Eristra was a whisper once.
A myth.
A god who outlived time and fed on the magic of sovereign queens.
I bound her in a prayer circle of ash and silence and buried her name beneath obsidian mountains.
But now?
She's laughing again.
And the only one who can cage her… is me.
Not the version I became.
But the monster I once was.
Vireon knows this.
That's why he takes me to the crypt beneath the crypt to the tomb that holds my oldest self.
A spell-sarcophagus locked with ten divine tongues.
Only I can open it.
But doing so means touching a part of my soul I swore I'd never free.
"You can still walk away," Vireon says.
"Leave Eristra to devour Caelen. Let them rot together."
I look at him.
At the man who burned the moon for me.
At the enemy who became my echo.
"I don't run from what I buried," I whisper.
"I command it."
I step forward.
Speak the words.
The world shudders.
And then
She rises.
Not a corpse.
Not a ghost.
But me.
Cloaked in blue fire.
Crowned in bone and starlight.
Eyes like shattered mirrors.
Voice like thunder kissing silk.
She looks at me
And laughs.
"So the puppet finally cuts her own strings."
She walks a slow circle around me, trailing heat and hunger.
"What's the price?" I ask her.
"I want one day of control," she whispers.
"One day to wear the body you hide. No questions. No leash."
I should refuse.
But Eristra grows stronger by the hour.
And Caelen knows me too well
but not her.
The Queen of Silence was my final magic.
And now?
She will be my first weapon.
"Deal," I say.
And everything burns blue.