INT. CAINAN AND LYNZELLE'S ROOM – NIGHT
The door creaked open with a soft sigh of wood, and Lynzelle stepped inside.
The room was dim—only the faint gold of a low-hanging forge lamp flickered across the stone walls, giving everything a molten hue. It wasn't large or elegant, but the place was theirs. Two crossed blades hung over the headboard like a mock coat of arms. A chain coiled neatly around the nearest bedpost. There were boots discarded at the foot of the bed, two plates on the desk—one half-eaten, the other untouched—and the scent of metal and burnt paper hung faintly in the air.
Cainan lay on the bed, half-covered in a blanket, boots still on. His face was tilted slightly to the side, eyes closed but furrowed. A leather-bound journal rested on his chest, cracked open with fresh ink bleeding into the page—he must've passed out mid-thought. The pen had fallen beside him. A half-finished sentence read:
"—and Brax said Selvaria was the one who—"
Lynzelle stood there for a long moment. Her silhouette was lit by moonlight through the narrow window behind her. One arm dangled at her side, the other sleeve still pinned and folded up where the bandages stopped. She was supposed to be sleeping in the healers' quarters. But she didn't want to. Not tonight. Not when he might be sleeping alone.
She liked hearing him snore, stupidly enough. It was kind of comforting. But he wasn't snoring now.
She stepped closer, her boots whispering across the floor. Then she saw it—folded beneath the blanket, lying like some ancient relic set on velvet, was an arm. Forged from molten stone and glowing with faint orange runes. It shimmered in the low light, warm and quiet, breathing with heat. Her heart stopped. Slowly, she pulled the blanket further down—and a note slid into view.
Lynzelle picked it up, brow raised. The parchment was still warm from his chest.
Here's an arm I forged. I went through pure hell to make it. I'll most likely be asleep when you see this, so put the shit on already and stop staring at this note.
Her breath hitched.
Then, a snort escaped her nose. A laugh caught in her throat. She clutched the note against her chest.
"…Idiot."
With careful hands, she sat down on the bed beside him, pulled up her sleeve, and unraveled the bandage from her shoulder. The empty socket throbbed dully. She picked up the arm. It was warm—almost alive. The runes across the surface pulsed faintly like a heartbeat.
Slowly… carefully… she pressed the end of the forged limb to her shoulder.
A hiss. A spark. Then pain.
Her breath caught as molten heat surged into the nerves. She grit her teeth hard, eyes squeezing shut. Her skin burned, melded, and stretched unnaturally to receive the limb as the runes carved themselves into her flesh like living scripture.
She gasped softly, her back arching.
Then… silence. It was done.
Lynzelle opened her eyes.
She lifted her new arm—and watched the fingers flex, move, respond. She could feel the air against them. She clenched her fist, tested it, then suddenly—
Shadowboxed.
A blur of quiet jabs. Pivot. Elbow swing. She twirled like a madwoman, fists swiping just short of the wall, catching herself silently and stifling a laugh.
It worked. It actually worked.
She looked down at the limb again, turning it over with a strange fondness. Her eyes glossed for a second—but she blinked it away. And then she just… sat. Breathing. Remembering.
The battle against Elsha. Her arm, gone. Cainan dragged himself to his feet with cracked ribs to call her his wife in front of Idrathar. That time at the theatre… she knew he waited for her to finish the play to talk to her.
That night on the grass, under the stars, when he just laid there with her in silence like it was the most natural thing in the world.
She looked at her arm again. Then turned to him.
Cainan was still lying on the bed, face peaceful but uneasy. She walked to his side, eyes fixed on his scarred cheek. Slowly, she reached out her new hand—hesitating once—but then brushed her fingers across his face, gently. His brow relaxed under her touch.
She leaned in.
Closer.
And kissed him.
Softly. Slowly. Her hand caressed his face while her lips pressed against his.
It lingered—her heart racing, warmth in her stomach, her breath barely contained.
Then she pulled back.
And Cainan's eyes were open.
They stared at each other—neither speaking.
Flushed.
Vulnerable.
And then Lynzelle panicked.
"G'night!" she blurted, flipping over him, nearly knocking the journal off his chest, and burrowed under the blanket. Her back to him. "Shitshitshit—go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep—"
She pinched her own pressure point near her neck. Hard. Her eyes rolled back.
Thump.
Out cold.
Cainan blinked. Then slowly sat up, eyes wide, mouth parted. He touched his lips.
