The darkness breathed.
Seraphina stood frozen at the crypt's entrance, the circlet's light flickering wildly against the creeping shadows. The seven robed figures turned as one, their hooded faces voids deeper than the absence of light. The pool of blackness at their feet pulsed, expanding with each beat like a living heart pushing blood through veins of stone.
Kaelan's blade pressed against her back—not a threat, but a warning. Don't move. His breath came harsh in her ear. "Witch-priests," he murmured, the word dripping with old hatred. "I thought them all dead."
One of the figures stepped forward, its skeletal hands emerging from billowing sleeves. Fingers like bleached twigs curled toward her. "The crown is not yours to wear, girl." Its voice was the scrape of a coffin lid sliding open. "It was never meant for mortal hands."
The circlet burned against Seraphina's brow, its golden feathers vibrating with alarm. She forced her voice steady. "You served the old crown."
Laughter slithered from beneath the hoods, a sound like rats scurrying through dry bones. "Served? No. We fed it." The lead priest's hand gestured to the broken sarcophagus. "As your mother learned too late."
A cold realization dripped down Seraphina's spine. The visions—her mother's desperate plan, the hidden hairpin, the way the king's hands had tightened around Celine's throat—they had never been about power. They had been about hunger.
The pool of darkness rippled. Something brushed against the underside—a shape too large, too wrong, pressing up from below.
Kaelan's sword flashed silver in the dim light. "What have you done?"
The priest's hood tilted. "Opened the door."
The castle shook.
Lysandra met them at the crypt entrance, her gray gown splattered with blood not her own. Her ice-blue eyes widened at the sight of the fleeing priests, their tattered robes fluttering like bat wings as they vanished into secret passages.
"The western gate has fallen," she panted, pressing a hand to her bleeding side. "Dain's men are pouring through the—" Her words died as the ground trembled beneath them.
From the depths of the crypt came a sound like stone cracking under immense pressure. Then the screaming started—not from the courtyard, but from below, as if the very earth had learned to voice its agony.
The circlet seared Seraphina's skin, flooding her mind with fractured images:
A cavern deep beneath the castle, its walls pulsing with veins of black crystal.
A throne of fused bones, occupied by a figure with too many joints in its fingers.
The red star's light pouring through fissures in the ceiling, illuminating what should never see light.
Lysandra grabbed her arm, her nails drawing blood. "We need to go. Now."
Kaelan was already moving, his sword dripping with the dark blood of the priest who'd lingered too long. "The vault," he said grimly. "It's the only place strong enough to hold—"
A section of the corridor collapsed behind them, vomiting forth a cloud of dust and something worse—something that moved in the darkness with purpose. Seraphina didn't need to see it to know. The old crown's hunger had awakened. And it remembered the taste of queens.
The darkness breathed.
Seraphina's pulse hammered in her throat as the crypt walls groaned around them. Dust rained from the ceiling, stinging her eyes as she stumbled back from the yawning blackness where the pool had been. The ground trembled beneath her boots, the vibration traveling up through her bones like the growl of some great beast stirring beneath the castle's foundations.
Kaelan grabbed her arm, hauling her backward just as another section of stonework collapsed. "Move!" His voice was raw with urgency, his grip bruising-tight.
Lysandra was already sprinting up the spiral staircase, her gray skirts hiked to her knees. The torch she carried threw wild shadows against the crumbling walls, illuminating the cracks spreading like spiderwebs through the ancient mortar.
Something scraped in the darkness below—a sound like claws on stone, too large, too wrong to belong to anything human.
The circlet burned against Seraphina's brow, its golden light flaring brighter as another vision tore through her:
The cavern beneath the castle, vast as a cathedral, its walls glistening with black veins of crystal that pulsed in time with the red star's glow. The bone-throne stood empty now, its surface streaked with fresh blood that dripped onto the stone floor in perfect, crimson droplets. And from the shadows between the pillars, something stirred—something that had been waiting, sleeping, dreaming of the surface world and the warm blood that flowed there.
"Seraphina!" Kaelan's shout snapped her back to the present. He stood three steps above her, his sword dripping with the inky blood of the fallen priest. His dark eyes reflected the circlet's golden glow, the scar on his face standing out livid against his ashen skin. "We need to seal the vault!"
Another tremor shook the castle, stronger this time. Somewhere above them, glass shattered, followed by the distant screams of panicked servants.
Lysandra appeared at Kaelan's shoulder, her ice-blue eyes wide with something Seraphina had never seen there before—fear. "The western gate's fallen," she panted, pressing a hand to her bleeding side. "Dain's men are pouring through the—"
A deafening crack cut her off as another section of the corridor collapsed behind them. The explosion of dust and debris was followed by something worse—a wet, slithering sound that set Seraphina's teeth on edge.
She didn't need to see it to know. The old crown's hunger had awakened.
And it remembered the taste of queens.
Kaelan's blade flashed silver in the gloom as he positioned himself between her and the advancing darkness. "The vault," he repeated, his voice tight with barely leashed fury. "Now."
As they turned to flee upward, the circlet's light caught on something half-buried in the rubble—a fragment of parchment, its edges charred, bearing a single line of script in ink the color of old blood:
"When the star bleeds, the Sleeper wakes."
The castle shook again, and this time, the scream that rose from the depths was no trick of the stones. It was alive. It was hungry.
It was coming.