The breathing from below was wet. Labored.
Each ragged inhale echoed up the narrow stairwell, carrying with it the scent of damp stone and something older, something that smelled of opened graves and the metallic tang of blood left to dry in the sun. Seraphine's fingers tightened around Pip's blade as she pressed her back against the curved tunnel wall, her other hand gripping the queen's wrist hard enough to bruise. "Move," she hissed at Kaelan's shadowy form ahead. He didn't respond. Just stood frozen on the steps, his broad shoulders blocking what little light filtered down from the ruined throne room above. Blood still driped from his nose, splattering against the ancient stone steps with soft, rhythmic taps.Then a rasping voice, not Kaelan's, but coming from his motionless form, "It remembers you."The queen made a small, broken sound. Seraphine's pulse hammered in her throat as she peered past Kaelan's shoulder. The staircase opened into a circular chamber lined with,Bones. Not neatly stacked catacomb bones, but a chaotic jumble of skeletons fused together by some unnatural force, their limbs twisted into archways, their skulls forming a grotesque mosaic across the vaulted ceiling. At the chamber's center stood a massive obsidian slab, its surface carved with runes that pulsed a sickly green.
And kneeling before it... A figure. Its back was to them, draped in rotting burial silks that might have been white centuries ago. Long, matted hair hung in clumps over its shoulders, the color impossible to determine in the eerie green light. Its hands, too large, too many joints, were pressed palm-down against the stone floor, blackened nails digging grooves into the rock.The breathing came from it.Kaelan took an unsteady step forward. The figure's head tilted, but didn't turn. "Little thorn prince," it sighed, the words slithering through the chamber like serpents. You were supposed to be my vessel. The queen jerked in Seraphine's grip. "No," she whispered. "No, no, he was never" The figure's hand twitched. The queen's mouth snapped shut with an audible click of teeth. Seraphine's skin prickled. She knew that voice. Knew it from half-remembered nightmares and the secret, shameful fears she'd never voiced aloud. The figure began to turn. Slowly. So slowly. First the slope of a shoulder, the jut of a collarbone sharp enough to tear through decaying fabric. Then the curve of a neck too long by half, the skin stretched taut over vertebrae that protruded like knuckles on a clenched fist. Kaelan made a sound low in his throat,not fear, but recognition. The queen was trembling violently now, her breath coming in short, panicked bursts. Seraphine risked a glance at her face and saw tears cutting clean tracks through the dust and blood. Then The figure completed its turn. And Seraphine stared into her own face. Older. Ravaged by time and something worse. But undeniably hers,the same arch of brows, the same stubborn set to the jaw, even the faint scar above the lip from when she'd fallen learning to duel at seven years old. The thing wearing her face smiled, revealing teeth filed to points. "Hello, daughter."The queen finally found her voice. "You weren't supposed to wake," she sobbed. "The pact" The Seraphine-thing's hand twitched again. The queen's words cut off with a wet gurgle as her own shadow twisted, wrapping around her throat like a noose.
Kaelan took another step forward, his movements jerky, as if fighting invisible strings. "What..." He swallowed hard, blood dripping from his lips. "What pact?"The thing that looked like Seraphine laughed, the sound like dry bones rattling in a hollow gourd. It raised one skeletal hand and pointed to the obsidian slab. The runes pulsed brighter, illuminating carvings that hadn't been visible before, a detailed mural showing a queen kneeling before a throne of thorns, offering up a squalling infant wrapped in vines. Seraphine's breath caught. The infant's face had been carved with meticulous care. Hers. The Seraphine-thing's grin widened. "Every kingdom needs an heir."Kaelan turned just enough to meet Seraphine's eyes. His were clear now, the blackness receded, filled with something worse, pity. The queen made a desperate noise around her shadow noose. Then the Seraphine-thing's head snapped toward the crumbling staircase behind them. Ah,"it sighed. My other daughter arrives."
A sound from above,claws on stone. The wet, labored breathing of something newly born into a world it didn't yet understand. The thing that had been pulling itself from the throne room pit. Comingbfor them