58 lines
No EOL
2.7 KiB
Markdown
58 lines
No EOL
2.7 KiB
Markdown
Ryn stepped forward.
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She couldn’t have said why. The air pulled at her lungs, each breath like inhaling smoke—but she moved as if tethered to a thread that ran straight from her ribs to the thing before her. Alisha called her name—soft, almost breaking—but it came from very far away.
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The chamber bent as she walked, distances distorting. The walls shuddered subtly, not with movement, but with anticipation.
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Then she stood before the throne.
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The corpse on it wore a crown of broken antlers. Not forged, but grown—perhaps once a wreath of some living thing, petrified now into jagged splinters. Her arms lay slack across stone, fingers outstretched in final protest.
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And Ashmire pierced her clean through.
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It was longer than any sword Ryn had ever seen—nearly her height. The hilt was wrapped in something dark and frayed, almost like old silk, but damp to the touch. The guard was minimal, sharp and curved down like a claw. And the blade—gods, the blade—it curved subtly along its length, wider than a knight’s broadsword but forged for nothing but _cutting_.
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It was not a weapon to parry with.
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It was not a weapon to carry in defense.
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This was a blade meant to end things.
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She could see now how it had been driven into the Queen’s chest—not stabbed in a moment of battle, but _placed_ there, slowly, ritually, until her spirit could not leave. The chains coiled around the metal like vines dried in agony—iron links etched with warding runes, strips of bone sewn with thread, silver bands scorched black at their edges.
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The metal of the blade shimmered faintly in the dark. Not polished, but still catching what little light remained—like something forged beneath stars no longer in the sky.
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Ryn’s hand reached out.
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Not touching.
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Not yet.
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Just close.
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A breath.
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The whisper returned—no longer behind her teeth, but between her eyes, layered in voices.
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_You bleed and are not broken._
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_You fear and still come closer._
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_You fall, and rise again. Every time you do, you become more like me._
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Her knees buckled. The voices crowded in. Not just words now—_images_. Swords rising through ash, bodies collapsing in black snow, a throne built of the slain. Her own hands, red to the wrist.
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Alisha’s voice broke through, distant, pleading.
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“Don’t.”
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Ryn didn’t turn. Couldn’t.
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“Please. You don’t have to.”
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There was pain in her voice. And something else—_love_, raw and shaking.
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“I saw what it does,” Alisha said, stepping closer. “That thing... it _wants_ you. Whatever it is, it’s still feeding on her. And if you take it—”
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Her fingers hovered just above the hilt. The metal _hummed_—not aloud, but inside her bones.
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_You are already broken,_ the voice said again, not cruel, not warm. Just _true_.
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_I offer you shape._ |