Page 120 of Haunted Crowns
The monoliths flared, not with power, but in protest. The ground exhaled, long and low, as something ancient shifted in the dark below.
Kaelioth spoke at last, his voice final. "Walk carefully. And do not look back."
The fall was not a descent. It was surrender. The world did not shatter. It simply let go.
Light vanished first, drawn back like breath. Weightlessness followed, then the scent of myrrh, earth, and ash. It clung to him like memory. Stephan did not know where his body ended, but he knew his hand still held hers.
Eris.
Her fingers were still, but they were real. If this was the last time he closed his eyes, he wanted her hand in his.
The ground welcomed them, as if it remembered. He drew her fingers to his chest and held them over the beat still struggling beneath his ribs.
The world twisted, reshaping into something beyond time. He pressed his forehead to hers, their breath mingling.
“I will find you,” he whispered. “Even if the gods forget your name—I will not.”
A few steps away, Kareon felt the shift. The veil tugged at him, strange and vast, but he did not let go.
His fingers stayed laced with Eris’s. One arm curled around her as his forehead pressed to hers, letting silence carry what words never could. If she vanished, he would follow, because without her, the war meant nothing. Without her, he was only fury with no shape. She had always been the only thing that made him more than what they had made him.
He could not lose her again.
Then the darkness cracked, and the world between worlds opened.
The void rippled. It stretched, then split. Silence tore open like worn cloth, and through the cracks, light poured in.
Stephan stumbled forward. The weightless dark vanished beneath his feet, and the jolt hit like waking from a drowning dream.
Then came a scent. Oak leaves. Damp earth. The breath of something long buried.
He froze. He knew this place.
The Dragov estate shimmered in soft gold, but something was wrong. The warmth was unnatural. The estate stood too intact, untouched by time or consequence. The past should not feel so real. It should not hurt like this.
He stepped forward, even as his soul resisted. He told himself it was only the Hollow. Only an illusion.
Then he saw her.
She sat small and curled into herself, humming. Not the woman he knew. The child. Eris. Auburn curls spilled down her back. Her dress was regal, streaked with mud. She held a wooden doll, one arm missing.
His breath caught, sharp in his chest. His hands clenched against the ache blooming beneath his ribs. “May I sit with you?”
She gave a small nod, and he eased down beside her. She did not look up. She only adjusted the doll, smoothing its worn dress. She looked so young, so familiar. So painfully real.
Memories rose without mercy. The girl who’d chased him through castle halls. Who’d laughed like no one watched. Who’d returned his stolen books with wildflowers pressed between the pages. The girl who had never been allowed to truly be one.
“What are you doing?” he asked, quietly.
She answered without looking. “I’m waiting for someone.”
“Who?”
Her fingers paused. She blinked, her brow furrowing with confusion. “I don’t know.”
He went still. This was it. A fracture. A piece of her soul adrift and searching. “Why are you here alone?”
“They do not let me play with the other children.” She said it simply, like something long accepted. “Mother says I am embarrassing.” There was a pause. Then she spoke again, softer. “I do not act like a proper princess.”
