A Crown of Shattered Thrones

Prologue: The Fractured Realm

(Historical preamble to ground the world)

Five centuries ago, the Vyranthean Empire ruled the continent of Eldervain with fire and song. Its rulers, the Dynasts, wielded the Eldersong—a primordial magic drawn from the bones of the earth—to bend reality itself. But ambition fractured the empire. The Nine Betrayals saw brother slay sister, vassal poison lord, and the Eldersong unravel into chaos. Now, the realm is a patchwork of squabbling kingdoms: the mercantile Velmyrian Syndicate, the frostbitten Hollowreach, the sun-scorched Sundered Sands, and others, each clinging to shards of the old magic. Yet whispers persist… The Dynasts' blood still flows. The Eldersong stirs. And thrones built on ash will burn.

...

The ink-stained pages of The Chronicle of Fallen Kings smelled of mildew and regret. Alaric traced the faded glyphs with a calloused finger, his candle guttering in the damp cellar of Blackspire Keep. The words were a lie, of course. All histories were. But this one—commissioned by the Velmyrian Syndicate to glorify their rise—reeked of omission.

"In the 312th year of the Fracture, Syndic Valryn the Wise forged peace between the warring houses…"

"Peace," Alaric muttered, his voice echoing off the vaulted stone. "A peace bought with poisoned wine and slit throats."

He flipped to the back of the tome, where the parchment grew brittle. Hidden beneath a loose binding, he found it: a single page, untouched by Syndicate censors. The script was jagged, frantic, as though scribed by a dying hand.

"They call it the Betrayal, but it was salvation. The Dynasts' blood was too strong, too wild. We had to break the song before it broke the world. But the price… gods, the price…

—Fragment from the Journal of Lyrra the Sunderer

Alaric's breath hitched. Lyrra the Sunderer. The heretic queen who shattered the Eldersong. Her name had been scrubbed from every archive, her statues melted into coin. Yet here she was, screaming from the shadows.

A knock rattled the cellar door.

"Master Alaric?" A servant's voice, tinged with fear. "The Syndic requests your presence. They've… found something in the northern ruins."

Alaric hid the page inside his tunic. Requests from the Syndic were never requests.

.....

The Hall of Whispers reeked of jasmine and ambition. Veyra adjusted her emerald silks, the fabric slit to the hip in the southern style—a calculated provocation. The Syndicate's envoys stared, some with hunger, others with disdain. She counted both as victories.

"Lady Kaelthar." High Chancellor Orvyn greeted her with a smile that didn't touch his eyes. His doublet bore the silver wolf of House Draemar, newly stitched over the Syndicate's crossed quills. A bold declaration, she noted. The Draemars had always hungered for more than their marshy fiefdoms.

"Chancellor," she purred, offering her hand. "I hear your son won his first skirmish in the Sundered Sands. How… fortunate the desert clans fight with sticks while you arm yours with steel."

Orvyn's jaw twitched. "Fortunes shift like sand, my lady. Best ensure your own house isn't buried beneath them."

The threat hung unspoken. House Kaelthar's wealth came from shadowglass—obsidian mined from the volcanic Blackspire Range, sharper than steel and deadlier than poison. But mines dried up. Alliances crumbled. And widows with sharp tongues seldom survived the Fractured Realm's games.

Later, in the privacy of her chambers, Veyra unspooled the night's work. Her spy—a lithe, silver-haired man named Eryk—lay tangled in her sheets, his lips brushing her ear.

"The Syndic plans to revoke your mining rights," he murmured. "They've struck shadowglass in the Hollowreach glaciers. Pure. Untouched. No need for Kaelthar's… troublesome loyalties."

Veyra's nails dug into his shoulder. "Loyalty is a currency. One they'll soon find devalued."

Eryk laughed, low and dangerous. "You'll start a war."

"No." She kissed him, tasting wine and deceit. "I'll finish one."

As Alaric is escorted to the Syndic's chambers, he passes a mural of the Fracture—a mosaic of shattered thrones. One stone is missing. In its place, freshly carved, is a single rune: Lyrra's sigil.

The Syndic's chambers sat at the heart of Blackspire Keep, a labyrinth of smoke-stained tapestries and ironwood shelves groaning under the weight of stolen histories. Alaric limped past the guards—their faces hidden behind visors etched with the Syndicate's crossed quills—and into a room thick with the scent of burning myrrh.

Syndic Malvar, a gaunt man with oiled silver hair and fingers stained blue from lumen ink, stood over a stone table. Upon it lay a corpse.

Not just any corpse.

The body was clad in rusted plate armor, its design centuries out of fashion: overlapping scales, pauldrons shaped like roaring lions, and a helm crowned with a sunburst. The symbol of the Dynast Legions. Alaric's throat tightened. Such relics were forbidden, melted down or buried after the Fracture.

