Chapter 2791: Story 2792: The Queen of the Forgotten War

Lyra stared at the silver-winged figure.

“My queen?” she whispered. “You have mistaken me for someone else.”

The figure slowly raised its masked face. Names crawled across the silver surface, appearing and disappearing like dying stars.

“No, First Daughter. We have waited beyond the death of time for you to remember.”

Ronan stepped between them, his broken crown shedding its final fragments.

“Take one more step toward her, and I will tear those wings from your back.”

The figure did not move.

“You threaten me with a sword forged from your mother’s blood, First Son. Yet you do not remember who taught you to hold it.”

Ronan’s sword trembled in his grip.

A forgotten memory stirred—silver wings covering a battlefield, thousands of warriors kneeling, and a young girl standing before a throne of black glass.

The girl had Lyra’s face.

“No,” Ronan muttered.

Lyra looked at him. “What did you see?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

Before he could answer, the seventh heartbeat struck again.

The frozen chamber shuddered.

Elias’s black chains twitched. Aren’s suspended silver barriers began to crackle. Darian’s violet flames bent toward Lyra as though she were the sun.

Seratha dropped to her knees.

“Close your heart!” she cried. “If the dead recognize you, they will come!”

Lyra turned toward the sea of stars beneath the floor.

Every forgotten soul was moving now.

Their faces pressed against the invisible boundary, their mouths forming the same word.

Queen.

Lyra staggered. “I never ruled them.”

“You ruled what existed before death,” the silver-winged figure replied. “Before kingdoms, before crowns, before your father divided the first heart.”

The creature beyond the golden doorway roared.

Its enormous hand slammed against the threshold, sending cracks through the ancient stone.

“LIAR!”

The figure’s wings spread.

For one terrifying instant, Lyra saw what lay beneath them: an endless army of silver-armored warriors, each carrying a banner bearing her name. Behind the army stood cities made of bone and rivers flowing backward into the sky.

Then the vision vanished.

“What war did I end?” Lyra demanded.

The figure bowed again.

“The war between the living and the dead.”

“That war is still happening!”

“No,” it answered. “This is the war between those who remember and those who must never be remembered.”

Seratha covered her face.

Lyra approached her slowly. “What did you do to me?”

The First Mother’s shoulders shook.

“I gave you a grave before you were born. I erased your name from the world because your father discovered what you could do.”

“What can I do?”

Seratha looked up, tears shining in her red eyes.

“You can bring back anyone whose name you speak.”

Silence swallowed the chamber.

Even Ronan seemed unable to breathe.

Lyra looked toward the place where the six-eyed child had vanished.

“Then I can bring him back.”

The silver-winged figure recoiled.

“Do not speak his name.”

“I don’t know his name.”

“You will.”

The creature beyond the doorway began laughing, and the golden threshold split from top to bottom.

A small voice emerged from the darkness.

“Lyra?”

She turned.

A child stood beyond the broken doorway, holding a crown made of six golden eyes.

It had Ronan’s face.

But when it smiled, every dead soul in the sea of stars screamed.

“Mother says it’s time to come home.”