The villagers called her the Hollow Queen.
They said her breath could blacken wheat in the fields. That her shadow withered fruit on the vine. They spoke of eyes like cursed rubies and a crown forged in grief. They whispered of the screams echoing through her castle at night — and of the curse she cast upon the land, choking their rivers and starving their children.
Aelric heard it all. Over flickering inn fires, in broken barns, beneath desperate prayers. He listened, brows furrowed, heart aching. Something about her name, her existence, scraped at the back of his mind like a rusted blade. But there was no time for phantom memories. People were starving. If this queen truly held power over their suffering, then she had to be stopped.
So he went.
The castle loomed like a wound upon the earth — jagged, blackened stone rising out of twisted, dying trees. The wind howled as he crossed the drawbridge, robes whipping around him. There were no guards. No servants. Not even beasts.
Only silence.
He stepped inside. Cold. The kind that settled in bones, not air. His boots echoed on the cracked marble floors, past stained glass windows so faded they barely told their tales. Thorned vines crept up walls, pulsing faintly with something… unnatural.
He should have been afraid. But all he felt was a strange weight in his chest. A pulse that quickened the deeper he walked. A thrum beneath his ribs, whispering: Here. You’ve been here before.
Impossible.
He reached the great doors of the throne room. They creaked open under his touch, revealing a hall of ruin and grandeur. Shadows draped the room like silk. And at its heart — the throne.
She sat upon it, unmoving.
Her gown bled into the darkness, the black lace of it embroidered with scarlet threads like veins. Her crown spiraled like thorned iron. Her pale hands rested delicately on the throne’s arms. And her eyes — cold, gold-ringed, and ancient — watched him.
He stopped.
Something in him recoiled. Not in fear… in recognition.
She rose slowly. Every movement precise, as if she were sculpted from grief and moonlight.
“I expected a knight,” she said, voice calm but sharp as broken glass. “Not a wanderer with dust on his boots and pity in his eyes.”
Aelric squared his shoulders. “I didn’t come to flatter or to fight. I came to ask you to stop.”
“Stop?”
“The villagers,” he said, trying to ignore the way his pulse raced. “They starve. Their land is cursed. They believe it’s you. If it’s in your power—”
“Do you believe it’s me?”
He hesitated.
She tilted her head. “Of course you do. You came to slay the monster. That’s what they always do.”
“You could fix this,” he said. “If you choose to.”
Her expression didn’t change. “And if I told you I already made my sacrifice?”
“What sacrifice?”
But she said nothing.
Frustration rose in him, hotter than it should have. His breath hitched. “Then you truly are what they say. A tyrant. A creature born of shadow and cruelty.”
She stepped down from the dais. Her gown whispered over the floor like a sigh. “And yet, here you stand. In my hall. Beneath my crown. You do not draw your blade. Why?”
He stared at her. “Because… I…” He faltered. “Because I feel like I’ve… known this place. Known you. But I don’t—”
His hand went to his temple.
She was still now, too still.
“I feel like something was taken from me,” he said, voice low. “And I don’t know what.”
She stepped closer. “Then perhaps you shouldn’t go digging into graves you buried yourself.”
He blinked. “What?”
She turned away. The moment was slipping.
“Leave, stranger. The villagers will starve regardless. The land rots not by my hand, but by the rot their kind planted centuries ago. This place has always been dying.”
He clenched his fists. “Then why do they blame you?”
“Because I stayed.”
The words hit him like a weight.
He turned, anger bubbling. “You’re a coward, then. Hiding in stone and shadow while the world burns.”
She said nothing.
He turned to go, pulse pounding. And then, just as he reached the door—
“Aelric.”
His name. Soft. Sad. And… intimate.
He froze.