They had paid for it in blood. Literally. The merchant who had sold it to them had demanded a year off each of their lives. Kaelen had felt the weight settle into his lungs the moment he agreed—a heaviness, a promise of earlier twilight.
The three infiltrators moved through the cisterns like ghosts, knee-deep in water that reeked of rot and old magic. Sera led the way, her small hands finding purchase on slime-slicked stones, her ears tuned to the distant rhythm of guards’ boots overhead. Kaelen followed, his limp more pronounced in the confined space, each step a negotiation with pain. The hooded figure brought up the rear, silent as a held breath, the God-Killer wrapped in cloth and strapped to their chest.
“Little mouse. I wondered when you would come.”
“Keep going!” Kaelen shouted, drawing a short sword he had no intention of using for anything but a last resort. Overthrow- The Demon Queen 1
The ceiling had been replaced with a dome of polished bone, and the floor was polished obsidian that reflected the three of them back as distorted, screaming versions of themselves. At the far end of the room, on a throne made of fused armor from a hundred defeated knights, sat the demon queen.
Kaelen pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the fire in his ribs. He had no weapon. He had no plan. He had nothing but the memory of a sky that had once been blue and a woman he had loved who had died in the first wave of the queen’s conquest.
For a moment, everything stopped.
“Don’t thank me. It’s borrowed time. You’ll owe it back.”
“Strike, then,” she said. “Let me show you what happens to heroes.”
Her name was Malachar, and she had conquered the five kingdoms not with armies, but with silence. One by one, the kings had knelt. One by one, the temples had been sealed. And one by one, the people had learned that hope was just another word for disobedience. They had paid for it in blood
The voice from under the hood was strange—neither male nor female, young nor old. It was the voice of someone who had already died once and had not enjoyed the experience enough to want a repeat.
“Now,” Kaelen breathed.
Her voice came from everywhere—from the bone dome, from the obsidian floor, from the very air in Kaelen’s lungs. It was amused. It was patient. It was the voice of something that had lived for millennia and would live for millennia more. Kaelen had felt the weight settle into his
“Here,” the hooded figure whispered, pressing something into Kaelen’s hand. A small vial of liquid that glowed faintly blue. “For the pain. It will last long enough.”
“You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you?” the queen purred, rising from her throne. She stepped over the broken God-Killer like it was a child’s toy. “I am not some petty demon to be banished with a sharp rock and good intentions. I am the end of your kind. I am the silence after your last word. And you—” She looked at Kaelen, at Sera, at the hooded figure. “—are the last three people in this world who still remember how to fight.”