A Vow of Vengeance and Silk

The river of bones carried their voices, a susurus of dry whispers that slithered up the damp stone walls. Seraphine stumbled backward, her boots slipping on moss-slick steps worn smooth by centuries of forgotten footsteps. The skeletal figures rose from the black water with eerie grace, their hollow sockets fixed on her with terrible intent. The one who had spoken, who had breathed her name with rotting lungs, reached for her with fingers that clicked and popped with each unnatural movement, as if some careless god had strung these corpses together as a macabre joke. Kaelan's sword flashed in the dim green light, cleaving through the nearest corpse's ribs with a wet crunch. The skeleton collapsed in a clatter of yellowed bones, only for the thorned vines coiled around its spine to writhe like serpents, pulling the remains back together before their eyes. The bones realigned with sickening snaps, the vines stitching flesh and marrow back into unholy cohesion. "It's not just controlling the living," Kaelan said through gritted teeth. His gloves were in tatters now, revealing the latticework of scars beneath, scars that pulsed with the same faint green light as the runes in the catacombs. "It's binding the dead to its will. The crown's roots run deeper than I thought."The water churned violently as more figures emerged, their movements jerky but relentless. Some wore tattered remnants of court finery, the embroidery still visible on rotting velvet. Others bore the marks of violent ends, shattered skulls, snapped necks, gaping wounds that still oozed black ichor after all these years. Seraphine's pulse roared in her ears, each heartbeat sending fresh waves of pain radiating from the thorn embedded in her temple. The cursed thing burned like a brand, its presence a physical weight against her thoughts, probing for weakness like fingers testing a wound.

Then there A whisper. Not from the corpses.

From inside her skull. "You could end this," it sighed, the voice like silk dragging over broken glass. "Let me in properly, little heir, and I'll give you the power to make them all kneel." The vision struck with the force of a physical blow, Seraphine standing amidst the ruins of the Thorn Court, the severed heads of Tristan and her sister mounted on pikes behind her. Kaelan knelt at her feet, his sword laid across her bloodstained slippers in surrender, his eyes wide with something between terror and devotion. The weight of the crown on her brow felt right, felt *natural*, the vines curling lovingly around her temples as they whispered promises of never being helpless again, a hand clamped around her wrist hard enough to grind bone. Kaelan's eyes were wild, his pupils dilated with more than just battle fury. "Don't listen," he snarled, shaking her hard enough to make her teeth rattle. "It's lying. It always lies. Whatever it's showing you, it's not the full truth." The corpses chose that moment to lunge. Chaos erupted in the confined space. Seraphine fought with Pip's dagger, driving it through hollow ribcages and snapping spinal cords with brutal efficiency, but the vines just kept mending them. One skeleton lost its entire lower jaw, only for the vines to coil up through its throat and form a grotesque replacement from thorns and withered flesh. Kaelan moved like a storm given human form, his sword carving through the horde with desperate precision, but there were too many, always too many, and the water kept giving up more of its dead. Then, amidst the carnage, Seraphine saw it, a flicker of brighter green light in the water's inky depths. The vines all led somewhere, all those thorned tendrils snaking back toward the submerged archway where the current flowed strongest. The source!" she shouted over the din, pointing with her dagger. "We need to sever the connection!" Kaelan's gaze locked onto the spot. For a heartbeat, something raw and terrified flickered across his face, an expression she'd never seen from the usually unflappable prince. Then it was gone, replaced by grim determination. Go," he said, turning to face the horde with his back to the wall. Blood dripped from a dozen minor wounds, mixing with the river water swirling around his boots. "I will hold them off."Seraphine didn't hesitate. She plunged into the icy water, the shock of it driving the air from her lungs. The thorn's burn spread down her neck like liquid fire as she kicked toward the arch, the whispers growing louder, more desperate, You don't have to drown. I can make you breathe." He'll betray you too, in the end. They always do. Let me make you strong enough that no one can ever hurt you again. The darkness beneath the arch swallowed her whole. And then, there Silence. The water stilled. The whispers cut off as abruptly as a slashed throat. When Seraphine opened her eyes, she wasn't in the river anymore. She stood in a vast mirrored hall, her countless reflections stretching into infinity. The air smelled of rosewater and iron, the floor cool marble beneath her bare feet, when had she lost her boots? At the chamber's center, floating atop a pedestal of interwoven thorns, waited the Thorn Crown in its purest form, no longer a twisted circlet, but a living, pulsing wreath of vines and wicked spikes, its surface shifting like a living thing.

And standing beside it, arms outstretched in welcome, was the queen. Not the broken woman Elyssia had killed in the catacombs.

This version was pristine, radiant, her smile as sharp as the dagger she offered hilt-first to Seraphine." hello daughter" said the Thorn crown first and perfect vessel. " Shall we begin?"