Morning comes gray and cold. The fire has fallen to ember and ash, its smoke curling low and unwilling to leave. I stay still for a moment, counting the heartbeats until my body remembers how to move. The mist hasn't lifted; it clings to the edges of the clearing like breath on glass.
The Queen is already dressed, her cloak fastened high at her throat, the boy pressed close to her side. In this light she looks less like the woman from last night's fire and more like the figure from her own legend – exact, waiting, inevitable. She inclines her head towards the thinning tree "We go."
We move without speaking. My fingers ache while I work the stiff laces of my boots, The boy blinks at the cold and grips her hang with both of his, as if warmth itself might run away. I fall in behind them. Our breath drifts ahead of us in pale ribbons, marking the way.
The forest hardens as we climb. Mud becomes dark soil, soil becomes stone veined with mica. The air tastes of iron. The quiet feels bruised, as though the world still braces for a pain that has already passed. I keep a hand on the sword's hilt, not out of fear but to prove the leather and steel are still real.
Between a leaning stand of pines and a ledge of rock, my mind returns to the stag – the heat of its breath, the way panic made every sound too loud, the silence that followed when it fell. I don't want to be brave; I just don't want to run anymore. The Queen said stand. The stag and the serpent taught me what that truly means when even the ground wants you gone.
The first ridge of the mountain rises through the fog, then another, until the face itself looms above us, vast and waiting. The Queen keeps her pace slow enough for the boy to follow. He watches her footsteps as though they were verses of a song he must learn by heart.
The climb shortens everything: breath, sight, thought. Stone eats distance, wind scours sound down to the essentials – boot, breath, heartbeat.
When we break from the tree, the world opens wide. Wind tears the mist into pale banners that twist and fold. The mountain stares back like a listener who already knows the confession. Veins of light run through the rock, faint and steady as a pulse. At its base waits a cave, its mouth dark and rimmed with wet moss.
The Queen stops, and the boy stops with her. "Here," she says, voice quiet but absolute. "Here, where love was bound to silence and silence learned to keep the world alive."
She turns toward the cave, her tone deepening into something older than speech. "Here is where the seal was made – and where it must be mended again."
The air grows heavy around her words. The note in the ledger stirs at the edge of memory – Not yours. Not mine. Another way. I keep it behind my teeth.
The boy presses closer. "It's loud in there," he whispers.
"The mountain remembers the vow we made inside it," she replies. "Stone never forgets a promise written in blood."
Above us, the mist thickens until the light itself seems to hold its breath. The first pulse comes as pressure – one vast heartbeat rolling through the air. The second flattens the wind; branches bow; moss ripples underfoot. The third tears the silence apart: wings, enormous and deliberate, striking the sky into shape.
The Queen tilts her head toward the sound. She does not reach for her blade. Her stillness is worse than fear. The boy clings to her side, eyes wide, mouth open but soundless.
Then the fog splits.
At first there is only movement – folding, unfolding, black upon black – until light glances off ribs like iron and feathers like burnt glass. When it screams, the air itself cracks open.
The wind slams into me, fierce and sudden, driving me to my knees before I even realize I've fallen. Grit scrapes my face, the taste of stone sharp on my tongue. Ahead of me, the Queen turns in a single motion, her cloak whipping as she pulls the boy behind her.
"Stay close," she says – not loud, not hurried, only certain. Then, to me. "Face it. The seal will not open for the unproven."
Her voice falls into the stone like a command the earth already knows. I draw steel.
The sword leaves the sheath with a bright, thin cry. The hum of it climbs my arm and steadies my heart. The creature circles once above us, blocking half the light, then folds its wings and falls.
The first blow comes like a storm breaking over me. The force shoves me backward even as I swing. Pain burst through my shoulder; the taste of metal floods my mouth. The second dive comes before I've found my footing. I meet it mid-air, the blade cutting along the wing's underside. It grinds through something like a mix between bone and tar. No blood spills – only smoke that curls back on itself and reforms.
The Queen remains still, a fixed point while the world convulses around her.
The bird shrieks, the sound rattling through my ribs. Tar sprays, hissing where it lands. I keep to its rhythm, breath matching wingbeat. The creature settles onto the slope with a sound like collapsing timber, its wings dragging furrows through the stone. Its ribs flare open and close like a broken bellows, the glow inside the color of sickened marrow.
I circle wide, keeping the Queen and the boy behind me. It follows my movement, slow at first, head tilting, wings shifting to match my step. Then it strikes, but at the place I stood a heartbeat before.The blow shatters rock, dust bursting upward in a rush that smells of heat and iron. The sound rolls through the valley like thunder breaking loose.
Shards of stone rain down around me. I raise an arm to shield my face and shift sideways through the failing grit, trying to close the distance before it can strike again. The creature hauls its wings in tight, dragging itself forward on hooked limbs. It moves with a weight that shakes the ground, faster than something that size should move.
