Eclipse of Shattered Throne

The Arena of Whispers

The tournament grounds weren't what Payune expected.

No roaring crowds. No banners. Just an endless stretch of black sand, shifting like a living thing beneath their boots. Above them, the sky had turned the colour of a fresh bruise, the swollen moon dripping crimson light like blood from an open wound.

Hayuni's ruined collar itched.

She scratched at it absently, her fingers coming away wet. Not with blood with that same silver-black substance from before. It wriggled between her fingers before sinking back beneath her skin.

"Charming," she muttered.

Dragonrend growled in Payune's grip.

"She's infected."

Payune didn't answer. The blade had been too chatty since the Sentinel attack, its whispers more insistent, more... personal.

"You'll have to kill her, you know," it purred. "Before it takes hold completely."

A horn sounded in the distance.

The trial was about to begin.

The other competitors emerged from the gloom twelve in total, each bearing weapons that wept black ichor. Payune recognized the sigils of the Great Houses, but the warriors themselves were... wrong.

Too still. Too hollow-eyed.

The Silent Crow stood atop a jagged obsidian arch, his cloak billowing in a wind that didn't exist.

"The first trial is simple," he announced. "Survive the Hollowing."

Then he vanished.

The black sand exploded.

What Rises From the Sand

It wasn't monsters that emerged.

It was memories.

Payune's vision fractured:

—A younger version of herself, barely ten, standing over a bound prisoner

—Dragonrend in her small hands, the blade whispering

—"Do it," the Dragonlord urged

—The prisoner lifted their head—

Hayuni.

Younger. Terrified.

"P-Payune?"

The memory shattered as the real Hayuni slammed into her, knocking her aside just as a blade of living shadow carved through where she'd stood.

"Focus, you idiot!" Hayuni snarled, her ribbons already lashing out at the nearest competitor a hulking brute from House Veyth, his eyes completely black, his mouth unstitched and screaming.

Dragonrend laughed in Payune's mind.

"SEE? SHE KNOWS WHAT YOU DID."

Hayuni fought like a woman possessed because she was.

The black veins had spread to her jawline, her movements too fluid, too perfect. The fox spirit fought against her, its blue fire lashing at her wrists like shackles, but Hayuni ignored it.

She moved.

Competitors fell around her, not just dead—erased, their bodies dissolving into the hungry sand.

Payune tried to reach her, but the arena shifted, the ground swallowing her up to her knees.

A whisper at her ear:

"She's not your sister anymore."

The Silent Crow stood beside her, his mask cracked, revealing one pale eye beneath.

"The Hollowing doesn't test strength," he murmured. "It reveals truth."

Then he was gone, and the sand surged upward, filling Payune's mouth, her nose, her—

—A cell. Dark. Damp.

—Hayuni, chained to the wall, her collar pulsing with that same black substance

—The Dragonlord standing over her, a blade of moonlight in hand

—"You will be my masterpiece," he whispered

—The blade came down—

PAYUNE JOLTED AWAKE, gasping, the sand spitting her back out.

The arena was silent.

Bodies littered the ground all twelve competitors, their weapons still clutched in lifeless hands.

And standing at the centre...

Hayuni.

Her collar was gone.

Her eyes were black.

And the substance now coated her arms like living armour.

She turned to Payune, her head tilting at an unnatural angle.

"Hello, little dragon," she said but the voice wasn't hers.

It was their mother's.

Next Chapter Preview:

Hayuni's Transformation: The thing wearing her skin isn't done yet

Dragonrend's True Master: Payune learns who really forged the blade

The Crow's Betrayal: He didn't come to watch he came to collect

The Hollowing didn't just test them.

It woke something up.

The Eclipse is coming.

And it's wearing Hayuni's face.