Theme: Alliances forged in shadow, secrets spoken in code, and the cost of knowing too much
Night fell hard over the palace.
Not soft or velvet — but heavy and cold like a burial shroud. The crows came with it, silent and watching, perched in unnatural stillness on the battlements.
Vivi noticed them first from her window.
Black eyes.
Too many.
Too still.
She turned away and found a sealed envelope waiting on her table. No one had entered. No guards had seen anyone.
Only the crows.
Inside: a single phrase, written in blood-ink.
"We remember. Meet us where silence lives."
Meanwhile, in the deep tunnels beneath the castle…
The Queen walked barefoot, candle in hand. Behind her, a servant carried a box wrapped in raven feathers. Neither of them spoke.
They reached a room carved into stone — no door, no lock, just runes carved into the air itself.
Waiting for them was a figure in dark robes.
Not Viper.
Someone worse.
A high crow priest.
"The Flame stirs," he rasped. "The girl awakens. The pact must be fulfilled."
"She's not ready," the Queen said.
"Then she will burn too early."
The box was opened. Inside: a single black crown made of crow bones and shadows.
The Queen looked away.
Elsewhere, Vivi followed the note.
She slipped out in the dark, alone, cloaked, moving like a ghost through halls she once thought safe.
The silence led her to the library of forbidden books, a place sealed by bloodlines.
Only royals could enter.
Only the marked could read.
Vivi stepped inside — and the silence moved.
Crows fluttered from the ceiling, circling her once… then settling.
In the center of the room stood a girl in silver armor and ash-colored skin — not of this kingdom.
"Who are you?" Vivi asked.
"I'm a whisper given shape," the girl said. "I come from the last realm Viper destroyed."
"What do you want?"
The girl pulled back her hood. Her eyes were missing — two smooth stones glimmered in their place.
"To make a pact."
Meanwhile, deep in the woods…
Haken sat beside a fire surrounded by wolves — real and otherwise.
His brother, now silent, offered him a blade.
"This is yours now," he said. "You earned it."
It was no ordinary blade — the metal pulsed faintly, etched with runes that flickered like dying stars.
"A part of our curse," the brother said. "And the only thing that can cut it."
Haken held it, feeling its weight — not just metal.
But destiny.
Back in the palace:
The girl of stone-eyes whispered her truth.
"The crown your mother keeps… it wasn't meant for her. It was meant for the wielder of balance. Fire and shadow. Beast and beauty."
"You mean me."
"You were made. Chosen. Not born by accident."
Vivi's hands clenched.
"And the pact?"
"Simple," the girl said. "Let us help you stop Viper. Or he will make you his queen of fire and bone — whether you want it or not."