The party walks through the mist toward the town gaol, a squat stone building set into the base of the guardhouse.
Garruk’s boots splash through puddles as he mutters,
“Never liked places where the windows don’t open.”
Borin grins.
“Aye, that’s ‘cause you’re used to breakin’ ‘em.”
The cell block is dimly lit, the torches low. Iron bars line the hall, each cell occupied by the dregs of Thornmere’s recent troubles — smugglers, drunks, and one very important prisoner.
At the far end sits Captain Rell Varun, the Crimson Legion officer they captured during the ambush near Rooks Crag.
He’s changed — beard grown, eyes hollow, a quiet hum on his lips that stops the moment he sees the group.
“Ah. The heroes of Thornmere,” he says dryly. “Come to check if I’ve repented?”
Elaris steps forward first, the rest of the group forming a loose semicircle.
His tone is calm, deliberate.
“No, Captain. We came to see what you’ve remembered.”
Rell leans back, chains clinking.
“Remembered? You make it sound like I forgot. I didn’t forget. I was ordered.”
Kaer: “Ordered by whom?”
“The same as always. The Crimson Queen. The one who bleeds the banners red.”
The party exchanges glances — the title matches the Queen of Hearts card.
Arden folds her arms, holy symbol faintly glowing.
“And where does she rule from?”
Rell hesitates, eyes flicking up to meet hers — then to Elaris.
“She doesn’t rule from anywhere. She moves. A traveling citadel. The Thornspire. You’ll never find it if she doesn’t want to be found.”
She narrows her eyes.
“You’ve seen it. Recently.”
He exhales slowly.
“Aye. North of Stonehaven Keep — hidden in stormclouds and illusion. She’s gathering the warbands. The Legion’s new recruits aren’t just soldiers now… they’re zealots.”
He looks down at his manacled hands.
“She’s promising them something that no general ever could — resurrection without death. ‘Eternal flame,’ she calls it.”
Elaris`s memory flares The phrase strikes him instantly — resurrection without death.
A perversion of the Lattice, the same ritual that raised his daughter, but twisted for mass use.
He feels the mark on his hand pulse faintly.
“She’s using the same pattern,” he murmurs. “But on a scale I couldn’t even imagine.”
Garruk interjects
“So, what? She’s buildin’ an army that can’t die?”
Rell: “Worse. An army that doesn’t need to. They believe they’re already saved.”
Kaer rests a hand on Garruk’s shoulder before he can slam the bars.
The rain outside thickens, hammering softly against the iron roof of the guardhouse.
Inside, the torches hiss as if straining to hear the conversation.
Elaris stands still, the rhythm of his pulse aligning with the faint throb of the mark under his sleeve.
His eyes are distant — running the lattice equations again, but this time with the Crimson Queen’s twist overlaying them.
He can see it in his mind’s eye: a spiral of energy, inverted sigils, blood-forged resurrection. It’s elegant. Wrong. Terrifyingly efficient.
Across from him, Arden watches quietly. She can read the weight behind that stillness — she’s seen it before, in those who stand too close to divine fire.
Sereth breaks the silence, voice calm but cutting.
“Who else is she recruiting, Rell? I’ve seen her banners over towns that have no reason to fight. Farmers, traders — even priests. What’s she telling them that makes them kneel?”
Rell’s eyes flick up, the faintest ghost of pride in his voice.
“She doesn’t need to tell them. She shows them. When the Queen walks among the Legion, her touch burns away fear. She’s offering freedom from pain. From death. From guilt.”
His eyes settle on Elaris for a fraction of a second too long — enough for everyone to notice.
“Some of us will trade anything for that.”
Elaris says nothing. He doesn’t have to.
Vex stretches, cracking her knuckles, while Laz rolls the dice he’s been idly toying with since they entered.
“Freedom from pain, huh?” Laz says lightly, spinning the die on a fingertip. “That’s funny. Because from what I heard…”
Vex (cutting in smoothly): “…the Queen’s started purging her inner circle. Everyone she touched is rotting from the inside out. Word in the undermarket says her power’s failing — or she’s testing who’s loyal.”
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
She leans in, tone almost pitying.
“You’d think she’d tell her favorite little captain that before locking him in a cell.”
Rell stiffens. His knuckles go white on the edge of the cot.
For the first time, he looks afraid.
“No… she wouldn’t—she needs us. She said the Circle was sacred.”
Vex: “Circle?”
“Her five lieutenants. The Hands of Crimson. Each commands a legion. Each holds a shard of her power.”
Sereth: “Names.”
Rell hesitates — then starts to speak, voice low and cracking.
“There’s Varsha the Thorned, Corven Duskvale, Maelros, Silvenna....
