I stormed across the patch of land surrounding the house, heading straight for the marsh. Though night had fallen and the forest was barely visible under the thin glimmer of moonlight, the ground seemed to glow with a silvery light at my feet. I was still struggling to think, struggling to breathe.
Behind me, I heard Teller’s distant voice calling my name, but I couldn’t stop.
My anger wasn’t fading—it was growing, morphing into something uncontrollable. I had completely lost control, and I had no idea what I was capable of.
I tore through the trees, barely registering the sting of branches whipping against my face. A root caught my foot, sending me crashing to my knees in a clearing near the shore.
I was burning up—why was I so hot?
There were too many sounds.
My ragged, panting breaths. Teller’s muffled voice. Something sizzling beneath my palms.
And the voice. It was no longer just chanting—it was taunting me, singing to me, pleading with me, screaming at me. I clamped my hands over my ears to block it out, but it only grew louder, drowning out everything else.
Free me, Daughter of the Forgotten.
“Diem, are you alright?” Teller’s voice cut through the chaos as he cautiously approached.
I couldn’t see him—the light was too blinding. Even in the dark shroud of night, it was as if the sun itself stood over me, shaking its head in disappointment.
“What’s happening to me?” I whimpered. My fingers clawed into the damp, peaty soil, and I heard the hiss of steam. Beneath my palms, the ground had turned into a blanket of complete darkness, and for a moment, I felt lost, falling endlessly through the night sky, never to land again.
Far off, a shrill, inhuman cry echoed through the night. An ancient sound.
A mourning—and a call.
Release me.
The top of my head throbbed with waves of pressure and pain. Slowly, it began to condense, taking solid form as an excruciating heat gathered in its place. And a heaviness—a colossal weight that threatened to crush my bones into dust.
Teller cried out. “Diem, you’re—you’re—oh gods… oh my gods…”
Suddenly, I was screaming. My throat was raw—perhaps I had been screaming the whole time. My connection to reality had frayed, my body too overwhelmed by warring sensations to distinguish the real from the imagined.
Claim me. I am your birthright and your destiny.
I couldn’t take it anymore.
The pain, the heat, the weight, the voice.
I was going to die from it. I wanted to die, just to make it all stop.
I lifted my hands to the gods as a great beam of light shot from my palms into the sky.
Take me, I whispered to the voice. I surrender.
All my senses focused on the warmth gathered atop my head, and for a moment, everything went preternaturally still.
The light faded. The voice went silent.
The tingling dissipated.
I looked up at my brother, his form watery and blurred. I was crying, I realized. I blinked until the tears spilled down my cheeks and my vision cleared.
With wild eyes and a horrified stare, Teller whispered the words that would change my life forever.
“Diem—you’re wearing the Crown. You’ve been chosen. You are the new Queen of Lumnos.”
