The ceiling had been replaced with a dome of polished bone, and the floor was polished obsidian that reflected the three of them back as distorted, screaming versions of themselves. At the far end of the room, on a throne made of fused armor from a hundred defeated knights, sat the demon queen.
“Here,” the hooded figure whispered, pressing something into Kaelen’s hand. A small vial of liquid that glowed faintly blue. “For the pain. It will last long enough.”
The throne room doors loomed ahead—twenty feet of black iron, etched with scenes of submission and sacrifice. No guards stood before them. The queen’s arrogance was complete.
The hooded figure hesitated, the God-Killer trembling in their grip. Overthrow- The Demon Queen 1
But the Heartstone was not.
The sky over Valdris had been red for forty-seven days.
Her name was Malachar, and she had conquered the five kingdoms not with armies, but with silence. One by one, the kings had knelt. One by one, the temples had been sealed. And one by one, the people had learned that hope was just another word for disobedience. The ceiling had been replaced with a dome
They reached the pedestal as the first of the throne room’s guardians materialized—shapes of shadow and jagged metal, coalescing from the corners of the room. Sera spun and engaged them, her twin daggers flashing, buying seconds. Kaelen stood at her back, cutting down any that slipped past.
The Heartstone shattered.
The throne room was a cathedral of despair. A small vial of liquid that glowed faintly blue
Kaelen held the figure’s gaze for a long moment, then nodded. “Good. Because the moment that stone breaks, the queen will know. And she will come for us. We will have perhaps thirty seconds to flee before her attention turns fully to our location. We split up at the second courtyard—Sera takes the east gate, I take the west, and you…” He hesitated. “You vanish. You have your own way out.”
She was not there.
The three infiltrators moved through the cisterns like ghosts, knee-deep in water that reeked of rot and old magic. Sera led the way, her small hands finding purchase on slime-slicked stones, her ears tuned to the distant rhythm of guards’ boots overhead. Kaelen followed, his limp more pronounced in the confined space, each step a negotiation with pain. The hooded figure brought up the rear, silent as a held breath, the God-Killer wrapped in cloth and strapped to their chest.
The queen was laughing.
