Chapter 4: The Thorns Beneath the Throne

Chapter 4: The Thorns Beneath the Throne

I woke to the sound of laughter.

Not my own.

And not his.

It rang through the stone walls — soft, broken, like a child’s lullaby left to rot. I bolted upright, every instinct screaming that I wasn’t alone.

The window had been thrown open. Wind howled through the room, though no storm brewed outside. My curtains danced like ghosts, and beneath the whimper of the wind…

The laughter continued.

I stood, bare feet meeting the cold stone, and crossed to the window. Moonlight poured in, silver and sharp.

The courtyard below was no longer empty.

Dozens of roses had bloomed in a perfect circle. Black. Tall. Unmoving.

In their center stood a throne made of roots and bone.

And upon it, a girl.

She looked up at me.

And smiled.

By the time I reached the courtyard, she was gone.

But the roses remained.

I stepped between them, each thorned petal brushing my arms, drawing blood with reverent care. The throne loomed — empty now, its shape burned into the grass.

I reached out to touch it.

“Don’t.”

The Devil’s voice cracked like a whip across the air.

I turned slowly. He stood at the edge of the garden, hands clenched, eyes not on me — but on the throne.

“She was here,” I said.

“She shouldn’t have been.”

“You know her?”

“I buried her deeper than death,” he said. “But this place… it never obeys.”

I faced him, fury rising. “Why does everything here bleed? Why is every room haunted, every mirror cursed? Why can’t you just tell me the truth?”

He looked at me then.

“The truth is that you were never supposed to wake the castle. You were supposed to be a key — not a spark.”

“What does that mean?”

He didn’t answer.

Later, in the old library, I found her again.

Not in flesh — but in words.

A name carved into the spine of a forgotten book: Lirael Thorne.

I flipped through brittle pages, each one colder than the last.

She looked like me. Wrote like me. Thought like me.

But she was not me.

According to legend, she had once ruled this castle beside the Devil — a mortal girl turned queen of shadows. Feared. Loved. Betrayed.

The last page was torn.

But in the margin, someone had scrawled:

"She is not dead. Only sleeping. Waiting for her skin to return."

I dropped the book.

It hit the ground with a sound like thunder.

That night, I stood at the foot of the Devil’s throne — not the one in the courtyard, but the one that ruled the hall of obsidian flame.

“You lied,” I said.

He sat like a god carved from silence. “Of course I did.”

“Then stop.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Stop lying. Stop pretending I’m just some human girl who stumbled in here. Tell me who I really am.”

He didn’t blink.

“You are Elira. A girl who made a bargain. Who traded light for breath. That’s all.”

“No,” I whispered. “I’m more. This place is telling me. She is telling me.”

His jaw tightened.

“She’s reaching through me,” I said. “And you’re scared.”

He rose.

In a flash, he was in front of me, voice low and venomous.

“I am not afraid of you.”

“You should be,” I whispered.

“Why?”

I looked him in the eyes.

“Because I don’t think I’m the girl you buried.”

He stared.

I leaned closer.

“I think I’m the one who buried you.”

He didn’t speak again that night.

But as I left, the shadows bowed to me.

And the thorns…

They bloomed.

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