Far beyond the fallen Throne of Bone—past the fire-charred fields, beyond the ash-covered rivers, beyond even the weeping skies of Emberhold—
a mountain taller than the clouds loomed over a forest of glass.
At its summit sat a black mirror.
It did not reflect the world.
It recorded it.
And within its smoky surface, a pair of golden eyes watched Kael's victory.
Unblinking.
Unamused.
The chamber was silent save for the scratching of a claw across stone. In its center stood a being wrapped in shadows too ancient for names—its shape ever-shifting, like it couldn't remember which form it once owned.
The creature's voice was velvet and venom.
"So… the boy broke the tyrant. The Heartflame has awakened."
Another figure emerged from the gloom—a robed woman with silver eyes and lips sewn shut with rune-thread.
She bowed deeply.
"The Crown stirs again," said the shadowed being. "And with it, the Cycle."
He turned from the mirror, trailing ink-smoke behind him.
"Send word to the Hollow Choir.
The Ember Heir has stepped into the light—
So now we answer with shadow."
Meanwhile, in the quiet aftermath atop the ruined mountain, Kael stood in silence.
The Heartflame had returned to slumber, buried within the blade.
His friends rested. The Ashborn who remained wandered the melted ruins, dazed and free.
Kael looked to the horizon—dark clouds forming again.
"It doesn't end here."
Ismara approached, brushing ash from her armor.
"We stopped a tyrant. That should count for something."
Kael nodded, eyes distant.
"It does. But someone watched that battle. I felt it."
Ysera's voice rose behind him, trembling slightly.
"I've read the old prophecies.
When the Phoenix burns again, the Cycle of Four awakens."
"Four?" Kael asked.
She nodded.
"The King of Chains was only the first."
Deep in the forests of Ebonshade, something ancient stirred.
A tower without doors.
A bell that never rang.
And within, a sleeping queen of glass and blood, her fingers twitching as if waking from a long dream.
Beneath the forest canopy of Ebonshade, where the trees whispered forgotten names and moonlight dared not tread, the tower rose—tall, silent, and cursed. Its stone was black crystal, pulsing faintly with red veins like a heart buried in rock.
Inside, the silence was deeper than death.
And at the top, upon a bed of thorned roots and shattered mirrors,
she slept.
The Queen.
Her skin was the pale gleam of polished glass.
Her hair, silvered shadow.
Her lips—stitched shut with golden thread, not unlike the seer who served the shadowed watcher.
Her hands rested across her chest, and in her palms she clutched a blade of ice that had never melted.
It was not snow that dusted the tower's floor.
It was memory.
In the silence, a sound stirred.
The bell.
It rang only once.
And that was enough.
The Queen's eyes opened. One red. One white.
The golden threads across her lips snapped like old strings.
She exhaled—and frost bloomed across the ceiling.
"The Phoenix has burned again," she whispered, voice echoing in a dozen timelines. "The tyrant falls. The flame wakes."
She rose without effort, as if gravity had no claim on her.
Glass cracked beneath her bare feet as she stepped toward a mirror—
but her reflection was not her own.
It showed Kael, blade in hand, walking down from the mountain ruins.
"Ashreign returns…" she said softly, a strange hunger curling her lips.
"And so must I."
Far away, Kael woke from restless sleep—his heart pounding. He didn't know why.
He only knew something cold had touched his fire.
Dawn broke across the scorched peaks of the Bone Throne, casting golden light over ash and ruin. Smoke curled lazily from shattered stones, and the mountain exhaled the last breath of a long-held curse.
Kael stood at the cliff's edge, staring toward the horizon. The blade Ashreign rested across his back, heavier somehow—not with weight, but with memory.
He had slept, but not rested. In dreams, he saw frost creeping through flame. Eyes not his own. A tower that bled silence.
And something else.
A name he couldn't remember… but felt carved into his bones.
Behind him, the others stirred.
Ismara tightened her gauntlets, nodding to herself. Serana drank from a cracked canteen, watching the road below. Veylan was already at work etching new protective runes into his armor, while Ysera sat cross-legged, meditating before an unfurled map.
Kael turned.
"We move at first light."
Ismara raised an eyebrow. "To where?"
Ysera answered for him, opening her eyes.
"Ebonshade."
Everyone fell silent.
Even the wind paused.
"That forest is cursed," Veylan said grimly. "Old magic sleeps there—deeper than even Draeven dared walk."
"And now it stirs," Kael said. "I felt it. Something woke when Draeven fell. Something… ancient. Cold."
Ysera traced a symbol on the map. A crooked spire among roots.
"The Tower of Mirrors. Said to house one of the Four—'The Queen Who Forgot Her Name.' A being of glass and frost. Her slumber is bound to the Phoenix Flame."
Serana scoffed.
"Wonderful. We light one fire, and now the dead royalty of the world start rising like it's a coronation."
Kael stepped forward, gaze steady.
"Then we'll put them back to sleep. Or burn what we must."
