BLEEDING VELVET

The throne room was not silent.

It breathed.

A deep, slow exhale like the lungs of something asleep but dreaming. The sound didn't echo—it pressed. Like a presence crawling over their skin, whispering in a language the soul should not understand.

Almond stepped inside first.

The throne sat high, carved of obsidian and veins of white bone, like a king's seat stolen from a battlefield grave. But it was empty. It waited.

The walls glowed dimly with the names of the fallen—etched bone-deep in a hundred languages, written in ash, in blood, in burnt prayers.

Kairo stared at them in horror. "Those are sacrifices," he whispered.

Velda swallowed hard, hand gripping her dagger. "They're chosen. Every name here paid for something."

"And mine?" Almond asked quietly.

Still not there.

The throne stirred.

Not the structure—but the space around it.

A shape began to form.

Not smoke. Not fire.

Memory.

It coiled upward into the form of a figure—a woman with a thousand eyes, each one blinking with a different version of Almond. Some weeping. Some smiling. One… burning alive.

The woman spoke.

"You've walked through your own undoing. You've bled your name into the void. Why do you still want the throne?"

Almond didn't hesitate.

"Because I was never meant to kneel."

Velda's jaw tensed. "This isn't just some test, is it?"

Kairo was already backing up. "No… this is coronation. Or execution."

The throne began to pulse.

Each beat shook the chamber, dust raining down like memory flaking from a dying god.

The thousand-eyed woman stepped aside.

"Then sit," she said. "And see what you become."

Almond looked at her hands.

The chains had vanished.

Now, flames licked her fingers—not to consume, but to announce.

She walked up the steps.

One.

Two.

Three—

At the fourth, the ground split.

A scream burst from nowhere—no lungs, just rage. The entire chamber buckled, as if something underneath had been waiting for her to rise.

"Don't stop," Velda called out, voice breaking.

Almond kept walking.

When she reached the top, the throne didn't greet her.

It tested her.

A burst of images slammed into her skull:

—Her father's betrayal.

—The boy who tried to own her.

—The girl who lied to save herself.

—The mirror that broke.

—Aren's ashes.

Pain flared so bright she almost staggered.

But she didn't.

She sat.

The moment her skin touched the stone, the room stopped breathing.

For one second, nothing existed but her heartbeat.

Then the flames bowed.

The names on the walls glowed red-hot.

And a new name carved itself into the bone:

ALMOND.

A voice echoed across the void.

"Now burn for them, or burn with them."

And as the crown descended—black iron coiled in roses of barbed wire—Almond didn't flinch.

She smiled.

She'd always known the throne would hurt.

But pain had never stopped her before.

Suddenly, thunder cracked beneath the floor.

The throne buckled like a beast beneath her, groaning as if awakening from centuries of stillness.

The chamber lit with fire not her own—sapphire blue, licking across the walls like ghostlight. Velda screamed as one of the names glowed too bright to look at. It wasn't just carved anymore—it bled.

A new figure emerged from the shadows, taller than any man, robed in light that moved like water. It bowed before Almond.

"Queen of the Broken Flame," it murmured. "Your first command?"

Kairo's breath caught. "What the hell is that?"

"A messenger," Almond said. "And a warning."

She stood.

The throne whimpered.

She looked down at her friends—then out into the endless dark.

"We build an army," she said. "And then we burn the ones who tried to bury me."

Velda stepped forward, her blade still sheathed but her eyes shining. "Are we still us after this?"

"No," Almond replied. "We're more."

The room began to rise—yes, the entire chamber lifted, floating into a realm made of stars and scars. Beyond it, cities blinked like dying fireflies, and something with a crown of flame screamed in distant agony.

And for the first time… Almond smiled like a ruler.

Somewhere far below, in the place where shadows had no names, a new entity stirred.

It had watched Almond climb.

It had watched her sit.

And now it opened its mouth and swallowed the silence.

A voice, low and treacherous, whispered from the stone:

"She thinks she's won."

Dozens of chained spirits turned their eyes toward the surface.

"She hasn't even begun to pay."

And just like that, every name that glowed on the walls… blinked.

One by one, they began to wake.