"My Lord King, Queen Stella has been killed, my Lord!" General Tartarus bellowed as he stormed into the King's chambers.
The words struck like a physical blow.
"How is that possible?" the King muttered, already moving, already refusing the truth. "I saw her just moments ago."
He pushed past the guards and strode into the corridor, the air thickening with every step he took. Halfway to the ancient library, pain exploded behind his eyes. He staggered, clutching at the stone wall as a familiar presence flooded his mind.
Stella.
Her voice was faint, fraying, but unmistakable.
My love… listen to me.
"No," he whispered aloud, terror creeping into his chest. "Hold on."
She is not what she pretends to be. The enchantress is evil. Everything she touches turns dark.
Images surged through him. A woman cloaked in beauty and poison. Smiling lips stained with blood magic. Shadows and darkness coiling like living things.
Then another vision, sharper, more vivid.
The man was known as Cassius Deveraux.
His eyes were hollow. His movements stiff, unnatural, as if invisible strings were wrapped around his soul.
He is her puppet, Stella's voice trembled. Bound to her will. Used to open doors, she cannot cross herself.
The King's breath hitched. "This Cassius?" Rage bled into disbelief.
You must stop her, Stella whispered, her presence already slipping. Promise me. Protect the realm. Do not trust what wears a pretty face.
Her voice softened, breaking him completely.
I am sorry, I could not come back to you.
"Stella," he pleaded. "Stay with me. I am coming."
But the connection shattered.
Magic recoiled violently through him, knocking him to one knee. The palace lights flickered, dimmed, then burned too bright. When he rose, his face was no longer merely fearful.
It was murderous.
He reached the ancient library and threw the doors open.
The scent of blood and scorched magic greeted him. Stella lay upon the floor, her silver gown soaked crimson, her crown cast aside. The glow that had once wrapped her like a second skin was gone.
The King crossed the room in silence and fell to his knees beside her.
He gathered her into his arms, pressing his forehead to hers, his hands shaking as though the world itself were breaking beneath them.
"I heard you," he whispered hoarsely. "I heard every word."
The scream that followed was not human.
Shelves rattled. Tomes crashed to the floor. Ancient wards shrieked as his grief tore through centuries of carefully bound magic.
"Seal the palace," he roared, lifting his head, eyes burning gold. "Close every gate. Lock every path between realms."
Guards fled at once to do his bidding.
The King stopped so abruptly that General Tartarus nearly collided with him.
His voice was low, controlled, and far more dangerous for it. "Where were her guards?"
The general swallowed. "Dead, my King."
Silence pressed down on the corridor.
"How many?" the King asked.
"All of them," Tartarus answered hoarsely. "Six sworn blades of the Silver Ring. Veterans. Each bound by blood-oath to Her Majesty."
The King turned slowly, his eyes brightening with an unnatural light. "Six elite fae warriors do not simply fall," he said. "Not without warning. Not without a fight."
"They fought," Tartarus said quickly. "The library wards were breached from within. The guards were found scattered across the chamber. Some burned by spellfire. Others… twisted. As if their own magic was turned against them."
The King's jaw tightened.
"No alarms were raised," Tartarus continued. "No cries reached the palace halls. Whatever entered that room silenced them before they could even call her name."
"Aveline," the King said softly, tasting the name. "Only she favors such methods."
Tartarus bowed his head. "The Queen stood alone when she fell, my King."
The King closed his eyes for a single breath.
Then he opened them, and the corridor seemed to recoil.
"She did not die unguarded," he said. "She was executed."
He turned and began walking again, each step heavy with restrained wrath. "And whoever orchestrated this knew exactly how to gut my defenses."
Behind him, General Tartarus felt it then, the first tremor of something vast and awakening, as if the realm itself had begun to draw breath in preparation for war.
General Tartarus stood frozen. "My King…"
"She named the traitor," the King said coldly. He laid Stella down with reverence and rose, his sorrow sharpening into something lethal. "Cassius Deveraux is bound to the enchantress, Aveline. She is able to cross realms through him."
Thunder cracked overhead, splitting the domed ceiling.
"This was no mere assassination," the King continued. "This was an invasion. An act of war."
He turned back to Stella, his voice lowering, raw with promise.
"I swear by the royal crown, I will hunt her across every realm. I will sever her hold. And I will make her watch as everything she has built turns to ash."
The oath embedded itself into the bones of the realm and rippled outward like a wound torn through the fabric of realms.
Deep within the Fae King's palace, ancient roots groaned beneath the stone. The sky above the spires blackened, thunder rolling without rain. Every creature bound to the realm felt it, from the smallest sprite to the oldest sentinel. A promise had been made. Blood would answer it.
Far away, between worlds, the evil enchantress smiled.
But the smile did not reach her eyes.
Aveline stood upon a threshold of broken magic, where one realm thinned into another, the air shimmering like fragments of shattered glass. The ground beneath her feet was neither earth nor stone but memory itself, fragments of places she had passed through and burned behind her. Power coiled around her ankles like mist, restless, unsettled.
The oath struck her moments later.
It slammed into her like a wave of fire.
Aveline hissed and staggered, fingers clawing at the air as the magic of the fae realm rippled outward. She felt it in her bones, in the old scars etched into her soul. The King had sworn upon the crown. Upon the realm. Upon blood.
"So," she murmured, steadying herself. "You heard her."
Queen Stella's final defiance still echoed faintly, a dying ember she had not quite extinguished. Annoying. Noble. Always noble, even at the end.
Aveline pressed a hand to her chest and closed her eyes.
The fae king's grief burned like a beacon now. Wild. Ancient. Unrestrained. He would not mourn quietly. He would not be reasoned with. He would hunt.
Her lips curved again, this time sharp with calculation.
"Let him come," she whispered. "He will tear his own realm apart long before he finds me."
She reached outward with her senses, following the invisible thread she had woven long ago.
Cassius.
The bond answered immediately, taut and aching, vibrating with fear and guilt and longing. He was moving. Always moving. Even now, part of him was resisting, pulling in directions she had not commanded.
Annoying, she thought again. But useful.
"He feels it," Aveline said softly. "Your rage, my King. He feels your promise tightening around his throat."
She paced slowly, every step deliberate, the way a predator circles before choosing its path.
The Shadow Vale was too close. The Veiled Coast too open. The mortal kingdoms were crawling with fae and iron and inconvenient heroes. And the fae realm itself was no longer safe. Not now. Not after Stella's death had unbound the King's restraint.
Her gaze lifted toward the north, where an older darkness slept.
"There," she decided.
The place that predated crowns. The place where names lost their meaning. Where even fae magic faltered and time folded in on itself like a dying star.
"The Night Court," she breathed. "Let him chase ghosts."
Aveline drew her cloak tighter, shadows spilling from its hem as she began the spell. The threshold groaned in protest. Reality resisted. It always did.
As the world started to tear open, she paused and glanced back through the thinning veil, toward the distant pulse of the fae realm.
"Run faster, my puppet," she whispered into the bond, her voice slipping effortlessly into Cassius's mind. "Because if he catches you before I do… I will not be the one you should fear."
The portal snapped shut behind her.
And across realms, the Fae King lifted his head, eyes blazing, as the trail in his mind twisted and vanished into something far older than vengeance.
The hunt for the enchantress had already begun.