Chains of the Forgotten Princess

The wind moaned through the shattered bones of the Obsidian Pass, threading through the ruins like a ghost too stubborn to leave. Stones still bore the dark scars of ancient magic—scorch marks and half-melted glyphs etched into the cliffside like a warning. As twilight settled, the sky deepened into bruised shades of violet and ash, and the earth felt like it was holding its breath.

Elira stood at the cliff's edge, silent, watching the dying light. Strands of hair whipped across her face, the wind tugging at her cloak until it fluttered like torn wings behind her. But she didn't move. Her gaze stayed fixed on the jagged horizon ahead—on the path no one wanted to walk but she could no longer avoid. The truth she carried now didn't allow her to turn back.

Behind her, the group had gathered without a word. Kael stood off to the side, arms crossed, jaw set, eyes sharp. Always watching. Always measuring. Maerin gripped her staff like it was the only thing holding her up, eyes flicking toward the clouds as if searching them for answers. Thorn was crouched over a battered old map, his fingers smudged with charcoal as he traced lines they hadn't yet walked. Even Captain Halric—usually full of bark and swagger—stood still, hands clenched at his sides, as though the weight of the ruins had pressed his voice down to a whisper.

They were fewer now.

The ambush at Whispering Vale had stripped them of more than just numbers. It had burned away the illusions too—about who Elira was, about the old stories they'd clung to. Now there were no secrets left between them. Only the truth, raw and unrelenting.

"Something's watching," Maerin said softly, her voice barely more than breath. Her fingers whitened around her staff as her eyes began to glow faintly with Sight. "It's not a beast. Not a man either. It's... older."

Elira didn't blink. "Let it watch."

Kael moved closer, not quite at her side, but near enough that she felt the shift in the air.

"You're not afraid anymore," he said, watching her.

"I don't have the luxury," she answered, her voice calm but tired.

Far below them, between the claws of mountain ridges, lay the overgrown bones of an ancient stronghold—the Temple of Thalvaren. Once a sanctuary of knowledge. Now just another forgotten ruin choking on vines and mist. It wasn't part of their plan. But it was part of fate's. The Ravenkeeper had pointed them toward it in one of his maddening riddles, and the torn piece of the Bloodbound Scroll confirmed it. Whatever came next—truth, power, answers—it was waiting down there.

Or waiting for her.

Thorn looked up from the map. "How do we know this place isn't a trap? Temples like this... they weren't made to welcome the Blood-Bound."

Elira turned to him, meeting his gaze head-on. "It doesn't need to welcome me. It just needs to open."

Kael studied her for a moment, like he was seeing her all over again—the steel in her words, the grief quietly folded into her shoulders. Then he nodded once.

"Then we go in at dawn."

The gates were taller than any of them expected—black stone arching like talons toward the sky, carved with twisting runes so ancient that even Maerin couldn't read them. Vines clung to the walls like veins, and as Elira stepped close, the plants twitched—like they felt her.

She reached out. The moment her fingertips grazed the cold metal, a pulse ran through the archway.

The runes lit up. One after another. Faint at first, then glowing with eerie intensity until the whole structure pulsed like a heartbeat made of light.

Then a voice came—not from within the temple, but from the very stone.

"Blood-Bound… Broken-Chosen… You return with fire and fate on your heels."

Every weapon shifted. Every breath caught.

Even Kael's fingers hovered near his blade.

But Elira didn't move. "I came for what was stolen."

The doors didn't creak or blast open with magic.

They obeyed.

Inside was a world untouched by time. The air clung to their skin—humid, thick, scented with something bitter and burnt, like old herbs charred in a forgotten ritual. The walls didn't echo footsteps. They murmured. Soft voices in dead tongues scraped along the stone like wind through teeth.

Statues lined the halls—figures in robes and armor, not gods but warriors. Histories. Heroes. Elira paused more than once, struck by the odd familiarity in their carved faces. She couldn't name them, but something deep in her bones recognized them.

Maerin conjured a mage-light. Thorn whispered a quiet prayer under his breath. The deeper they walked, the colder it became. Breath turned to mist. Ice clung to the edges of their cloaks. But none of them turned back.

Then came the sanctum.

Not a room—an amphitheater of black stone, as if the mountain had been scooped out and polished into a mirror for shadows. At its center was a pool. But it wasn't filled with water. Nor blood.

It shimmered with memory.

Liquid silver danced across the surface—flashes of images, faces, battlefields, long-dead cities. The weight of a thousand lives pressed down from the ceiling, though nothing hung there.

Hovering above the pool, bound by glowing blue fire, was a figure wreathed in feathers and cloaked in night.

A woman.

No—not just a woman.

A Raven Queen.

"She's... alive," Halric whispered, unable to look away.

"She's bound," Kael said, his voice grim.

She lifted her head slowly. A mask of bone and beak hid her face, but her eyes burned through the sockets like twin storms. Her voice hit like wind and steel crashing together.

"One of my blood awakens the path. The others would do well to kneel."

Everyone stilled.

Elira stepped forward.

Her voice did not shake. "I kneel to no one."

For a breathless moment, everything held.

Then the temple walls shuddered like something ancient had finally woken.

And the Raven Queen smiled.

"Then you are ready."