He swallows.
“And the fifth—her personal blade....Azhareth
Kaer murmurs,
“I’ve heard those names if the queens heading south
Garruk: “Then Hollowpoint won’t stay quiet long.”
Elaris finally steps forward.
“You said the Queen offers freedom from guilt.”
“Aye.”
“And does she take it away too?”
Rell blinks.
“What do you mean?”
“If she grants absolution through her ‘flame,’ she can burn it away just as easily. Every loyalist you’ve seen—does any of them sleep anymore?”
Rell’s breathing quickens.
“No… no, they don’t sleep. Not truly. They dream with their eyes open. They call it the Queen’s Watch. Her song never stops…”
He trails off, the chains rattling as he grips them.
“You can’t fight her. She’s everywhere they close their eyes.”
She lowers her bow slightly, voice gentler.
“You said ‘they.’ Not ‘we.’ Sounds like you’re not one of them anymore.”
He laughs — broken, bitter.
“No. I’m already dead. She just hasn’t come to collect yet.”
The party leaves the cell in heavy silence.
Outside, the rain has turned to a thin snow.
Elaris pauses at the door, one hand on the cold stone archway. His mark pulses faintly — a resonance. A connection.
“She’s weaving the lattice into dreams,” he says quietly.
“She’s not just raising the dead.
She’s rewriting them.”
The archives are hidden beneath the chapel’s library — rows of stone vaults, candlelit chambers, and iron-bound tomes heavy with the scent of parchment and dust.
Rain drips faintly from the cracks above. The sound of quills scratching and the soft shuffle of robes from unseen scribes fill the silence.
Elaris moves through it like a shadow, robes brushing against the cold stone floor. Before him lie open books, maps, and one particular parchment spread across the table: The Lattice of Continuance, drawn with necromantic precision.
A faint sigil at the edge glows red when his mark passes near.
He closes his eyes. The Queen’s lattice. The corruption is obvious now: it twists the soul’s anchor, binds it to the caster, not the vessel. Eternal life, yes — but in chains.
Footsteps echo down the stairwell.
At first, Elaris assumes it’s another scribe — until he hears the distinct clink of Arden’s holy symbol.
“You should rest,” he murmurs without turning.
“So should you,” she replies softly. “But I know you won’t.”
She steps closer, candlelight painting gold along her hair.
“You’ve been down here since we left the gaol. Studying something you didn’t want the others to see.”
He finally looks up, eyes shadowed.
“Curiosity doesn’t suit you, Arden.”
“No,” she says, “but concern does.”
There’s no accusation in her tone — only quiet weight.
She sets down her lantern.
“When the Fey took me, in that dream… I saw things, Elaris. Memories that weren’t mine.”
He freezes.
“Be careful what you think you saw.”
“I saw a cleric. You, years younger. A ritual — light and darkness intertwined. I saw a little girl. Her smile. Her death.”
A silence hangs between them like smoke.
Elaris closes the tome with deliberate calm, but his hand trembles ever so slightly.
“That wasn’t meant for anyone else to see.”
“I gathered that,” Arden says gently. “But if I saw it, there was a reason. The Fey didn’t just feed on grief — it showed truth. I think it wanted me to understand you.”
He exhales, a low sound halfway between a sigh and a growl.
“Understanding and approval are not the same thing.”
“Then explain it to me. Tell me why.”
He looks up at her — eyes hollow but alive with intensity.
Then turns his back to Arden
For a long moment, neither speaks. The silence between them is heavy, sacred.
Finally, Arden draws the candle closer to one of the opened ledgers.
“Let’s focus on what we can stop.”
Together, they comb through the archives — ancient war records, infernal treaties, cultist confessions. The names Rell gave them appear scattered across different centuries.
Each “Hand of Crimson” a legend in their own right:
Varsha the Thorned – Once a druid queen. Commands beasts and vines that bleed molten sap. Her domain: The Ironwood Wastes.
Corven Duskvale – A fallen war priest of the Dawn Mother. Preaches flame and renewal through destruction.
Maelros the Butcher – Former general. Slain three times, resurrected thrice. He leads the Queen’s siege legions.
Silvenna Flamehand – A sorceress who wields living fire; known for burning cities into glass to “cleanse” them.
Azhareth the Wyrm-Blooded – A red dragon bound by pact and pride. His lair, The Ember Peaks, is said to burn with crimson storms.
Arden leans back, pale.
“A dragon.”
“A lieutenant,” Elaris replies quietly. “One of five hearts of her empire.”
At that same moment in the Ember Tankard, Sereth laughs at something Garruk says — then freezes.
A pang of warmth and sorrow floods her chest.
