Member-only story
Song of the Demon Queen
It was the day her Breath left her, heralding a new age.
The crypt was exactly what you would expect from an underground burial area: the dank scent of dampness permeated the stone walls, and the only hint of light came from a row of lit green-flame torches. Alowyn walked through easily, her fingers running along the dust shrouds on each tomb, every one imprinted with inscriptions of an Olde language that no one above-ground even acknowledged anymore.
When Alowyn came to the atelier, she stopped for a moment of reverence before she approached the glass-covered coffin.
Inside lay a woman with skin like untouched snow, two silver horns curving from her skull, her lips the color of a bruise. Her hands, black talons still appearing sharp, lay crossed over her chest.
Alowyn brought one hand to the glass. “Hello, sister,” she said, offering a smile to the once-queen who could no longer walk the plains of Hellion.
Any other moment, she might have expected her older sister to pop up and lecture her — just as she had done for every one of their twenty years together — but no one could awaken someone whose Breath had already departed. That was one of the Laws of Olde, long-ago creeds that still reinforced how Hellion operated compared to the Mortal and Haven worlds.
