Page 165 of Haunted Crowns
And in that moment, they both knew: if she did not rise, Dragov would not fall.
It would be devoured.
“When the blood remembers, the sky trembles. And the world holds its breath.”
—Seraphina
Chapter 33
The battlefield had become a wasteland. Lycans faltered, their howls rough and breaking. Dragov warriors buckled, shields slipping, blades wavering. Even the nobles, their legends, began to fear. Above, the storm howled like a vengeful god.
Eris felt it all—every broken bone, every heartbeat fading into silence. She had tried. Since the first blade was drawn, she had reached for them, trying to hold them steady. But an entire army was too many.
She clawed into the void, desperate, gripping threads of fear, rage, sorrow. She caught one, then another, and then they vanished. Again and again, she reached.
Again and again, they slipped through her, falling.
Her arms trembled. Her mind screamed beneath the weight of souls she couldn’t hold. Her knees gave out. Cold bit through her gown as wind scraped her cheeks. Her shoulders shook, breath breaking into gasps. She had failed.
No.
She had sworn to fight beside them, but she’d abandoned them.
Stephan.
Kareon.
They were down there, bleeding, fighting, dying. And she was up here, helpless. She had failed the warriors who bled for her. She had failed herself. Her nails bit deep into her palms. Her body shook not from exhaustion alone, but from the sacred grief of a sovereign tasting the edge of breaking.
And then, through the storm, she whispered a name. "Seraphina."
The wind howled. She drew a desperate breath, voice cracking against the cold. Tears slid free, vanishing into snow that could not remember sorrow.
"Help me." It wasn’t a plea, but a fracture—the last breath of a girl still asking, and the first of a queen about to remember.
Nothing answered at first. There was only the storm, only silence, and the dying remains of an army she couldn’t save.
Then the wind shrieked, twisting and circling her. Something ancient struck her spine. A presence that had waited long enough.
And in the space between thunder and stillness, she heard it. Not a whisper, but a command.
"RISE."
It was Seraphina’s will, buried in her blood, now remembering itself. The word hit like a prayer answered with fire, burning, bending. Reforging.
Her body seized, breath locking in her throat. The pain was not cruel. It was sacred. A strike meant to awaken what she had long denied.
Eris gasped.
Her hands clawed into the frozen ground. Her spine straightened, eyes snapping open. She wiped the tears away with a single, deliberate motion. This was never about pleading. It was about claiming, about becoming.
She lifted her face to the heavens, to the powers that had marked her bloodline and dared to remain silent, and she roared:
"I WAS BORN FOR THIS!" Clouds twisted in anguish. The wind shrieked through a fractured sky, lightning snarling behind the blackness.
"AND NOW," her voice cracked the heavens as her fingers clawed upward, "I CLAIM WHAT WAS ALWAYS MINE!"
Something ancient stirred within her. The power had never been lost, only waiting, coiled in the marrow of immortal blood. Dormant like ash, patient like stone, alive in every heartbeat that dared to endure. Waiting to be remembered.
