Shadows of the Crimson Throne PT2 of PT1

11/20/25
 Shadows of the Crimson Throne PT2 of PT 1
Thorne laughed, a ragged sound, and drove Night's Whisper into Draven's chest. "Freedom is her shadow. I am content." As Draven dissolved into wisps of darkness, absorbed by the castle's hungry stones, the poison in Thorne's wound flared. He staggered, collapsing at Isolde's feet.
She knelt, cradling him, her crown slipping to the floor. "Thorne... what have you done?"
"Brought... your victory," he whispered, the sunlight curse etching golden veins across his skin. The Relic lay shattered nearby, its power spent but its curse awakened—a double-edged blade that had saved the realm but doomed its bearer.
Isolde's eyes welled with crimson tears, the first in centuries. "No," she commanded, biting her wrist and pressing it to his lips. Her blood, royal and potent, flooded him, warring with the light. The court watched in hushed awe as the poison receded, inch by agonizing inch, until only faint scars remained—marks of a sun he had briefly touched.
"You are mine," she murmured, as he stirred, weak but unbreaking. "And I am yours. The Oath endures... but so do we."
In the aftermath, Eldrathor whispered of change. The shattered Relic's fragments were forged into a new amulet for Thorne, granting him glimpses of dawn without destruction—a gift for the knight who had braved the light. Isolde's rule strengthened, her court purged of shadows, but in quiet moments, she traced the scars on his chest, wondering at the fragile line between night and day.
For in the realm of the undying, even queens learned that true power lay not in thrones of obsidian, but in the blood that bound two souls against the encroaching dawn. And so, under the eternal moon, the Crimson Sovereign and her shadowed knight reigned on, their story etched in the stars—a tale of loyalty, betrayal, and the eternal hunger that could, at last, be sated by more than mere blood.