Queen Marika: roken Ascendant by Jade Gretz

https://www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai/art/Queen-Marika-roken-Ascendant-1259440202

Queen Marika: roken Ascendant ANIMATION

The Gilded Gut

Beneath the Erdtree’s weeping light, in a vault no cartography had ever recorded, Queen Marika the Eternal learned that eternity had a schedule, and it was running late. It began not with a roar, but with a digestional gurgle, a deep, resonant glug that traveled up through the black marble floors of her inner sanctum, vibrating the soles of her bare feet.

She stood still, a statue of gold and ivory, listening. The Sanctum was a place of absolute silence, designed to be the still center of the world. This sound was an obscenity.

“Hewg,” she said, her voice not raised, yet carrying to the far corner where the smith labored. “You are a student of foundations. What murmurs in the fundament of my palace?”

Hewg, his back broad and hunched from centuries of forging sacred arms, did not look up from the vambrace he was annealing. “The plumbing of the gods is beyond my expertise, Queen.”

“This is no blocked drain. It breathes.”

That made him pause. He set down his tools, the clatter echoing. He pressed a calloused palm to the stone. A minute passed, marked only by the drip of his quench-oil. Then another sound came: a slow, metallic screech, like a continent-sized nail being drawn from ancient wood.

“You’ve awoken something,” Hewg grunted, accusation buried in his tone.

“I have awoken nothing,” Marika replied, gliding to the edge of the room where a mosaic depicted her own ascendance. “It has awoken itself. And it is hungry.”

Hungry was the word. The next tremor was accompanied by a distinct, wet suction, a sound of something pulling sustenance from stone. The golden veins in the marble dimmed momentarily.

Hewg’s stubborn facade cracked, revealing the keen, fearful mind beneath. “The old texts… the treatises on the architecture of the Capital… they speak of a first foundation. A living foundation.”

Marika’s serene mask did not change, but her eyes, the color of a sunless sky, sharpened. “Explain.”

“Before the Erdtree, before the Golden Order, this was a site of conquest. The Fire Giants, in their folly, built not just fortresses, but a… a digestive engine. A geomantic gut. It was said to consume enemy cities whole, grinding their stones to sand and their souls to fuel. You built your palace atop its slumbering stomach.”

A violent lurch sent tools skittering across the floor. From below, a voice spoke. It was not a voice of sound, but of pressure, forming words directly in the sinus, in the hollows of the teeth.

***MOTHER-OF-THE-TREE. YOU HAVE FED ME LIGHT FOR AN AGE. I HAVE TASTED YOUR ORDER. IT IS… MONOTONOUS. I CRAVE COMPLEXITY. I CRAVE THE SPICE OF RUIN.***

Marika’s lips thinned. “You are a tool. Tools do not crave.”

***I AM A GOD OF PROCESS. CONSUMPTION, DIGESTION, EXCRETION. YOUR KINGDOM IS A MEAL HALF-EATEN. I WILL FINISH THE COURSE.***

Panic, cold and precise, crystallized in Marika’s chest. She could feel it now—a vast, peristaltic tightening far below, a contraction that threatened to bring the entire palace down into a geologic throat. She turned to Hewg.

“How is it slain?”

Hewg let out a short, barking laugh. “Slain? You might as well ask to slay an ocean. It is a system. A machine made of rock and ley lines.”

“Every machine has a mechanism. A heart. A mind.”

***THE SMITH KNOWS,*** the pressure-voice purred, savoring Hewg’s discomfort. ***HE KNOWS THE WEAKNESS OF ALL MAKERS. THE BELLY HAS A BRAIN. THE GUT HAS A GOD. SEEK ME IN THE PILOT’S THRONE, MOTHER. BRING ME A NEW FLAVOR. OR I WILL SEASON THIS REALM MYSELF.***

A section of the far wall shimmered, its substance turning insubstantial, revealing a descending ramp of ossified, rib-like stone. An invitation. A trap.

“You will accompany me,” Marika said to Hewg, not a request.

“I forge weapons. I do not wield them in the bellies of beasts.”

“You forged the weapons that felled gods,” she countered, stepping close. The scent of her—ozone and cold lily—filled his senses. It was not a seduction of flesh, but of purpose. “You hammered divinity into shapes that could kill. That is what I need now. Not a warrior, but a mind that understands how things are unmade. You hate me. You hate my Order. Would you rather your masterpiece be digested by that?” She gestured to the gaping ramp.

Hewg glared, his resentment a tangible heat. But he picked up his heaviest hammer, a tool as tall as he was, its head et
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