Chains of the Forgotten Princess

The wind over the Silverveil Mountains cried like a chorus of lost souls. It swept through the broken peaks, wailing between the stones as if mourning something ancient and undone.

Elira stood at the edge of what remained of the Temple of the Lost Tongue, the ruins a shadow of what once was—scorched stone, twisted iron, and the still-smoking bones of the Binding Throne. Her cloak flared behind her, snapping in the wind like a warning, but she didn't flinch.

This place was supposed to hold answers.

Instead, it held ghosts.

Behind her, Kael stood silent, his presence steady even as the earth beneath them felt anything but. Since the throne had shattered beneath her will, the land itself had begun to twist. Mirror beasts slipping through cracks in the world. Fires whispering names. Nobles waking from dreams they didn't remember—chained, screaming.

"We should leave," Kael said softly. "The path won't hold much longer."

Elira didn't move. Her eyes were fixed on the ruin's center. "There's something beneath it," she murmured. "This wasn't just a temple. It was a seal."

Kael's jaw tightened. "You think you broke it?"

She turned to him, her gaze catching the last light of dusk, glowing faintly gold. "No. I think I was the key."

Before he could respond, the ground beneath them groaned—then split with a deep, hungry crack. Dust and broken stone rained down. And in that sudden stillness that followed, a sound rose—not from the sky, not from the wind, but from deep in the earth itself.

A whisper.

"Elira…"

Kael's sword was in his hand in an instant.

But Elira didn't reach for a weapon.

She dropped to her knees instead, pressing her palm to the scorched floor like someone greeting an old friend. "It's not a voice," she whispered. "It's a memory."

Her fingers found a faint carving in the stone—a glyph half-buried in ash. It pulsed faintly under her touch. Not with heat. With something older.

Blood magic.

The kind her mother used to warn her about.

The kind her mother hid in books no one was supposed to read.

The symbol belonged to the Forgotten House.

"Elira!" Kael's voice was sharper now. "Something's coming."

And it was.

From beneath the cracked altar, a soft green glow pulsed—slow, steady, like a heartbeat. The stone peeled back in unnatural curls, revealing a staircase that spiraled downward into pitch black.

"I have to go down there," she said, rising slowly.

"You're not going alone." Kael's voice left no room for argument.

Elira glanced at him. "Whatever's waiting down there… it's been waiting for me."

Kael's eyes didn't waver. "Then we face it together."

Side by side, they descended.

The air thickened as they went, each step colder than the last. The walls were carved with symbols—runes of power, prophecy, war. Bones lined the edges of the stairwell, but these weren't animals.

They were royal.

Crowns still clung to some skulls.

When the stairway ended, they stepped into a massive underground chamber.

The light came from green flames flickering in suspended sconces along the wall. And in the middle of it all stood a tree.

Black.

Dead.

Unrotted.

Its bark was cracked, but not crumbling. Its roots coiled through the chamber floor, wrapped around weapons, crowns, and broken chains.

Kael drew in a sharp breath. "Is that—?"

Elira nodded slowly. "The Tree of Mourning. I thought it was a myth."

Around the base, runes shimmered faintly. She knelt again, brushing dust from the words. Her voice was barely more than breath as she read aloud:

"From thorns we ruled, through blood we fell.Forgotten not by time, but by betrayal.Let her come, born of both curse and crown."

Then everything changed.

The flames flared.

The tree groaned.

And from its cracked trunk, something stepped out.

A woman.

Tall, cloaked in shadows. Her eyes were dim stars—dying, but not yet gone.

"Elira Thandrel," the figure said, her voice deep and impossible. "You are not the last of your line. You are the beginning of mine."

Kael stepped in front of Elira, protective, ready.

But Elira touched his arm and stepped past him. Her voice didn't shake. "Who are you?"

The woman tilted her head. "I am the Memory Queen. The one who remembers what was erased."

She raised a hand—long, skeletal fingers glowing with layered time—and Elira felt something deep inside her crack open. Her magic surged, pulling with it a flood of memories she had never known she possessed.

Visions poured into her.

A war between sisters.

A library engulfed in flame.

Her mother, weeping over a blood-soaked scroll.

And Kael—barely more than a boy—reaching out through a prison gate to a chained child with golden eyes.

Her.

She staggered.

"My mother…" she whispered. "She was one of you."

The Memory Queen nodded. "And you are what they feared. The daughter of two legacies. Not bound. Not broken. Unwritten."

Kael's voice was hoarse now. "What do you want from her?"

The Queen's form shimmered—light flickering through her shadowed shape until, for a breath, she appeared as a woman radiant and crowned.

"I want her to choose," she said. "The blood in her veins can rebuild empires or set them ablaze. It is hers now. Not theirs."

Elira stood straighter. Fear gave way to something sharper—clarity.

"Then I choose."

The Queen smiled. Not cruelly. Not kindly. But like someone who had waited centuries for this moment.

"You always did."

The ground trembled beneath them. Roots split open. And from the earth rose a blade.

Bone. Flame. Crystal.

Ancient and beautiful.

The Queen stepped back. "Take it," she said. "And become what they tried to bury."

Elira reached out, her hand shaking just once.

The blade burned as her fingers closed around it—but it felt like something she'd been missing her whole life.

Home.

She turned to Kael, eyes blazing.

"We're not running anymore."

Kael met her gaze, steady and sure. "Then let them fear what they tried to forget."