The wind over the Hollow carried whispers.
Not voices, not spells—just tremors of what was unraveling beyond the cursed borders. Vex stood barefoot in the war chamber, hands spread above a relic-strewn table, maps and scrying crystals glowing with pulsing veins of crimson. She didn't smile. She didn't gloat.
She calculated.
"Three cuts," she murmured, "not deep—but vital. Hit the Church, the coin, the Guard. You don't take a castle by storming the gates. You let the beams rot from the inside."
Rhydir lounged in the corner, arms folded, watching her with a wolf's stillness. "You sure you weren't born Velgrave?" he asked. "That kind of ruthlessness would've made my father weep."
"I make kings weep," she said simply. "It's tradition."
—
I. The Church
It began with the stained-glass eyes of Saint Ceryne glowing crimson during a dusk sermon.
At the Cathedral of Saint Ceryne—the heart of Elaria's holy order—worshipers gathered for the dusk sermon. Light filtered through the stained-glass windows, casting saints and martyrs across marble floors. Choirboys sang. Incense wafted.
And then—Saint Ceryne's eyes bled crimson.
Gasps rippled through the pews.
A child cried. A mother crossed herself.
The color spread, slow and deliberate, as if the glass bled from within. Crimson veins traced from the saint's eyes to her halo, down to the hem of her robes. The priest faltered in his sermon, stammering, trying to make sense of it. He claimed it was the sun. A trick of the light. An impurity in the glass.
Until the High Priest fell.
He clutched his head mid-prayer, dropped to his knees, and screamed.
"They murdered her!" he shrieked. "She begged them! Blood on the silk! The ring—his ring—"
Congregants bolted from their seats. Some ran. Others stood frozen, listening as he howled Valoeria's name and screamed of a blade that never left the record books.
"She was still breathing!" he sobbed. "Still warm! Still—gods forgive me—I signed it anyway!"
Then he collapsed, convulsing. Crimson welts seared across his arms. A feather-shaped burn bloomed against his collarbone before his body went still.
He wasn't dead.
Not yet.
That came later—on the second night—when the bells rang midnight, unsummoned, and the High Priest returned to the pulpit. Silent. Pale. And then—before a horrified gathering of clergy and nobles—his skin split open, ignited from the inside, and he turned to ash before he hit the marble.
The cathedral bell cracked in two with the blast.
No fire touched the tapestries.
Only him.
⸻
The following morning, it began across the realm.
Every temple, shrine, and roadside chapel woke to find artifacts left on their altars. No one saw them placed. No doors were broken. No locks undone.
But there they were:
• A feathered quill dipped in ever-warm ink.
• A blood-speckled hand mirror that whispered if looked into too long.
• A dulled gold ring inscribed with a single word: "Confess."
They shimmered faintly. Spoke in dreams. Shifted if not watched.
One priest tried to bury his relic beneath holy ground. That night, his chapel's stone floor split wide open and every prayer book inside burned from the inside out—only the pages with her name remained, pristine and inked in red.
Another priest touched the quill and saw a vision of the old king—Vex's father—on his knees, forced to recant his heir's birthright.
The message was not subtle.
Not curses. Not random horrors. These were revelations—delivered like scripture, written in pain, fire, and memory. Not one priest died the same way. Not one relic repeated.
And every one bore the Phoenix crest by morning.
⸻
The High Synod met in secret. They issued denouncements. Called the phenomena demonic sorcery. Claimed the visions were the work of rebels, witches, and warlocks.
But their followers had already seen too much.
Parishioners began to ask: If she was guilty, why do the relics show us kings and dukes with blood on their hands? Why do they burn with truth? Why does no spell dispel them?
Faith began to unravel.
What once stood as the divine arm of the crown now fractured into whispers, tremors, and private confessions.
A wandering monk slit his palms in public and declared, "She is fire and fury, and we lied to her."
A cathedral choir refused to sing the royal anthem, replacing it with a hymn composed entirely of Vex's full name. The conductor was imprisoned.
Three days later, the cell was found scorched from the inside. He had burned, but not screamed.
His last word carved into the wall: "Remember."
⸻
And what did Vex do?
Nothing. She never once addressed the Church directly.
She let the illusion speak louder than any sermon.
And as the flames of faith flickered low, the people didn't pray to the gods anymore.
They feared her.
And worse?
They believed her.
———————————
II. The Treasury
Gold was sacred in Elaria—more trusted than crowns, more enduring than scripture, more binding than blood.
So naturally, Vex struck it next.
Not with fire.
With precision.
It began along the western trade roads, where merchant caravans disappeared without a trace. No blood. No bodies. No signs of struggle. Just empty wagons rolling back into town, reins dragging the ground, coin chests cracked open like broken eggshells.
And the coins?
Still there. Still heavy. Still gleaming with royal stamp and promise.
At first, merchants rejoiced. The goods were gone, yes, but the gold had remained.
Then came the heat.
The first counterfeit coins were indistinguishable by eye or weight—but they were warm to the touch. Almost imperceptibly so. Like they'd been forged moments ago. As if the fire that made them still lingered.
Then, the inscriptions.
Hidden on the edge of each coin's rim—so small it could be missed unless angled into the light—lay a sentence engraved by no royal mint:
"A kingdom that buys silence cannot afford truth."
One merchant died clawing his palms after discovering it. Another tried to melt the coins, only for the liquid gold to hiss and form her family crest mid-pour—a phoenix rising from a broken crown.
⸻
The panic was not loud. It never is in economies.
It crept like a damp chill into vaults and guildhalls.
Bankers hesitated.
Guilds paused transactions.
Minor lords opened sealed coffers only to find their silver blackened with mold, their seals crumbling like brittle parchment. Some nobles received whole payments that disintegrated to ash the moment they tried to spend them.
Coin by coin, Vex corrupted the royal economy—not through brute theft, but psychological erosion.
They no longer trusted their own currency.
And she never once touched the throne's vaults.
She didn't need to.
⸻
Within a week, markets froze. Trade routes were rerouted. Negotiations stalled over payment verification alone.
In desperation, the queen regent pulled from Velgrave's gold reserves—once a stabilizing force for Elaria's entire monetary system. It was a proud symbol of their alliance with the once-powerful northern kingdom.
She summoned the ledgers, signed the orders, unlocked the treasury—
Only to find empty halls.
Rhydir Velgrave had taken every last coin the night he pledged himself to the Phoenix Queen.
The only thing left in the vault was a single copper disc, warm to the touch, bearing a mirrored inscription:
"Gold, like loyalty, can be forged."
"And I forged both."
⸻
The kingdom tried to print new currency. It failed.
Every attempt was subtly cursed. No magic could trace the spell's origin. One coin batch turned blood-red under moonlight. Another made every child who touched it speak in Vex's voice for a full day.
Beggars refused to take coin.
Thieves left chests untouched.
Wealth itself—Elaria's bedrock—had become suspect.
⸻
And Vex?
She never once raided a bank. Never once gave a public statement.
She let the value of the crown dissolve from the inside out.
She taught them that money was just faith in a different shape.
And she had shattered their faith already.