Chains of the Forgotten Princess

The battlefield held its breath.

No one moved.

Not while Vaeren stood at the edge of the world like a god carved from night—his form a blur of shadow and steel, a crown of nothing burning cold above his head. Behind him, the Hollow March rippled, not like an army, but a sickness. Limbs bent wrong. Faces where there shouldn't be any. Silence where there should've been war cries.

And yet, Elira stood.

Still. Steady.

The wind tugged at her cloak, and her silver eyes glowed faintly beneath the blood eclipse overhead. Around her, the air twisted—thick with pressure, humming with something ancient and dangerous. She was a storm in waiting.

Kael stood beside her, sword already drawn. He didn't speak. Didn't need to. His presence was solid at her back—his magic a live wire, wild and waiting.

But he wouldn't lead this charge.

This was hers.

Then Vaeren's voice rolled across the plain—deep, slow, and wrong. Like thunder echoing in reverse, as if the world itself tried to push the sound away.

"Elira Thandrel," he said. "You carry the blood that bound me. Do you come to try again?"

Elira stepped forward.

Her voice didn't rise—it didn't need to. "I've come to end what you started."

She drew Ashvein, the heir's blade—not burning, but gleaming with quiet starlight.

Vaeren laughed.

Not with joy. Not even with malice.

It was the kind of laugh that scraped the bones.

"You think pain has made you powerful," he said. "You think defiance is strength. You know nothing."

He raised his hand—and the earth screamed.

Rot burst from the ground, black and writhing. Creatures made of bone, grief, and old magic surged forward like a nightmare let loose.

Elira didn't blink.

She raised her sword.

"Now!"

The sky lit up.

Storm-mages unleashed hurricanes of flame and wind. Sky archers fired spells wrapped in burning arrows. Thandrel's front line surged like a tide, shouting oaths older than memory.

War exploded.

Kael vanished into motion—his blade a blur, his strikes clean and fast. Lightning crawled across his armor as he wove through the chaos.

"Elira!" he shouted once, his voice strained through the din. "Don't lose yourself to it!"

But she was already gone—running straight toward the god who broke her bloodline.

Straight into the storm.

Vaeren raised his hand and hurled a wave of void-magic. It tore through the ground as it came. Elira threw up her own magic—a flare of the Oracle's fire, her runes burning red through her skin.

The two magics slammed together, snarling like wild beasts. The blast knocked soldiers from both sides to their knees.

Elira kept walking.

"You can't undo what was forged in blood!" Vaeren roared. "Your line cursed itself the day it bound me. You are the price!"

Elira drove her blade into the ground.

"I am not the price," she whispered.

The ground answered.

The Binding Circle reawakened—lines of gold and red unfurling beneath her boots, pulsing like a heartbeat. The same circle she'd bled to call in the Temple of Echoes. The one written into her bones.

Vaeren stepped back, something close to fear flickering in his eyes.

"You dare invoke it?"

Elira looked up at him, calm and unshaken. "I invoke me."

A pulse of light ripped through the battlefield—silver and searing and sharp as grief.

Time slowed.

She stepped inside the circle. Sword ready.

And met him.

Their blades crashed.

The world shook.

Every strike between them rang like thunder. Vaeren moved like smoke—too fast, too sharp, too inhuman—but Elira was steady. Grounded. With every blow she returned, she carved out the truth of what she had become.

"I see you," she gasped, slipping past a sweep of his void-forged blade. "I remember what you were—before the rot took hold."

For a second, Vaeren faltered.

And that was enough.

Elira's blade sank into him—not into flesh, but into what remained of the soul beneath the shadow. A scream ripped across the sky—not his voice, but something deeper. The Binding Throne remembering.

Chains of light cracked through the battlefield.

Vaeren thrashed, laughter spilling from his mouth like blood.

"I'm not what I was!" he bellowed. "I grew in the dark while your kind forgot. You cannot bind what has no name left!"

Elira staggered back, her arm bloodied, the magic circle flickering beneath her.

Vaeren surged forward, blade raised—

But Kael was there.

Between them.

He caught Vaeren's blow with both hands, fury blazing in his eyes.

"Stay away from her!"

Magic burst from him—fire and lightning woven together, primal and terrifying. The earth shook with it.

Elira's breath caught.

In that second—surrounded by war and light and death—she understood.

This wasn't about thrones.

It wasn't about vengeance.

It was about freedom.

From prophecy.

From bloodlines.

From fear.

She rose.

And commanded the circle.

"Bind the false god," she said, barely more than a breath.

But the circle heard her.

The world heard her.

And it answered.

The runes ignited—brighter than sun, hotter than fire.

Chains of pure light snapped into place, coiling around Vaeren, wrapping tight. His scream cut through the night, high and raw. His shadow-form unraveled at the edges, pieces of him torn away like mist in wind.

He reached for her—desperate.

"You would chain me again?"

Elira met his eyes.

"No," she said. "I'm setting us both free."

The light surged.

Then—

Silence.

When the dust settled, the battlefield was still.

The Hollow March collapsed—its horrors dissolving into ash. The roots withered. The eclipse faded. Light returned to the sky like a long-forgotten memory.

Kael found her in the quiet, catching her as she sagged from exhaustion.

"Elira…" he breathed, voice thick with relief.

She blinked slowly, her whole body trembling. "I think… I think we won."

He didn't answer at first. Just held her tighter, eyes sweeping the ruined battlefield.

Because this wasn't over.

Not truly.

It was the end of one war.

And the beginning of something older.

Above them, the sky was watching.

And somewhere beyond it—

Something whispered her name.