Chapter 49 The Future Queen’s Memory
They say history is written by the victors. But memory? Memory belongs to the guilty.
I remember the day Calyx was born.
The torches dimmed. The air chilled. The midwives whispered. My mother wept.
He didn’t cry. He didn’t blink. He simply stared—eyes black as void, skin pale as frost. I was only a baby, but I felt how wrong he was. I knew something had shifted. Something sacred had cracked.
They called him a mistake.
I called him brother.
But I didn’t protect him.
I was just as bad as everyone else, if not worse, while others were around.
They called us "The Golden Child" and "The Shadow."
I was everything that my baby brother wasn’t I was loud, charming, golden-haired, and adored. He was the kind of child who could break a vase and get praised for his creativity.
Calyx, on the other hand, could breathe wrong and be punished for it.
The future King teased him relentlessly. At first, it was childish—mocking his silence, calling him “ghost-face,” hiding his books. But as they grew, the cruelty sharpened.
The future king would sneak into Calyx’s room and whisper, “You weren’t supposed to be born.”
He’d leave notes: “One crown. Two heirs. Guess who’s extra?”
He once locked Calyx in the crypt overnight, just to see if he’d “absorb the dead.”
I found him the next morning, sitting calmly among the bones, whispering to shadows.
He never told on the future King.
He never cried.
He just grew colder.
Calyx won’t utter a word, no matter what we did to him, because at the end of the day, Calyx was the problem, and we were the future leaders.
When Calyx turned ten, the priests insisted that he be confined. They said his presence disrupted the flame that he was void-touched, that he was dangerous.
I encouraged my parents to do it; I didn’t want to see Calyx around. I also didn’t want others to keep making fun of me and the dark twin.
My mother looked away. My father said, “He is not ours.”
The Future King said, “Good. Maybe the shadows will finally shut him up.”
They built the Tower of Silence for him. A prison disguised as protection. I visited once.
He was sitting in the center of a circle of ash, drawing symbols in the dust.
“Future Queen,” he said without looking up. “Did you come to forget me or forgive me?”
I didn’t know how to answer.
So I left.
Years passed. I became the Flameborn heir. The future king became the favored prince. Calyx became a rumour.
Until the day he escaped.
He walked into the throne room like a storm in slow motion. Cloaked in shadow, crowned in silence.
“I am your son,” he said.
My mother wept. My father called for guards.
The future King laughed. “You look like a bad dream.”
Calyx turned to me. “And you? Do you still remember me?”
I did.
But I said nothing.
He vanished into the earth.
And I never saw him again.
Sure, I heard rumours over time. I heard that someone was feeding on people's doubts. In the back of my mind, I thought of Calyx but didn’t dare say his name aloud.
We heard whispers of his rise. Of the Hollow Crown. Of the Ashen Realms—a place where light had never lived.
He gathered the broken, the bitter, the betrayed. He offered them truth, not hope. Power, not peace.
He became a king of shadows.
The future King mocked him. “Let him have his cave. We have the world.”
But I knew better.
Calyx didn’t want a cave.
He wanted a reckoning.
He sent me letters.
Not threats. Not curses.
Just memories.
“Do you remember the crypt?”
“Do you remember the ash?”
“Do you remember me?”
I kept them hidden. I read them in secret. I cried.
The future King found one once. He burned it and said, “You’re too soft.”
I said, “You’re too cruel.”
He said, “He deserves it.”
I didn’t argue.
But I started writing back.
When the prophecy was rewritten, when the Flameborn declared a new path, Calyx struck.
He sent ashes to our court—ashes of those who had once stood beside us.
“They doubted,” he wrote. “I helped them commit.”
The now King laughed. “He’s dramatic.”
I said, “He’s grieving.”
The King said, “He’s dangerous.”
I said, “So are we.”
I dream of him sometimes.
Not as the Hollow Crown.
As the boy in the crypt.
As the child in the tower.
As the brother, I didn’t save.
He speaks in my dreams.
“You chose light. I chose truth.”
“You chose silence. I chose power.”
“You chose them. I chose me.”
I wake up crying.
The King wakes up laughing.
Over time, the tears dried, and I became harder and less interested in what Calyx did or was going to do. I now had my own child, and she was going to lead us in permanently closing the veil, ensuring Calyx never saw the light of day.
It happened during the eclipse.
Calyx appeared in the courtyard, cloaked in voidlight, surrounded by shades.
The King stepped forward, sword drawn. “Come to beg for forgiveness?”
Calyx smiled. “Come to offer it.”
The King lunged.
Calyx didn’t move.
The sword turned to ash mid-air.
The King stumbled.
“Who is this little girl?” Calyx asked, turning towards me.
“Do you still remember me? My dear sister?”
I nodded. While shielding my daughter.
“I remember everything.”
He looked at the King.
“I remember you too.”
The King spat. “You were always weak.”
Calyx whispered, “And you were always afraid.”
“I am going to make you all suffer for what you did to me,” Calyx utters calmly.
The shadows surged.
The King screamed.
I stepped back from them. Cradling my daughter.
“Enough.”
Calyx paused.
“You still protect him?”
“I protect what’s left of us.”
He stared at me.
“I will see you again, you too, sweet girl,” Calyx says
Then vanished.
I wear the Flameborn crown now.
My husband is king not only in name, but I rule in truth.
I keep Calyx’s letters in a box beneath my throne.
I read them when the court sleeps.
And I wonder—
If I had chosen differently…
Would he still be my brother?
Or would he still be my enemy?