Below the mountain, travelers stirred. Word had spread: the King of Chains had fallen. Some were pilgrims, seeking light. Others were spies, sent by kingdoms wary of a sword too powerful to remain unchallenged.
And far behind them, in a place deeper than shadows—
the woman with silver eyes and sealed lips smiled.
She had seen the path laid bare.
One tyrant slain. Three yet to rise.
The Cycle turns.
The road to Ebonshade was paved not with stone, but with regret.
As Kael's party descended from the broken heights of the Bone Throne, the lands grew quieter, colder. The skies dimmed unnaturally even in daylight, and the wind carried the scent of damp moss and secrets better left buried.
Villages along the way stood silent. Windows shuttered. Doors sealed with ash symbols.
Not out of fear of Kael—but fear of what followed him.
By the fifth day, the forest came into view: black trees that reached like ribs into the clouds, their bark glossy and slick with dew that never dried. Mist rolled across the earth like slow breath. Even sunlight dared not pierce the canopy.
Ismara squinted into the treeline.
"Ebonshade. Looks as cheerful as the songs make it."
"The songs leave out the part where it eats sound," Serana muttered.
"And names," Ysera added quietly. "Speak too loudly in here… and the forest might keep your name."
Veylan grunted. "Then no talking. Works for me."
Kael stepped forward, his hand brushing Ashreign's hilt.
"Stay close. Keep to the trail. If the path disappears… don't move. Let me lead."
They entered without ceremony.
The forest swallowed them.
Sound fell away like a dropped stone. Their footsteps became whispers. Their breath hung in the air, visible and still. Above, the trees formed a canopy so dense it seemed forged, not grown.
Strange shapes moved between trunks—too tall, too narrow, too aware.
At one point, Serana whispered, "Did you hear that?"
No one answered.
Because no one had.
Two hours in, they reached the first marker: a ring of black stones encircling a dead tree with silver leaves. Veylan examined the stones and frowned.
"Fresh blood on these. Ritual markings."
Ysera's face paled.
"We're not the first to come seeking the Queen."
A sudden gust blew out Serana's lantern.
When she relit it, a mirror now stood beside the trail—tall, cracked, and fogged from within. Their reflections were wrong—aged, twisted, hollow-eyed.
"It's started," Ysera whispered.
Kael stared into his reflection… and saw himself burning. Not screaming, not flailing—standing still, letting the fire consume him.
He stepped past the mirror.
The others followed.
Somewhere ahead, hidden beneath layers of frost and forgotten time,
the Queen waited.
And with each step deeper into the dark,
Kael felt the weight of the Phoenix Crown press heavier on his soul.
The trail vanished without warning.
One moment, Kael and his companions followed a narrow path lined with silver-leaved thorns. The next, the forest shifted—trees bending subtly, ground softening beneath their boots, mist folding in from all sides like a curtain of breath.
"The path's gone," Veylan said, drawing his twin axes. "We're being turned around."
"No," Kael murmured. "We've been invited."
Before them, the mist parted, revealing a clearing unlike any they'd passed.
It was a perfect circle of pale grass dusted with frost. At its center stood a statue—or so it seemed at first. Ten feet tall, carved from translucent crystal, humanoid in shape but faceless. Its limbs shimmered with veins of opalescent light. In its chest, a heart of glass pulsed slowly, like a heartbeat echoing across centuries.
"That's no statue," Ysera whispered.
"It's a sentinel," Serana confirmed, already drawing steel. "Glass-born. The Queen's kind."
The creature's head turned with a sound like breaking ice.
It raised a hand, and the mist around them hardened into blades—hovering in the air like a thousand waiting spears.
Kael stepped forward.
"We seek the Queen," he said calmly. "Let us pass."
The guardian's chest glowed brighter. A voice—not spoken, but heard inside their skulls—rang like bells in a storm:
"Only those who remember what they would forget may pass."
The air grew colder.
Ysera paled. "It's a trial of memory. The kind that unearths things better buried."
Kael looked at his friends.
"Then we remember."
One by one, the guardian reached into their minds.
Serana collapsed first, eyes wide, reliving a moment in a burning temple. Screams. A brother left behind.
Ismara fell next, gritting her teeth, reliving the betrayal that made her desert the Order.
Veylan, stoic, took a knee—his memory a battlefield filled with screaming children.
Ysera wept, whispering a name no one else knew.
Then came Kael.
The guardian's hand touched his forehead.
And flame exploded behind his eyes.
He saw a throne of fire.
He saw a crown shattering.
He saw himself, younger, laughing beside a woman whose face flickered—
the Queen?
No. Someone else.
Someone… loved.
Then came betrayal. A sword. A fall into ash.
And always—always—the same voice:
"You are not who you think you are."
Kael screamed.
And then—breathed.
He stood.
The guardian bowed.
The mist-blades fell to the frost.
"You may pass."
The others rose shakily, gasping.
The guardian stepped aside, and a staircase formed of frozen roots descended into the earth.
Toward the tower's heart.
Toward the Sleeping Queen.