Chapter 3 THE QUEEN’S MEMORY
The rain came before dawn, silver and cold, washing the ash from the ruins.
Eris hadn’t slept. She sat by the cracked altar, staring at her hands as faint embers flickered beneath her skin. Kael was nearby, sharpening his blade with quiet precision each drag of steel a reminder of the chaos that bound them.
The mark on her wrist pulsed softly, in time with her heartbeat. It had burned all night. Not with pain, but with awareness.
She could still hear that voice the one that called itself Queen.
Kael looked up. “You’re shaking.”
“Just cold,” she lied.
He didn’t press. He’d stopped asking after the third lie.
When the light crept over the treeline, it came with a strange shimmer, bending the air. The rain stilled midfall. The forest held its breath.
Then the world shifted.
The ground beneath Eris’s feet vanished, replaced by fire and glass. She gasped, clutching her chest, but the ruins were gone. In their place stood a palace made of flame. The air hummed with power that tasted like sunlight and sorrow.
Her reflection rippled in the molten floor her, but not. Golden eyes instead of brown. Hair like smoke, skin patterned with ember veins.
A woman stood across the hall, watching her.
Tall. Regal. Dressed in a gown of living fire.
The Ember Queen.
Eris’s throat closed. “You’re real.”
The Queen tilted her head, voice echoing in a dozen tones. “And you are the hollow my blood filled.”
“I don’t understand”
“You will.” The Queen’s eyes flared brighter. “The fire chooses those who remember. But you, child, have forgotten.”
Eris staggered back. The heat pressed against her lungs. The palace trembled like it remembered dying. “What do you want from me?”
The Queen’s expression softened, but it carried the weight of centuries. “To warn you. The bond you forged is not chance it is consequence. When your kind extinguished my flame, I scattered my heart into two halves. You and the cursed prince now bear its remains.”
Eris’s pulse thundered. “Kael?”
“The one who led the slaughter. The fire bound him to balance you. If one dies, the other burns.”
“No.” Her voice cracked. “No, I won’t”
“You cannot sever what you are.” The Queen’s gaze shifted, sorrow shadowing her light. “But you can choose how it ends. The Council seeks my heart to reignite their own dominion. If they find you before you awaken, the world burns anew without mercy, without choice.”
The flames around them dimmed, replaced by shadows of cities crumbling, skies bleeding gold.
“Wake,” the Queen whispered. “And remember who you were.”
Eris jerked upright, gasping. The rain had returned. Kael was beside her, hand on her shoulder, eyes sharp with concern.
“Eris!”
She blinked, breath ragged. The mark on her wrist blazed like molten gold. Kael’s glowed in answer.
“What did you see?” he asked.
“Her.” She swallowed hard. “The Ember Queen. She said we share her heart. You and I.”
Kael froze. “That’s impossible.”
“She said if one of us dies”
“The other burns.” His voice finished hers, hollow.
For a moment, silence fell between them, broken only by the hiss of rain on stone.
Eris rose, her body trembling. “You knew something like this.”
“I suspected a link.” His tone was low. “I didn’t know it was this.”
She turned to him, anger and fear twisting through her veins. “You led the army that killed my people. And now you’re telling me my life depends on you?”
“I didn’t ask for it either.” His eyes flared with restrained fury. “You think I want to be tethered to the woman who just tried to put a knife through my throat?”
“Then maybe next time, I won’t miss.”
The air between them crackled. For a second, she thought the bond might ignite, consuming them both.
Then Kael looked away, voice rough. “We should move. If the Queen reached you, the Council might’ve felt it too.”
“Felt it?”
“She’s ancient magic. Her awakening will ripple through every seer in Aedryn. We’ll have hours at best before they find us.”
Eris hesitated. The logical part of her wanted to run to flee the ruins, the prince, the curse. But something inside her, deep and burning, whispered otherwise.
Remember who you were.
The Queen’s words echoed through her bones like prophecy.
“Where would we go?” she asked quietly.
Kael glanced toward the forest’s edge, where the first sunlight touched the mist. “There’s someone in the desert of Vyreth who might know how to break bonds like this. A Seer named Lira.”
“Another Council dog?”
“No. She betrayed them long before I did.”
Eris studied him. There was truth in his tone pain, too. She hated that she recognized it.
“Fine,” she said. “But if this Seer betrays us”
“I’ll let you kill her first.”
Despite herself, a small, humorless smile tugged at her lips. “Generous.”
They gathered what little they had a blade, a cloak, a dying lantern. Before leaving, Eris turned once more toward the altar. Beneath the cracked stone, faint lines of gold still pulsed like veins beneath skin.
“What if she’s not dead?” Eris murmured.
Kael paused beside her. “The Queen?”
“She said wake. What if she’s trying to rise again?”
“Then gods help us all,” he said quietly, “because she’s waking in you.”
Her pulse stuttered. For a moment, she thought she saw movement behind the altar a shimmer, a shape like fire taking breath.
When she blinked, it was gone.
They stepped into the forest as the storm broke apart. Smoke from the burning city curled in the distance. Somewhere in that chaos, the Council would already be stirring, searching for the bond-bearers.
Eris pulled her hood up, fire still whispering beneath her skin. She didn’t know where the path led only that each step made her feel less like herself, and more like something ancient was watching through her eyes.
As they disappeared into the mist, the ruins behind them pulsed once, faintly and a woman’s voice drifted through the air, softer than rain, older than gods.
Two halves burn brighter than one.
