Chapter 6 - The Crown of the Deep
Anya looked at the dozens of silent, suspended women standing in the shadows.
"Can they be saved?" she asked, her voice cracking with sudden emotion. "Can we wake them?"
"Not while I wear the crown," Vaelor replied, his voice dropping to a low, gravelly rumble. "The crystal crown of Valenica is what anchors my consciousness to this throne. It channels the magic of the lake, keeping the storm locked inside my chest. As long as it sits upon my brow, I am nailed to this stone."
He reached up with his trembling, scaled right hand. His fingers gripped the jagged, pulsing base of the dark crystal crown embedded in his temples.
Anya’s eyes widened in sudden horror. "What are you doing?"
"Ending it," Vaelor said.
With a sudden, sickening sound of tearing flesh and grinding bone, Vaelor yanked the crystal crown from his head.
CRACK!
A shockwave of pure, blinding sonic energy exploded outward from the throne. The entire basalt palace shook violently; massive stone pillars cracked from top to bottom, and clouds of ancient silt billowed into the water like a volcanic eruption.
Vaelor let out a roar of absolute agony, blood—dark and glowing like liquid silver—pouring down his face from the jagged wounds in his temples.
The heavy iron bands binding his arms to the throne groaned, sparked, and shattered into a thousand rusted shards.
For the first time in three hundred years, Vaelor stood up.
He towered over Anya, standing nearly seven feet tall, his massive frame radiating an aura of terrifying, primordial power. But he swayed on his feet, his breath coming in ragged gasps, the black veins across his body flaring with blinding intensity as the unleashed storm inside him threatened to tear him apart.
He reached out his bloodied hand, pressing the jagged, crimson-glowing crown into Anya’s palms.
"Take it," Vaelor panted, his electric-blue eyes burning into hers. "The crown commands the lake. It holds the will of the water. Wear it, and the Mere will carry you back to the surface."
Anya caught the heavy crown. It hummed in her hands like a living thing, warm to the touch, pulsing with the rhythmic beat of a giant heart.
"And you?" Anya cried out over the roaring vibration of the shaking palace. "If you stand up without the crown, the storm will consume you!"
"I am the king of this valley," Vaelor whispered, a fierce, proud smile breaking through the blood on his face. "It is time I bore my own weight. Go, Anya of Oakhaven. Show them what happens when you wake a monster that was never your enemy."
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Before she could speak another word, Vaelor pressed his palm against her shoulder and shoved her gently upward.
The water beneath her feet erupted into a geyser of pure silver light.