No words, no voice. Just emotion — raw, shared.
She touches her bow, Heartstring.
The silvered runes shift faintly across it, as if written by invisible hands:
“For those we’ve lost, and those we dare to love.”
Arden finally gathers her things, standing to leave.
Arden: “You’ll tell the others eventually.”
Elaris: “Eventually.”
She studies him one last time, then nods.
“Whatever else you are, Elaris… you’re still fighting the right war.”
He doesn’t answer. His gaze lingers on the dragon’s name burning faintly in ink.
“Azhareth…” he murmurs.
The candles are burning low now. The air feels heavier, charged — as if the very parchment around them remembers too much.
Elaris flips through the last of the sealed ledgers, fingers brushing dust from embossed sigils. Arden holds a lantern, its light catching faint red ink on the corner of an older manuscript.
“Here,” she says. “This one’s older than the rest — predates the Queen by at least a century.”
The spine reads: “Annals of the Crimson Ascendant.”
The wax seal bears the same heart-and-thorn symbol.
The sigil reacts faintly to his touch. The mark on his palm warms — not painful, but alert. The page opens of its own accord, letters bleeding upward from the parchment like ink rising in reverse.
The entry reads:
Five hearts, one soul reborn in many.
The Queen of Crimson was mortal once— a healer who sought to bind death itself.
Her lattice failed, her spirit shattered, and in grief she turned to the infernal flame.
Each heart she gathers restores a piece of what she lost— until all remember her name.
Arden frowns.
“Five hearts... her lieutenants.”
Elaris nods slowly.
“Each one she restores makes her more whole. When the last heart beats in unison, she’ll ascend— not as mortal or fiend, but something new.”
“A god.”
“A mistake that thinks itself divine.”
Arden pulls a second page free — a folded scrap tucked inside the binding. The ink is fresher. Not from a century ago… but recent.
It’s a map, drawn in blood and soot.
A line of marks leads from Thornmere to Stonehaven, then to the Ember Peaks — Azhareth’s domain.
And scrawled across the bottom, in handwriting that’s not human:
“The Queen’s song reaches where death sleeps.”
As they extinguish the candles, a faint echo hums through Elaris’s mark — a soft, familiar voice in his mind.
“Be careful, father. Some songs never stop.”
He closes his eyes, just for a moment — and smiles faintly.
Crimson Queen’s “Five Hearts” were not simply chosen generals — they were the first to be claimed by her corrupted lattice. Each was a soul twisted by the original ritual that shattered her mortality and began her rise.
facet of her humanity lost and a stage of her corruption gained.
Their existence maintains the web of her false divinity; to unmake them is to weaken the Queen herself, though each death brings consequences — their destruction destabilizes her lattice temporarily, but also fuels her rage and accelerates her mutation.
Status: Arch-Lieutenant; the Queen’s first and most loyal creation.
Origin: Once a proud red dragon who sought immortality; bound through the lattice, becoming both draconic and divine.
Domain: The Ember Peaks — a volcanic fortress perpetually shrouded in crimson storms.
Power: His flames are said to burn memory itself; the more he destroys, the stronger the Queen becomes.
Symbol: A burning crown within a dragon’s jaw.
Origin: A druid queen who begged the Queen to restore her dying forest; her plea twisted into eternal decay.
Domain: No set domain but her power spans multiple forest land, where every tree bleeds molten sap and the air itself groans.
Power: Commands nature warped by corruption; her vines drain life and memory, turning foes into hollow vessels.
Origin: Once a beautiful a gifted friend of the crimson Queen ; she longed to stay beautiful with mirrors to reflect her beauty
Domain: The Glass Plains, where shes reduced whole towns and villages to glass laden wasteland
Power: Wields infernal fire that reshapes flesh into living glass; her armies of “mirror-born” reflect the Queen’s will.
Origin: A general who refused to surrender even in death. The Queen resurrected him, thrice, binding him fully.
Domain: The Bloodmarch, a crimson plain littered with undead banners.
Power: Commands an army of those slain by the lattice. Every soldier killed by his blade rises to serve him — and, by extension, her.
Origin: Once a cleric of the Dawn Mother — the same order that aided Elaris long ago. He betrayed the light in pursuit of forbidden knowledge.
Domain: The Ashen Basilica, a temple suspended above the ruins of his old monastery.
Power: Channels divine and necrotic power alike; his sermons enslave minds, twisting faith into worship of the Queen.
corrupted lattice spreads like a contagion of the soul — each lieutenant a node amplifying her reach.
partial, creating hollow revenants that crave her song.
perfect the lattice — to wield resurrection not as mercy but as domination, ensuring that death itself bends to her will.
play god forever.