The sea was restless, a black sheet stretched tight between two cursed lands. Their ship, The Crescent Vow, cut across the waves like a scar. The crew Kaydence had summoned were all marked—tattoos of the Triangle, remnants of wars they never spoke of.
Seina stayed at the bow, wind slicing through her cloak. She clutched the shard of the Raven Throne’s sigil she’d taken before the flames consumed it. It pulsed faintly in her palm.
Kaydence approached quietly. “We’ll reach the Isle by nightfall.”
“Then the storm begins,” Seina said.
They hadn’t spoken of what came after. They couldn’t. Every prophecy, every whisper from the wraith, hinted that someone wouldn’t make it back.
The Isle of Veils
The mist clung to their boots as they stepped ashore. The island reeked of salt and memory. Ghosts watched from the cliffs—unseen but felt. The ruins ahead looked more like a graveyard than a temple.
“The crown’s buried in the queen’s tomb,” Kaydence said. “Underneath the altar.”
“And it’s guarded,” Seina murmured. “I can feel it.”
A howl pierced the silence.
Shadows lunged from the mist—boneborn creatures with antlered skulls and hollow eyes. Seina didn’t hesitate. Her blade sang as she moved through them, faster than Kaydence had ever seen her.
One lunged at him. A shot from Seina’s pistol took it down before he could blink.
“I told you,” she said, breathing hard. “I’m not losing anyone else.”
They reached the altar before dawn. Runes glowed faintly along the stone, pulsing like a heartbeat. Kaydence placed his hand over the central rune.
Nothing happened.
Seina stepped forward and whispered the words the wraith had taught her.
“Blood to blood. Bone to bone. Rise only for the crownless.”
The altar split open.
Inside, a casket of bone and obsidian rested atop a circle of salt. And in its center—the Bone Crown.
It whispered the moment Seina touched it.
Her knees buckled. Visions flooded her mind—queens screaming, kingdoms drowning, her father bowing to the crown. And herself, seated on a throne of bones.
“Seina!” Kaydence grabbed her, yanking her away. “Don’t listen to it.”
“I saw everything,” she said. “I saw who created it. I saw why it chose me.”
Kaydence’s eyes darkened. “Who?”
Seina looked up, trembling.
“My mother.”
The echo of Seina’s words didn’t fade—it thundered. Beneath the ancient tomb’s silence, her truth broke like a scream through centuries of lies.
“My mother,” she repeated, voice hollow. “She forged the Bone Crown.”
Kaydence’s breath caught. “Veira Veil? The one who—”
“Disappeared,” Seina finished, bitter. “Or so I was told. But she didn’t vanish. She created the weapon that has haunted our bloodline. She didn’t run from the crown… she built it.”
The weight of it crushed her lungs. The dagger her mother left her—the one buried with Miro—suddenly felt like an artifact of guilt, not legacy.
Kaydence crouched beside her. “Then you were born to destroy it.”
“No,” Seina whispered. “I was born to wear it.”
The Crown’s Whisper
 
She turned to the Bone Crown again. It didn’t shimmer or pulse—it breathed. The runes along its obsidian curve flared softly as she stepped closer, like it recognized her.
Kaydence grabbed her arm. “Don’t. It wants you.”
“I know,” she said. “And that’s why I have to touch it again.”
Before he could stop her, she reached out.
This time, she didn’t fight the visions.
They surged in:
Her mother, draped in war-silk, binding the bones of an ancient queen.
Blood rituals beneath moonlight.
Betrayal—by the very man Veira loved. A king who used her, then burned her name from history.
“If they won’t let you rule, daughter,” the memory of Veira said, “then take the throne from their corpses.”
Seina tore her hand away, gasping.
“She wanted vengeance,” Seina said. “She built the crown not to protect—but to punish.”
“And now it’s calling for blood again,” Kaydence growled. “Yours.”
A roar tore through the tomb.
The boneborn had returned. Twice as many. Antlers and flame, blades for teeth, crawling from the mist like nightmares made flesh.
“We have to go!” Kaydence shouted.
“No,” Seina said. “We end this now.”
She lifted the Bone Crown in both hands.
Its power surged through her—pain like lightning down her spine. Her bones sang. Her voice cracked with a foreign command:
“Kneel, children of ash.”
And the monsters did.
They froze, trembling, then dropped to their knees.
Kaydence’s eyes widened. “You… control them?”
“No,” Seina said. “I understand them. They're not enemies. They’re victims.”
Her mother’s final cruelty—binding souls to protect a crown of vengeance.
Seina turned to the altar.
And shattered the crown.
The explosion of power flung them both backward. Kaydence’s back slammed against the wall. Seina hit the stone floor hard enough to rattle stars behind her eyes.
The tomb groaned. Runes exploded into flame. The creatures screamed—not in rage, but in release.
Chains broke.
Bones turned to dust.
One by one, they faded into smoke, whispering words Seina barely caught:
Crownless. Brave. Free.
Kaydence crawled toward her. “Seina—are you—”
She was already standing.
Eyes glowing.
Not with magic, but clarity.
“It’s over,” she said.
Kaydence looked around at the crumbling tomb, the ashes of bone and vengeance. “Then let’s go home.”
Seina shook her head. “There’s one thing left.”
The altar split again—not by their touch.
Something was rising from beneath it.
A figure. Clad in silk and bone.
Veira Veil.
She hadn’t died.
She had waited.
“Daughter,” the woman said, voice like wine and war. “You’ve come to take my legacy.”
“I came to end it,” Seina snapped.
Veira smiled, sad and proud all at once. “Then you’ve already become what I never could.”
Seina raised her blade.
Veira didn’t flinch.
“Strike, Seina. Kill me. Become the queen the crown wanted.”
But Seina lowered her sword.
“No. I won’t become you. I already won.”
Veira’s form began to fade—dust in moonlight.
“Then I am proud,” her voice echoed. “You are… my greatest revenge.”
And she was gone.