## CHAPTER 32: _"The Siege of the Silver City"_
It began with fire—but not from the rebels.
The Silver City set its own outer walls ablaze.
A desperate act, meant to cauterize betrayal, but all it did was illuminate the truth: the kingdom feared the rebellion more than it feared the curse.
Lysia stood before the gates, wind curling around her armor like breath. The Heart Glyph on her chest pulsed in rhythm with the battle chants behind her.
> "We're not here to conquer," she told Arien, "We're here to *correct.*"
> "And if they don't want to be corrected?"
> "Then we remind them—what was stolen doesn't forget how to burn."
---
From six corners, the battalions closed in.
The Nightwalkers infiltrated the eastern tunnels beneath the market district.
The Heartborne charged the central bridge.
The Whisperers took to the rooftops with fire-tipped arrows.
Inside, the royal guard held tight. Not to the people—but to the lies they'd memorized for generations.
The rebellion struck with surgical precision.
No innocents fell.
Only the voices that had silenced Elira's truth.
---
Within the palace walls, the Archivist stood before his massive tome—The Final Chronicle. Its pages bled ink. Names rewritten. Histories flipped.
But there was one name it could no longer control:
> *Lysia Aelra.*
> "She refuses my narrative," he muttered. "She is becoming her own myth."
> "Then end her," a voice said.
He turned. The siblings—Riven and Mira—bowed.
> "Give us leave. We'll silence her flame."
> "No," the Archivist said. "You'll *ignite* it. Betrayal must feel personal."
He handed them a quill forged from a phoenix feather.
> "Write her ending where she'll least expect it—at the gates of the Old Throne."
---
Arien breached the council chamber, sword dripping.
Inside, the ministers knelt.
> "We're not here to kill kings," he declared. "We're here to kill the *lie* that made them."
He let them live—stripped of titles, given back names they had once erased from records.
Lysia, meanwhile, reached the old throne chamber.
There, beneath a cracked ceiling of stained glass, she saw it:
The throne of Queen Elira. Still intact. Still dangerous.
And waiting.
> "It calls to you," Mira said, stepping from the shadows.
> "Because I'm its heir," Lysia answered.
> "No," Riven hissed. "Because it wants your *death.*"
They struck.
Steel clashed. Magic shattered walls.
Lysia, fueled by both fury and love, held them off—but just barely. Arien arrived bloodied, blade ready.
> "You think a throne makes you chosen?" Mira sneered.
> "No," Lysia whispered, pressing her hand to the Heart Glyph. "I *chose* myself."
The glyph exploded in light.
The siblings were thrown back, their betrayal seared into the floor.
> "This throne," she said, "will never sit on bones again."
She lit it ablaze.
---
As the city fell quiet, the people emerged. Not in chains. Not in fear. But in *hope.*
Lysia stood before them—not as queen, but as keeper of flame.
> "Elira is yours again," she told them. "Not because I fought for it. But because you remembered you were never supposed to lose it."
And somewhere high in his spire, the Archivist watched the fire grow beyond his ink.
> "She's unwriteable now," he said softly. "Good."
> "Why?" asked his shadow.
> "Because it's almost time to burn *me* next."