"…That was my first kiss," he whispered.
He looked at the ceiling.
"…didn't think it'd be stolen by a demoness."
He laid back down.
Tried to forget.
Tried.
But her face—her eyes, the kiss, the way she ran under the blanket like a spooked cat—it kept playing in his head.
He groaned. Pinched his own pressure point.
"Go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep—"
Thump.
Silence.
…
THE DREAM SEQUENCE
The world flickered to life in stark black and white, no shades between. A manor stood like a monument lost to time—an enormous, crumbling estate with pillars that twisted into the sky like bones, and windows that blinked like eyes.
Children ran through the manor's cavernous halls, laughing. But these were not ordinary children.
They were made entirely of shadow—their skin, their hair, their eyes—every thread of their ghostly clothes stitched in black ink and void. Their laughter was soft and hollow, echoing like wind whistling through empty corridors. They chased each other through corridors that had no light source, yet were somehow visible.
Their feet patted across checkerboard marble floors, past towering portraits with eyes scratched out. They slid across velvet rugs and somersaulted beneath collapsing chandeliers. One girl gave another a piggyback ride. A boy balanced a candlestick on his head while another tugged it off in a mock tug-of-war. Joy painted the air.
Yet…
With every step forward, the world behind them withered.
The manor dissolved, its walls collapsing into black rose petals, drifting into the air, slow and silent like ash from a funeral pyre.
Where the petals fell, bodies emerged—piles of them. Dismembered, twisted, impaled in grotesque, impossible ways. Some hung from the rafters with limbs stretched into unnatural shapes. Others were halfway embedded in walls, screaming silently, motionless.
But the children didn't see it.
They kept running, giggling, chasing memories that were never theirs.
They turned a final corner and entered the main hall.
At the far end of the grand chamber stood a piano taller than any man, carved from charred bone. A colossal woman sat behind it. Fifteen feet tall, she loomed like a statue carved from mourning itself. Her dress was layers upon layers of black silk, dragging across the ground like rivers of grief. A veil covered her face, opaque and trembling, though no wind blew.
Her long fingers danced across the piano keys. The music was discordant—sharp, rising, haunting. A requiem for the forgotten.
The children gathered before her, still smiling.
Her voice echoed like thunder in a church.
"It is time."
The children nodded and scattered toward individual pianos now rising from the floor—one for each of them, shaped uniquely. Some twisted like thorns, others floated mid-air, keys made of bone and rose stems.
They began to play.
Notes echoed through the air. Oddly beautiful. Fractured melodies overlapping.
The tall woman glided between them, her veil swaying with each step. She corrected fingers gently. Nodded in approval. Tilted her head when a child struck the wrong chord.
Then—
"You're playing too fast, stupid!"
Two children began to argue. One shoved the other.
The music faltered.
The tall woman froze.
Slowly, she turned.
And then she screamed.
A sound like a howl through broken glass. The walls shook.
In an instant, her sleeves whipped out like chains.
CRACK!
Both children were slammed into the wall so hard the plaster broke.
Their bodies crumpled.
Lifeless.
The woman stared.
Realization crept in like rot.
She approached them.
Her voice broke.
"No… no, not again… not again…"
She dropped to her knees.
And the world—her world—began to die.
The other children screamed, but it was silent. Their forms dissolved, unraveling into black rose petals, their shapes falling upward like reverse snowfall.
The petals swirled around her, frenzied and furious, cutting her skin like blades. She reached into the storm, desperate.
Then—
From across the room stood a figure.
Humanoid, yes—but no human.
A naked, flame-wreathed body, glowing red and orange, rose petals blooming from his skin like bursting veins. And where his head should've been—a burning rose, its petals ablaze, flickering like wildfire.
He watched her.
Still.
And she—
Screeched.
Rising, stumbling, she reached out, mouth wide beneath the veil, her entire form beginning to shatter.
The music collapsed into chaos.
And then—
CRACK.
The dream shattered like a window slammed shut.
INT. CAINAN AND LYNZELLE'S BEDROOM – MORNING
They both jolted awake—sitting up, eyes wild, breathing ragged.
The sunlight had just begun to creep through the stone slits in the window. Dust danced lazily in the air, but their hearts beat like drums of war.
They stared at each other, sweat on their brows, chests rising and falling.
Lynzelle, eyes wide with disbelief, whispered:
"The Witch Queen…"
The silence that followed was heavy.