In the age of silvered moons and blackened stars, Queen Hayashi Mei Zen ruled the Five Isles with a gaze as sharp as her blade. Born of the noble Zen bloodline and trained among the wind-scarred cliffs of Aonishi, she was both revered and feared. A scholar-queen who could summon lightning with a whispered verse, yet who bowed to no power but her people's need.

  Peace, hard-earned and finely balanced, had reigned for twenty years. But in the final year of her life, whispers came from the Hintermere Pass.

  Located in the far eastern border of the realm, the Pass was once a trade artery—before the mists came. Villagers spoke of shadows that moved without wind, of beasts torn inside out, of dreams that bled into waking. The Queen listened. Always she listened.

  "The land cries beneath the silence," she said before leaving. "And where it cries, I must go, or I do not deserve my crown."

  With her she took ten of her Royal Blades—soldiers bound by oath and spell—and three of her court’s most trusted Arcanists: Master Ryo the Binder, Lady Azhel of the Mirror Eye, and the young prodigy known only as Kaien.

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  The journey through the pass was uneventful. Too uneventful. The birds did not sing. The trees, black-barked and white-leaved, rustled without wind. At night, the stars blinked out, one by one.

  Ryo grew uneasy.

  "This place... something watches," he murmured by the fire. "Not from the trees. From beneath them."

  Kaien replied only with silence. Later, Lady Azhel carved protective glyphs into her own skin—a practice forbidden even in war.

  On the seventh night, their torches refused to light. The flames hissed and vanished like breath in a tomb.

  And then came the screams.

  The search parties who came later found their bodies arranged in a perfect circle. No struggle. No signs of battle. Hearts torn clean from chest, as though by something precise—surgical in its violence. Yet not a single wound showed tearing or bruising. It was as if the hearts had simply... disappeared.

  Queen Mei Zen stood at the circle’s center. Her eyes were open, lips parted as if caught mid-word. Her sword, Stormcaller, was still sheathed.

  Above her, her crown floated—glowing faintly green, rotating slowly as if orbiting a thing unseen. It whispered to those who approached:

  “She asked to know the truth. She saw. She wept. She was consumed.”

  None dared touch it.

  The scholars said it was the work of the Shadewrought, ancient gods exiled to the Deep Veins of the earth. Others believed it was something older—something even the gods feared.

  The Pass was sealed with salt, fire, and iron stakes. Queen Mei Zen’s body was entombed beneath the Temple of the First Wind, her sarcophagus sealed with 33 chains of moonsteel.

  But her crown was never recovered.

  Even now, when the mists roll in from the east, people say they hear her voice on the wind:

  "Do not seek the

  shadows… for they are already seeking you."