47 lines
No EOL
2.5 KiB
Markdown
47 lines
No EOL
2.5 KiB
Markdown
Alisha’s voice cut through the silence—not sharp, but trembling with something deeper than fear. Grief.
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“This isn’t what we came for.”
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Ryn didn’t look away from the blade, though the words struck something deep. Her hand hovered inches above the hilt. Blood still welled slowly from her palm, unbidden, like the Keep itself had called it forth.
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“We were meant to find a symbol,” Alisha said, stepping closer, boots scraping against frost-slick stone. “A sword. A sign that the old blood still had strength. That Talpis wasn’t dead.”
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Her breath hitched, and Ryn heard the strain behind her voice.
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“This isn’t that. This is something else.”
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The torches flickered again—long shadows slithering along the wall, drawn toward the blade as if it exhaled hunger.
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Alisha’s hands were open at her sides, empty. “This thing isn’t a relic of hope, Ryn. It’s a warning. Look at it—bound in chains, plunged into your ancestor’s corpse like it’s the only thing keeping her from rising again. We came looking for firelight in the dark and found a sealed pyre.”
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The runes on the blade pulsed faintly, like an echo of breath in some buried lung.
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“We should leave,” Alisha said, softer now, almost pleading. “We should seal this place behind us and find another way. You said yourself—you’re not ready to be queen. You don’t have to become _this_.”
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Ryn's voice, when it came, was distant. “She’s still here.”
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Alisha stopped.
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“What?”
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“Her spirit. The Nameless Queen. I can feel her in the metal. The voice I heard before—it’s her. Part of her. Maybe all of her.” Ryn’s eyes flicked to the corpse, still pinned to the throne. “Or maybe... she _is_ the blade.”
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Alisha stepped back.
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“This is madness.”
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But Ryn finally looked at her now—and there was no madness in her face. Only clarity. A terrible kind.
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“She wasn’t just a queen. She was power. They feared her, even after they killed her. That’s why they built this place like a tomb and a prison.”
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She turned back to the sword, the glow of the sigils catching in her irises like coals.
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“I was born into a dead kingdom. I wore a crown of ash. But this…” Her fingers tightened, just shy of the hilt. “This is not ash. This is fire that waits.”
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Alisha took a shaky breath. “And what if it burns you?”
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Ryn smiled faintly, though there was no joy in it.
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“Then I will burn brighter than any of them ever dared.”
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And she closed her hand around the hilt. |