"Help me! No—please! Help!"
The scream tore through the night, ragged and blood-choked. It wasn't the kind of cry that begged for rescue. It was the kind that made the soul recoil, that made birds flee from trees and animals freeze in instinctive terror.
Mira heard it as she walked alone through the dead road between the farmlands and the forest. She froze, basket of herbs slipping from her arms, scattering lavender and wolfsbane across the frost-covered dirt.
She wasn't supposed to be out after sundown.
No one was.
Not since the disappearances started.
Not since the rumors of shadows moving without a source. Of people found with their hearts torn out and their mouths sewn shut.
But Mira's mother was sick. And the fever wasn't waiting for safety. So Mira had gathered her roots, her bark, her bitter leaves—and now the scream.
It came again.
This time—closer.
"Oh gods, please—NO!"
Her heart thundered. Every instinct screamed for her to run. But her legs didn't move.
She stood still as a statue in the silver moonlight. The wind blew, cold and bitter, and carried with it the smell of blood.
And then she saw her.
A girl—barely older than Mira herself—was stumbling out from the trees. Her dress was torn and soaked in red, her blonde hair stuck to her face. Her arms flailed as if she were drowning.
She saw Mira.
"Run!" the girl shrieked, her eyes wide with madness. "Run! It's coming! It's coming—"
Before she could finish, something snatched her from behind.
A shadow.
A shape that didn't belong in this world.
It was huge—towering—its form shifting like smoke and bone, teeth too many to count, eyes that gleamed red in the dark. A long arm, stretched with impossible reach, pulled the girl back into the woods.
She didn't scream this time.
Only a gurgle.
And then a sickening, wet sound—crack. Rip. Crunch.
Mira dropped to her knees and vomited.
The wind changed direction. The creature was near.
She ran.
Her boots slipped in the blood-slick grass. She didn't look back. She didn't dare. The only thing she could think of was her mother's voice from childhood, trembling and fierce:
"Never go near the Black Thorn Woods. Not after dark. That forest is cursed. Something ancient sleeps there."
But it was no longer sleeping.
And Mira had seen it.
That meant one thing.
It would come for her next.
The village of Theralyn was quiet when Mira burst through the gates, screaming, shaking, covered in dirt and tears.
People opened their shutters, peering out with lanterns. The night guards rushed to her, swords drawn, demanding to know what happened.
"There's something in the woods," Mira gasped. "It—it ate her! A girl—I don't know who she was. It ate her!"
The guards exchanged nervous glances.
"Who was she?"
"I don't know! She—she ran out of the forest screaming, and then it grabbed her! A monster, a demon—I don't know what it was!"
"Did you see its face?"
"No. Just its eyes. Red like blood. Like… like fire."
The captain, a grizzled man named Tarren, narrowed his eyes.
"She's not the first girl to go missing," he muttered. "But this is the first witness."
An old woman's voice cut through the murmurs. "She's marked now."
All heads turned to see Mother Eltha, the village witch.
She hobbled forward on her cane, her eyes white with age, but her voice carried authority.
"She saw it. The Beast of the Vale. The one that feeds on innocence. She's marked. It'll come again."
"Don't start with your ghost stories," one of the guards growled.
"They're not stories," Eltha hissed. "Not to those of us who remember. The Queen stirs. The seal weakens. The beast feeds because she is awakening."
Tarren raised an eyebrow. "Queen? What queen?"
"Not your kind of queen, boy. Not one of crowns and courts. The Queen of Black Magic. The one they chained in blood and fire five hundred years ago. The one they sacrificed a hundred maidens to bind beneath the forest. She sleeps beneath Black Thorn. And every girl that dies draws her closer to waking."
The villagers murmured. Some laughed nervously. Others looked genuinely afraid.
But Mira… Mira didn't laugh.
Because deep in her bones, she knew.
Eltha wasn't wrong.
Whatever that thing was in the forest—it wasn't just feeding.
It was summoning.
That night, Mira couldn't sleep. She lay in her mother's small cabin, clutching a knife beneath her pillow. Her mother slept beside her, fevered and murmuring.
Outside, the wind howled again.
But Mira heard something else.
A voice.
Soft. Seductive. Whispering her name.
"Mira…"
She sat up, clutching the blankets. Her heart pounded like thunder in her ears.
"Come to me…"
The window creaked open—though no wind blew.
Mira stood.
She didn't know why.
Her legs moved on their own.
She stepped outside, barefoot, into the cold.
The village was silent. All windows shut. All lights extinguished.
Except one.
The chapel at the edge of the village burned with candlelight.
Drawn like a moth to flame, Mira walked toward it.
When she opened the door, she saw her.
Not the beast.
Her.
A woman, tall and terrifying, draped in a cloak of night and shadow. Her eyes were black pools, swirling with stars and fire. Her lips curved into a smile that was both beautiful and cruel.
She stood at the altar, where the priest should have been.
"Welcome, little witness," she said. "I was wondering when you'd come."
Mira couldn't speak.
"Don't be afraid," the woman said, stepping down the steps, her bare feet not making a sound on the wooden floor. "You've already been chosen. That's why the beast didn't eat you."
Mira found her voice. "W-what are you?"
The woman's smile widened.
"I am your salvation. I am your destruction. I am the storm your ancestors tried to chain. I am the blood that calls to blood."
She reached out and touched Mira's forehead.
A searing pain shot through Mira's skull. She screamed, falling to her knees.
Visions flashed.
—Women burning at stakes.
—Men chanting in ancient tongues.
—A girl with violet eyes, screaming as chains of light tore into her flesh.
—A black throne rising from the earth.
Then darkness.
And one word.
"Seraphina."
The Queen.
The one beneath the forest.
She had risen.
Mira awoke in her bed, gasping, drenched in sweat. Her mother was gone. The room was empty.
She leapt up, calling her name.
No answer.
Outside, the villagers were screaming.
She rushed out—only to see the horror.
The chapel was gone.
Burned to ash.
And in the sky above it, etched in dark flame, floated a symbol no one dared speak aloud.
The mark of the Queen of Black Magic.