THE VILLAGE GAVE AN ORPHAN TO THE MONSTER—SHE RETURNED WEARING HIS CROWN

Back on the shoreline of the Black Mere, the villagers were packing up their lanterns.

The ritual was complete. The bride had been taken. The elders were already dividing up the remaining sacks of winter grain among themselves, their faces relaxed in smug self-congratulation.

Elder Morcant stood near the water’s edge, wrapping his heavy fur cloak tighter around his shoulders against the midnight chill.

"Another successful equinox," Morcant remarked to the priest, uncorking a flask of spiced wine. "The girl was stubborn, but they always are at first. By dawn, the villagers will sleep easy, and we can begin collecting the spring tithes."

Suddenly, the water of the Black Mere began to churn.

It wasn't the gentle ripple of a breeze. The entire surface of the lake rose upward like a swelling dome of black glass.

The villagers stopped in their tracks. The musicians dropped their flutes. The children began to cry.

"An earthquake?" someone shouted, stumbling backward into the mud.

"No," Morcant whispered, his wine flask slipping from his fingers, shattering against the rocks. His face drained of all color. "No, that's impossible. The sacrifice was made."

BOOM.

The center of the lake exploded into a column of blinding, silver-white foam that shot a hundred feet into the night sky, illuminating the valley as bright as midday.

And from the heart of the geyser, a figure rose.

It wasn't a corpse wrapped in weed.

It was a queen.

Anya descended slowly through the air, borne aloft on a swirling pillar of mist and water as if walking down an invisible staircase.

Her tattered, mud-stained white linen gown had transformed. It now shimmered like spun moonlight, woven from liquid silver and starlight. The heavy iron chain she had worn into the depths now hung broken and shattered around her right ankle, trailing sparkling droplets of water.

And upon her brow rested the crown of dark crystal, glowing with a fierce, pulsing crimson light that cast jagged shadows across her face.

Behind her, beneath the dark surface of the lake, something colossal and ancient shifted—a vast, shadowy shape with eyes like twin suns, watching from the deep.

The villagers fell to their knees. One by one, men, women, and children dropped face-first into the mud, trembling with primal, unadulterated terror.

Elder Morcant stood alone, paralyzed, his knees shaking so violently he could barely remain upright. He stared at the crown on Anya’s head, his mouth opening and closing like a landed fish.

Anya touched down lightly upon the shore. The mud parted before her boots, refusing to stain her hem.

She walked slowly toward the huddled mass of villagers, her slate-gray eyes burning with absolute, unyielding authority.

She stopped three paces from Elder Morcant.

"The monster never asked for our daughters," Anya’s voice rang out, magnified a hundred times by the magic of the crown, echoing off the cliffs and rolling across the valley.