The dream did not begin as a dream.
It began as memory.
Cold stone beneath her feet. The air thick with something she had once mistaken for power and now understood as decay. The hall stretched endlessly around her, larger than it had ever been in truth, its shadows too deep, its silence too aware.
She knew this place.
Not as it was.
As it had been.
The throne stood at the far end, swallowed by darkness that pulsed faintly, as though the walls themselves breathed with something alive. The banners that once bore the strength of her house hung heavy, their colors dimmed, their edges frayed—not by time, but by something that had eaten through them from within.
She moved forward.
Not by choice.
Her steps carried her across the stone, echoing louder than they should have, each one pulling her closer to something she already knew waited.
The smell came first.
Iron.
Thick.
Clinging.
Then—
Him.
King Ive did not sit upon the throne.
He stood before it.
Not as a king.
