The vault door screamed as it sealed behind them.
Seraphina pressed her back against the cold iron, her breath coming in ragged gasps. The golden circlet's light flickered erratically, casting jagged shadows across the ancient runes carved into the vault walls. Kaelan stood before her, his sword raised, his scarred face slick with sweat and blood. Lysandra leaned heavily against a stone pillar, her grey gown dark with blood from the wound at her side.
The air inside the vault was thick with the scent of old magic and older stone. The walls hummed with power, the runes pulsing faintly blue in response to the circlet's glow. But beneath that—deeper, darker—Seraphina could feel it. The thing in the crypt. The Sleeper. Moving. Rising. Hungering.
Lysandra coughed, spitting blood onto the vault floor. "It won't hold forever," she rasped, nodding to the shuddering door. "That thing tore through three feet of solid stone like parchment."
Kaelan's grip on his sword tightened. "Then we make our stand here." His dark eyes met Seraphina's, and in them she saw the unspoken truth—they wouldn't survive this.
The circlet burned against her brow, its golden feathers trembling. It showed her flashes—the red star's light pouring through the castle's highest tower, the black veins in the cavern walls pulsing in time with some monstrous heartbeat, the bone-throne now occupied by a figure with too-long limbs and eyes like smouldering embers.
And then—clear as day—her mother's voice:
"The feathers are not a crown. They are a key."
Seraphina's hands flew to the circlet. As her fingers brushed the golden feathers, they came away wet with blood—her own, dripping from her brow where the metal had fused with her skin.
Outside the vault, something scraped against the iron door.
Kaelan shifted into a fighting stance. Lysandra pushed off the pillar, her face pale but determined.
And Seraphina—
Seraphina began to sing.
The song was not her own.
The words spilt from her lips in a language she'd never learned, ancient and guttural, each syllable heavy with power. The circlet blazed with golden light, the feathers detaching one by one to hover in the air before her, spinning faster and faster until they became a swirling halo of fire.
The vault door buckled inward, iron screaming as claws the length of daggers punched through the metal. A stench rolled in—rotting roses and wet earth and something older, something that smelled of deep places and forgotten graves.
Kaelan lunged, his sword flashing silver. The blade connected with something in the darkness, and the scream that followed shook dust from the ceiling.
Lysandra pressed her hands to the runes on the walls, her lips moving in silent prayer as the ancient carvings flared brighter.
The golden feathers pulsed in time with Seraphina's song, their light driving back the shadows creeping through the cracks in the door. But she could feel the strain—the circlet's power was finite, and the Sleeper's hunger was endless.
Then—
A new voice joined the song.
From the darkest corner of the vault, a figure emerged. Not a priest, not a monster, but a woman—tall and regal, her dark hair streaked with silver, her gown the color of fresh blood.
Queen Celine's ghost smiled at her daughter.
"You remember," she whispered, her voice like wind through dead leaves. "Good."
And with a sound like shattering glass, the world split.
The world tore open with a sound like a thousand mirrors shattering at once.
Seraphina's song died in her throat as the vault walls rippled, reality itself bending around Queen Celine's ghostly form. The air grew thick and heavy, pressing against Seraphina's skin like a living thing. The golden feathers hung suspended in the charged atmosphere, their light pulsing in time with the rapid hammering of her heart.
Across the vault, Kaelan staggered back from the door, his sword arm trembling. The blade—once gleaming steel—now dripped with black ichor that sizzled where it struck the stone floor. His dark eyes widened as they locked onto the spectral figure, his lips forming a single, silent word: Celine.
Lysandra gasped, her bloody fingers slipping from the runes. The blue glow flickered and died, plunging half the vault into shadow. "Mother?" The word was a child's whisper, raw with disbelief and a hope so fragile it hurt to hear.
Queen Celine's ghost did not look at them. Her silver eyes—so like Seraphina's—remained fixed on the shuddering vault door, where the Sleeper's claws still raked against the iron.
"You must finish the song," the ghost murmured, her voice layered with echoes, as though a hundred Celines spoke at once. "The key must turn before the star reaches its zenith."
Outside, the scraping stopped.
The silence was worse.
Then—
BOOM.
The iron door dented inward, the shriek of metal grinding against stone setting Seraphina's teeth on edge. Dust rained from the ceiling as another impact shook the vault.
BOOM.
A crack split the door down the middle, thin fingers of darkness oozing through the gap.
BOOM.
Kaelan moved before Seraphina could blink. He planted himself between her and the door, his sword raised, his scarred face set in grim determination. "Sing," he growled over his shoulder. "I'll hold it."
Lysandra pushed herself upright, her blood-slicked hand fumbling for the dagger at her belt. "Like hell you will." She limped to his side, her ice-blue eyes blazing with defiance. "This is our fight."
The ghost queen smiled, sad and proud. "My daughters," she whispered. Then she turned to Seraphina, her form beginning to fade. "The song, my heart. Sing, or we all perish."
Seraphina closed her eyes.
The words came unbidden, rising from some deep, forgotten place within her. The language was ancient, guttural—the tongue of the first Valemonts, of the earth itself. As she sang, the golden feathers blazed brighter, their light cutting through the creeping darkness like a knife.
The vault door exploded inward.
Kaelan and Lysandra were thrown back, crashing against the far wall as the Sleeper poured through the ruined doorway. It was not a creature, not truly—it was the absence of light, of form, of sense. It had too many limbs, too many eyes, all shifting and melting and reforming in ways that made Seraphina's stomach lurch.
The song faltered as terror clawed up her throat.
Then—
A cold hand touched her cheek.
Queen Celine's ghost stood beside her, her form flickering like candlelight in a storm. "Look at me," she commanded, her voice cutting through the nightmare before them. "Only at me."
Seraphina obeyed.
As she sang, the ghost began to change. The silver left her eyes, replaced by burning gold. Her gown darkened from blood-red to deepest black, the fabric twisting into something armoured, battle-ready. A crown of thorns materialised on her brow, dripping crimson onto her pale cheeks.
"The first queen," the ghost whispered. "The one who bound it."
The Sleeper shrieked, the sound tearing at Seraphina's mind. It recoiled from the transformed ghost, its many limbs flailing as golden light licked at its edges.
Kaelan groaned, pushing himself up from the rubble. His sword was gone, lost in the darkness, but he staggered forward anyway, placing himself between the creature and Lysandra's still form.
The ghost queen raised her hands. The golden feathers shot toward her, forming a blazing circle in the air. "Now, Seraphina," she commanded. "The last verse!"
Seraphina drew a shuddering breath.
And sang the killing word.
The explosion of light blinded her.
When her vision cleared, the vault was silent. The door lay in ruins, the air thick with dust and the acrid stench of burned magic.
Kaelan crouched over Lysandra, his hands pressing against the wound at her side. His face was ashen, his lips moving in silent prayer.
The Sleeper was gone.
So was the ghost.
Only one golden feather remained, floating gently downward to land at Seraphina's feet. As she reached for it, the metal disintegrated into dust, revealing a single word etched into the stone beneath:
Remember.
From the depths of the castle, the red star's light pulsed once, bright as a dying breath, and winked out.