Queen Marika: Keeper of the Rune by Jade Gretz

https://www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai/art/Queen-Marika-Keeper-of-the-Rune-1259440108

Queen Marika: Keeper of the Rune ANIMATION

The Cracked Halo

Queen Marika learned of her ending on a morning that smelled of wet gold.

Rain fell through the open arches of the Erdtree sanctum, passing through leaves like hammered light and striking the marble floor with a sound like small bells dying. A woman knelt before Marika, hooded in ash-gray silk, hands trembling as if they held a secret too sharp to touch.

“Speak,” Marika said, voice calm, almost indulgent. Beauty had never been effort for her; it was a consequence, like heat from flame.

The woman swallowed. “The prophecy is complete, Your Grace. We read it thrice, backward and forward, and once with blood.”

Marika smiled faintly. “That last is unnecessary.”

“Not for this,” the prophet whispered. “It ends with you.”

Silence pressed outward, as if the chamber were inhaling. Beyond the arches, the Erdtree creaked, its vast limbs shifting like something asleep that had heard its name.

“Be precise,” Marika said. “Endings are a vulgar generality.”

The prophet raised her head. Her eyes were milk-white, burned empty by earlier visions. “The Queen will fracture the Order she forged. Her body will become a prison. Her shadow will rise against her. And from her own hands, the world will learn how to bleed.”

Marika leaned forward, fingers steepled. “When?”

“That is the cruel part,” said the prophet. “It has already begun.”

Marika dismissed her with a gesture. When the woman was gone, escorted by guards who would later forget her face, Marika remained seated, listening to the rain. Seduction was not only of flesh; it was of fate. If destiny wished to claim her, it would have to be persuaded.

She summoned Radagon that night.

He came as he always did: immaculate, stern, eyes burning with a devotion that felt too sharp to be love. He knelt before her, red hair darkened by rain.

“You sent for me,” he said.

“I sent for myself,” Marika replied. “Sit.”

Radagon obeyed, though tension coiled in him like a restrained blade. She circled him slowly, her presence a pressure, a promise. Power thrummed between them, intimate and dangerous.

“There is a prophecy,” she said lightly. “One that claims I will destroy what I am.”

Radagon frowned. “Prophecies are tools of the weak.”

“Then I must be weak,” Marika said, touching his chin, lifting his gaze. “Because I intend to break it.”

His breath caught—not from desire alone, but fear. “How?”

“By changing the path,” she murmured. “By sealing doors before they open. By loving what I must not, and destroying what I must.”

Radagon stiffened. “You speak in riddles.”

“I speak in preparation.”

That night, Marika dreamed of herself splitting like glass, each shard reflecting a different sin. She woke with blood on her palms and laughter echoing from nowhere.

She turned to darker counselors after that.

Deep beneath the capital, where roots strangled stone and old screams had fossilized in the walls, lived the Black Scribes—recorders of forbidden futures. Their leader, a tall figure wrapped in stitched vellum, bowed low as Marika entered.

“You seek the unerasable,” the Scribe said. “That which resists revision.”

“I seek leverage,” Marika replied. “Show me how I fall.”

The Scribe gestured to a basin filled with black water. “Look.”

Marika gazed in and saw herself chained within a hollowed form, light leaking from cracks in her skin. Above her loomed a beast made of law and hunger. Below her stood a shadow with her face and none of her mercy.

Her reflection spoke from the water. “You cannot stop this.”

Marika straightened. “I can delay it.”

The Scribe’s laugh was papery. “Delay is also fulfillment.”

She left them burning.

As weeks passed, the world began to feel watched. Statues wept. Courtiers whispered of echoes following them through halls. Marika’s children avoided her gaze, as if sensing something rotting behind her beauty.

Only Maliketh, her shadow-bound guardian, remained close.

“You are restless,” he said one night as they walked the ramparts. His voice was low, careful, like someone holding back a storm.

“Would you kill me if commanded?” Marika asked softly.

Maliketh stopped. “If the Order demanded it.”

“And if I demanded you refuse?”

His jaw tightened. “Then the Order would break.”

She smiled
...(more at https://www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai).
For more supergirl, chun li, batgirl, tifa, lara croft, wonder woman, rogue and much more, please visit my page at www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai - Thanks for your support :)