BLEEDING VELVET

The stars had gone quiet. Not dead. Just...watching.

Almond walked through the wasteland of her own aftermath, her boots crunching over burnt dreams and shattered truths. The battlefield where she consumed her ghost-self still smoldered, cracked open like a ribcage around a heart that refused to stop beating.

Kairo trailed behind her, silent for once. Even Velda—sharp-tongued and war-born—had nothing to say.

Because what do you say to a girl who just destroyed a version of herself?

What do you say to a queen who survived her own becoming?

"Is it over?" Kairo finally asked.

"No," Almond said without looking back. "It's only ever just beginning."

The sky cracked again—this time, not from battle, but prophecy.

An eclipse blinked into being above them, unnatural and dripping ink. It bled symbols—languages forgotten by gods and buried by time.

Velda shielded her eyes. "What fresh madness is that?"

Almond didn't blink. "It's the veil between the Real and the Reckoned. And it's thinning."

From the horizon, the ground began to breathe. Hills moved like lungs inhaling sorrow. Trees twisted into the shapes of old gods. Rivers whispered names never meant to be spoken.

And in the center of it all?

A gate.

But not one built by mortals.

This one was alive—made of bone and blood, pulsing with memory. It looked at Almond like it knew her.

Kairo fell to one knee. "I don't think we're ready."

"That's the point," she replied. "You're never ready for rebirth. You either step through, or you get swallowed by what comes after."

As they approached the living gate, it spoke—not in words, but in feelings.

It made Almond remember everything she had buried: her first cry, her last kiss, the sound of her mother's voice the day she stopped singing.

It made Velda remember war—not the glory, but the hunger. The rot. The blood that didn't come out, no matter how many times she washed her hands.

It made Kairo remember why he stopped praying.

The gate fed off pain like it was sacrament.

And still—Almond stepped forward.

One hand outstretched.

"I name myself the Sovereign of Sorrow," she said, her voice thunder in velvet. "And I walk willingly into what would consume me."

The gate shuddered.

And opened.

Inside was not light. Not dark.

It was truth. Raw and soundless. A hallway of infinite doors. Behind each one, a version of Almond: the dead one, the married one, the healer, the monster, the one who ran, the one who stayed.

Each door pulsed. Each one waited.

Velda reached for her blade, but Almond held her back.

"No. This is mine alone."

And she walked.

Door by door.

Until she found the one still locked.

Her hand shook. Not from fear. From recognition.

Because this wasn't a version of her.

This was him.

The door burst open before she even touched it.

Inside stood a boy. Eyes like dusk. Smirk like ruin.

He wasn't Kairo. He wasn't her past. He was the thread that had never snapped.

"Hello, Almond," he said, voice laced in old promises and new danger.

She stepped forward, heart steady. "You're not real."

He tilted his head. "No. But I'm what you left behind to become this."

She reached for him. "Then let's finish the story."

Outside, the gate screamed shut.

Velda screamed Almond's name.

But the Sovereign had already crossed the threshold of memory, myth, and madness.

And she was not coming back empty-handed.