Chapter 22. The Forgotten Throne

The air was colder below the vault.
Colder than stone should be.
Colder than memory.

The kind of cold that seeped into bone and stayed there, whispering secrets it had no right to know.

The third queen walked alone.

Her steps echoed against the ancient stone, though her feet made no sound. The light from the crown fragment she wore pulsed faintly—more heartbeat than fire. It didn’t burn. It didn’t warm.
It watched.

Every etched line on the walls shimmered. The deeper she went, the more the symbols glowed—old wolf runes, long forbidden. Words never spoken in the upper world.

At last, the hall opened.

A throne waited at the heart of the mountain.

It was not carved from stone, nor grown from roots. It was forged.
From bone.
From teeth.
From promises broken and oa