—a sentinel of secrets rather than mere reflecting gss. The room around it seemed to breathe with ancient magics, air currents moving without natural cause, shadows deepening in corners where light should have reached.

  Serakha knelt before it, dignity forgotten in the wake of what she had witnessed and experienced. Blood stained her clothing—some her own, most not. Her hands trembled not with fear but with fury barely contained beneath tenuous control.

  The mirror offered no comfort. It existed not to soothe but to reveal.

  Images flickered across its surface, repcing her reflection with visions difficult to witness:

  A child screaming as her emerging wings were sealed with molten metal.

  A circle of queens performing ritual sacrifice, their mouths bound with silver wire, blood coursing down their throats.

  A pyre constructed from the remains of those deemed impure, eyes remaining open to witness their own destruction.

  Then the mirror stilled.

  She saw herself.

  Then herself with subtle changes—violet eyes where amber should be, features sharpening into something both foreign and hauntingly familiar. The expression transformed into something that reflected nothing of Serakha's current state but instead revealed connection she had denied since childhood.

  A voice whispered from everywhere and nowhere:

  "Sister."

  Then silence so profound it seemed to swallow sound itself.

  Serakha's control shattered. She hurled her ceremonial dagger at the mirror's surface with force born from desperation rather than strategy.

  The bde connected—but the reflection remained unbroken.

  It merely smiled in response.