High Queen Elandra's Arc

Chapter 7 of 15

Elandra turns back to the crypt entrance, but the pale tree has changed. Its branches droop lower than before, and the bark flakes away in chunks that dissolve before they hit the ground. The roots that cracked through the stone floor are shrinking, pulling back like fingers releasing something held too long. The earth beneath the tree splits open. Soil crumbles into a widening cavity, and small bones tumble free from the collapsing dirt. The stranger moves closer, but Elandra raises her hand to stop him. She needs to see what was buried here, what the tree was holding down. A gravestone tilts forward as the ground gives way beneath it, the carved words still clear: Princess Aria. Beloved Daughter. The name means nothing to her, but the age of the stone does. This grave is older than her own immortality. Something dark gleams in the cavity where the roots pulled away. Elandra kneels and reaches into the dirt. Her fingers close around leather bound in silver runes that pulse with light when she touches them. A grimoire. She lifts it free and brushes the soil from its cover. The silver runes shift under her hand, forming patterns she has never seen in two thousand years of study. This is not a spell she knows. This is not a spell anyone living knows. The tree collapses entirely, its trunk crumbling to ash that scatters in air that does not move. The passage behind it stands open now, no longer blocked. The white fox watches from the shadows, its blue eyes fixed on the grimoire in Elandra's hands. She does not know yet if this book holds the spell she needs, but she knows this: the crypt gave up its secret only after she chose to release her rage. The search is not over, but she is holding something real. She opens the grimoire to the first page, and the runes begin to glow.