"You recognize it," Malvar said, not a question. His voice was soft, the way a spider's silk is soft before it snaps.

"A soldier of the Old Empire," Alaric replied, keeping his tone neutral. "A curiosity. Where did you find it?"

Malvar's smile was a knife-slash. "Beneath the Glacier of Echoes, in Hollowreach. Frozen, yet… preserved. As if he fell yesterday." He lifted the corpse's hand, revealing skin still flush with color. "No rot. No decay. The ice remembers what we've forgotten, historian."

Alaric leaned closer. The soldier's palm bore a tattoo: a serpent coiled around a broken crown. Lyrra's mark. The same sigil hidden in his tunic.

"You've seen this before," Malvar pressed.

"No." The lie tasted bitter. "But I've read of the cults that worship the Betrayers. Superstitious fools. They carve such symbols into—"

"Cut him open."

Alaric froze. "What?"

Malvar nodded to a surgeon lurking in the shadows. The man stepped forward, a scalpel glinting in his hand. With clinical precision, he slit the corpse's chest.

No blood spilled. Instead, a sound escaped the wound—a low, resonant hum, like a plucked harp string vibrating through stone. The air shimmered, and for a heartbeat, Alaric saw something coiled inside the corpse's ribs: a knot of glowing threads, pulsing in time with his own heartbeat.

The Eldersong.

Malvar's eyes burned. "The songs of the Dynasts were not mere stories. They live in the blood. In the bones." He turned to Alaric. "You will translate the texts we found with this body. Every glyph. Every whisper. The Syndicate will reclaim what the Betrayers stole."

Alaric's mind raced. Reclaim the Eldersong? Madness. The magic had shattered continents. Yet here was proof: a soldier's corpse humming with ancient power. And Malvar meant to wield it.

As the surgeon sealed the corpse in a lead-lined coffin, Alaric glimpsed the soldier's face. His eyes were open, milky and unseeing—yet Alaric felt their weight. A silent accusation. You will dig too deep. You will wake what should stay buried.

.....

The Velmyrian Syndicate did not host banquets. They hosted executions draped in silk.

Veyra sipped her wine, a bitter vintage from the Sundered Sands, and watched the players circle. Nobles from a dozen fractured kingdoms mingled beneath the Keep's vaulted ceilings, their laughter sharp enough to draw blood. She counted the threats:

Lord Tyrus of Hollowreach, his breath visible in the hall's chill, negotiating trade routes for "icefire" (a volatile alchemical fuel mined from glaciers).

Lady Illyria Draemar, the High Chancellor's daughter, flirting with a sellsword captain—a pawn in her father's game.

The Silent Sisters, hooded and gloved, their presence a reminder that even here, the Forgotten Cults had ears.

"You're brooding," Eryk murmured, appearing at her side with a goblet in hand. He wore the livery of a Syndicate scribe tonight, his silver hair tucked under a cap. "A dangerous habit."

"Brooding is what widows do best," Veyra said. "Along with spending their dead husbands' fortunes."

Eryk's smile didn't reach his eyes. "The Syndic's envoys depart for Hollowreach at dawn. They mean to claim the glacier's shadowglass. Your mines will be obsolete within a year."

Veyra traced the rim of her goblet. "Unless the glacier becomes… inhospitable."

Eryk raised a brow. "You'd sabotage their expedition?"

"Sabotage is crude. I prefer redirection." She nodded toward Lady Illyria, now whispering with a Silent Sister. "The Draemars have always feared the Cults. What if they discovered a Forgotten shrine in Hollowreach? A shrine desecrated by Syndicate drills…"

Eryk chuckled. "You'd unleash fanatics on them."

"Faith is a flame. Best not leave it unattended."

Later, in the moonlit gardens, Veyra paid her debts. Eryk pressed her against a marble pillar, his hands rough, his kisses rougher. She let him believe he controlled the dance—until her nails drew blood from his neck.

"You'll need a scar to remember me by," she whispered, her voice dripping with the Silvertongue's power. The words slithered into his mind, heavy and sweet. Obey. Hunger. Mine.

Eryk shuddered, his resolve crumbling. "What… what do you want?"

"The Syndicate's shipment manifests. Every crate bound for Hollowreach."

"And in return?"

Veyra kissed him again, slow and venomous. "I'll let you live."

As he staggered away, she straightened her silks. Power thrummed in her veins, the Silvertongue's curse—and gift. Every lie, every coerced oath, tightened its grip on her soul. A fair trade, she thought. Let the Syndicate have their shadows. I'll rule the silence between heartbeats.