Dragging one wing through the dust, the creature moves before I can react. A talon lashes out and catches my shoulder, the force spinning me backwards and slamming me into the ground. I hit the ground hard, the sword nearly torn from my grip. Pain burst through my ribs like fire through dry reeds; the air leaves me in a second.
The beast surges upward, wings beating the air into thunder. I roll onto my side, trying to push myself upright, just as it dives again, the rush of its passage splitting the air. The edge of its beak grazes my back, shallow but searing, and the shock knocks the sword clean from my hand. It clatters away across the broken stone. The sound disappears under the crash of its landing.
Stone jumps under me. Dust fills my mouth. Before I can crawl, a talon slams down across my ribs, pinning me flat. The creature's silhouette swallows the sky above me; the light inside its ribs pulses like a dying star.
My fingers claw at the dirt, useless. I try to twist, to pull free, but there's nowhere to go. The bird shifts its weight, feathers trembling, and the pressure climbs until I can feel the bones in my chest creak. Its head lifts slowly, beak opening wide enough to eclipse the light.
Fear swallows me whole. I feel the earth beneath my back, cold and solid. A part of me desperately wants to sink into it, to let the stone close over me and end the waiting. My body trembles.
Then the Queen's voice cuts through the chaos: "Get up. The ground will not save you."
I drag myself sideways, reaching blindly through the grit until my fingers find cold metal. The hilt. I yank the sword toward me just as the beak plunges down.
Steel meets done in a burst of sound. Sparks leap across my vision. The weight drives me into the ground, the shock screaming through my arms, but the blade holds. The blow glances off the hinge of the beak and the creature jerks backward with a harsh, shrieking cry. A line of tar-black blood splatters the stones.
The pressure lifts. The bird withdraws a single step, its talon tearing free of my ribs. I roll onto my side, sucking in a ragged breath, shaking too hard to rise. My heart pounds so fast it feels like it's trying to claw its way out of me. I can taste dust, iron and fear.
It stands over me, massive and unsteady, wings half-furled, ribs heaving with each rasping breath, The light inside it flickers and fades, returning to uneven flashes that make its body look hollow from within. Every moment sounds wrong – too heavy, too old, too full of hate.
I know I should run, but my body won't listen. All I can think of is how easily it could break me open and scatter what's left. The thought lodges like a stone in my throat.
The creature gathers itself again, muscles coiling beneath its ruined wings. The ground trembles as it leaps, climbing into the sky with a sound like tearing cloth. For an instant, the air is empty but for the beating of its wing. Then it folds and dives.
I lift the sword and brace for the hit, but there's no time to move. The air implodes around us. The impact drives me backward into the fractured stone. Pain radiates through my shoulders and down my spine. My boots carve trenches in the dirt as I struggle to hold the blade. My arms shake. The weight bears down until I drop to one knee.
Fear floods every thought. My mind races with the useless things – faces, names, flashes of warmth that mean nothing here. I don't want to die. Not here. Not like this.
The Queen's voice threads through the wind, calm and terrible: "Stop surviving. Fight because you are alive, not because you're afraid to die."
Something breaks open inside me – not courage, not rage, but something smaller. A thread of heat running through the fear. Her words cut cleanly through the panic, and for the first time, the sound of my heart feels like its own answer.
I draw in a single, burning breath and push. The sword hums with the motion, its rhythm falling into step with mine. The blade rises an inch, then two, until the light from the creature's ribs spills across it like fire.
The creature bellows, claws gouging the stone beside me.I twist with the motion and drive upward, the steel cutting through the hinge of its jaw. Tar explodes across my chest, hot enough to burn through armor and reeking of rot. I scream but keep pushing.
The pressure breaks. The weight above me lifts as the creature lurches back, dragging air and ash with it. I fall forward onto my hands, coughing hard enough to taste blood. The ground quakes beneath its retreating wings.
When I look up, the sky is full of motion. The creature beats at the air, trying to stay in one piece, feathers scattering like burnt paper. Light pulses behind its ribs – too fast, too uneven, desperate. It climbs higher, until it looks more shadow than solid.
I force myself to my feet. My body is shaking, but the tremor feels distant, as though the world is trembling for me. The sword's hum steadies, a sound between a breath and a pulse.
The creature wheels once, twice, it form unraveling against the pale mist. Then it dives.
I don't run. The world seems to slow, not in calm but that terrible stillness before the end. Its wings fold, drawing the light down with them. My breath catches. Every nerve in my body is already burning.
I lift the blade.
The impact lands like a door slamming. The ground splits beneath me. The sound swallows everything and the shock drives through me, into me. Its force pushes me down to my knees, it drives through my arms, into my chest, stealing the air from my lungs. Light bursts between us, blinding, searing, and I can feel the creature breaking around the edge of it.
For one long heartbeat, everything inside me feels weightless – pain, fear, even thought. Then the light swallows the sky.