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julieibe

1 Published Story

julieibe's Book and Story

Love tame

Love tame

 Adventure
5.0
Title: The Ashes of Velmoria Once, the kingdom of Velmoria shone like a jewel between the Storming Peaks and the Amethyst Sea. Its banners-woven with golden thread and bearing the sun crest-fluttered across five provinces, each ruled by a noble house sworn to Queen Elirya Velmorne, the last of her name. She was said to speak with the wind, tame fire with a glance, and see into men's hearts as if reading a book laid open. But no kingdom burns forever with glory. And some flames, once left to flicker alone, can wither into smoke. --- It began with whispers-small things, barely noticed at first. Farmers near the border of House Irondale reported strange lights in the woods. Livestock vanished, and trees bled sap as black as pitch. The court mage, Lysarion, dismissed it as superstition. He was more concerned with his experiments, stitching bone and shadow beneath the royal crypts. Elirya's council had grown old and tired. They feared the queen's curiosity, her growing closeness to the mage whose eyes glowed faintly with a sickly blue hue. When she extended her reign beyond the normal rites-refusing to name an heir despite being barren-the nobility began to stir. Then came the Ninth Eclipse. A day without sun. Not just hidden by clouds, but gone. The sky turned violet. Birds screamed and dropped dead in mid-flight. In the western province of Yll, children were born with milky white eyes and teeth like needles. And then...the dead began to walk. Queen Elirya, far from panicking, welcomed it. She called it The Renewal. She stood on the balcony of Velmoria's high tower, her voice booming unnaturally, and proclaimed that death was no longer the end. Her people would be eternal. But not all souls rose. Only the loyal, or the damned. Knights who had died in her name returned with their armor fused to rotting flesh. They called her the Mother of Return. Cities fell not to invasion, but to internal collapse. People fled in horror from their once-dead loved ones, twisted now into loyal, wordless husks. House Irondale rebelled first. They marched upon the capital with twelve thousand spears-and were met by five thousand of the queen's fallen. In one night, the grasslands blackened. The Irondale lords were flayed, resurrected, and bound by iron chains to serve in the queen's court. Elirya did not age. Her hair remained dark as raven feathers, her eyes glowing softly with blue fire. Her kingdom was no longer ruled, but haunted. And she, enthroned among corpses and whispering shadows, ruled alone. --- It is said that deep beneath the ruins of Velmoria, in catacombs lit by candles made from human tallow, her voice still echoes. That she speaks to the bones of her court, giving counsel to those who can no longer speak. And that the mage Lysarion lives still, fused now into the throne itself, his body a lattice of bone and vine, his consciousness spread like roots through the kingdom's dead soil. Velmoria did not fall in the way kingdoms usually do. It withered, mutated, transcended. And in its stillness, it waits. For another eclipse. For another chance.