His Bride, Her Revenge-Chapter 91: The Fall of the King
Chapter 91: The Fall of the King
The crystal tomb pulsed with quiet energy, casting an ethereal glow that painted Cambria and Evelyn’s faces in haunting shades of blue and violet. Time had no meaning in this hidden chamber, where Seraphine Vale lay preserved her silver hair like a crown, her features regal even in death. Yet it was the expression on her face that struck Cambria most.
Peaceful. Knowing.
"I don’t understand," Cambria whispered, stepping closer. "If she’s the source of Pandora, the origin... Why was she buried here like a secret?"
"Because truth is dangerous," Evelyn murmured, running a hand across the ancient inscriptions circling the tomb. "And Seraphine was never meant to be found."
Beneath the tomb, the floor trembled subtle, but growing. Dust filtered from the ceiling. The walls pulsed faintly, like the heartbeat of something awakening.
"She’s connected to the network," Cambria realized. "To the prototypes. To... me."
Evelyn nodded grimly. "This place it’s more than a tomb. It’s a conduit."
A low, rhythmic sound echoed through the chamber, almost like breathing. Cambria pressed her palm to the crystal. It was warm. Alive.
Suddenly, glyphs on the floor flared to life, illuminating a path toward a sealed doorway behind the tomb. The walls began to hum.
"I think she’s guiding us," Evelyn said.
"No," Cambria whispered. "She’s warning us."
A sudden crack of static blared from Evelyn’s earpiece. A garbled voice cut through. "Command, do you copy? Eastern Wing under attack. Repeat Knox’s forces breach "
The connection went dead.
Cambria turned to Evelyn, heart racing. "They’re already inside."
The once-magnificent throne room now bore scars of war walls blackened from fire, shattered stained glass crunching underfoot. Knox strode through the ruined hall, Sophia Drake at his side, her tablet glowing with real-time scans of the palace interior.
Behind them marched the elite enforcers’ soldiers reprogrammed through Pandora’s neural override, their eyes glassy and inhuman. They moved without sound or hesitation, expressions empty.
Sophia spoke without looking up. "We’ve sealed off the eastern passage. Cambria and Evelyn are beneath the palace, in the tomb chamber. Network activity is spiking."
Knox’s lips curled. "Good. Let her see what she was born from. Let her understand the cost of rebellion."
He reached the throne, the Blackwood crest scorched and cracked behind it. "Prepare Subject Zero and Subject One. I want them deployed to the tomb in five minutes."
Sophia paused. "Both?"
Knox turned to her. "If Cambria won’t kneel to me as queen, then she’ll fall as a failed prototype."
Cambria and Evelyn raced through the glowing corridor beyond the tomb. Every step echoed with urgency. The air grew heavier the deeper they went, thick with latent power and ancient memory.
Ahead, a spiral staircase led to a massive vault door etched with the same sigils that marked Cambria’s skin. The runes responded to her presence, glowing brighter as she approached.
"This is it," Evelyn whispered. "The Nexus."
Cambria reached out and the door responded, splitting open with a groan of stone. Beyond it lay a chamber, unlike anything she’d seen before.
A command center.
Ancient yet pulsing with advanced tech. Floating screens lit the darkness, projecting maps, battle sequences, and the most horrifying live feeds of the palace. Cambria saw Maddox, barely conscious, being dragged through the halls by Pandora soldiers. Rhys was nowhere in sight. Fires raged across the east wing.
And at the center of it all: Knox, standing above a kneeling prisoner.
Lucien Vale.
Cambria froze.
"He’s alive."
"And Knox has him," Evelyn said bitterly.
Lucien’s face was bruised and bloodied, but he was defiant even in chains. On the screen, Knox raised a blade, not for death but for symbolism.
"He’s going to execute him publicly," Evelyn said. "To send a message."
Cambria’s heart pounded. "Not just a message. A coronation. If he kills Lucien in the throne room under the Blackwood seal he claims the crown."
And the people, desperate for stability, might accept him.
Evelyn grabbed her arm. "We have to go. Now."
But the chamber’s systems were already reacting. A pulse ran through the floor.
A voice distorted, ancient whispered from the walls.
"Cambria Vale. Do you accept the crown?"
Cambria blinked. "What?"
"The Queen’s Line must not break."
Images flashed visions of the past. Seraphine in battle. Evelyn’s mother gives birth in a burning fortress. Lucien hid an infant wrapped in bloodied silk.
And Cambria alone in a cold orphanage, glowing with latent energy.
"You are the last," the voice said. "You are the reckoning."
Evelyn turned to her. "Cam... it’s asking for consent. If you accept the crown now whatever was dormant in you... it’ll awaken."
Cambria stared at the screens again. At Lucien. At Knox. At her people dying.
Then she looked down at her trembling hands.
"I’m tired of being a weapon," she whispered.
The voice responded.
"Then become a Queen."
Knox raised the blade.
"Lucien Vale, traitor to the crown, false king of a failed empire, you die not as a ruler, but as a reminder of what happens to those who resist evolution."
Lucien met his gaze with a smirk, even bloodied. "You’ll never rule her."
Knox pressed the blade to his throat.
Then the windows shattered.
Wind howled. The air shifted.
And Cambria descended her silhouette framed by the violet storm rising behind her. Her eyes burned with violet flame. Her presence sucked the breath from the room.
The Queen had awakened.
Gasps echoed across the throne room. Even the reprogrammed soldiers faltered.
Knox turned, his blade lowering an inch. "You’re too late."
Cambria stepped forward. "No, Knox. You are."
A wave of power exploded from her, slamming into the soldiers. Circuits in their implants sparked. Some collapsed. Others screamed and fled.
Sophia grabbed her tablet. "It’s her she’s overriding the network!"
Knox growled. "Then I’ll end this myself." fɾēewebnσveℓ.com
He charged.
Their blades met midair steel and raw energy clashing. Sparks flew. Cambria drove him back, faster, stronger than ever before.
"You turned me into this," she said. "You wanted a monster. You created a queen."
Their swords locked again. Knox’s face twisted with fury.
"You’re still just a girl with a stolen crown."
"No," Cambria growled. "I am the crown."
And then just as she disarmed him, just as victory neared
Sophia Drake tapped a command into her tablet.
Elsewhere in the palace, a glass chamber shattered.
Subject One awoke.
Then another.
And another.
Not just one perfected weapon.
A dozen.
As Cambria prepares to strike Knox down and reclaim her throne, Sophia activates the hidden armory of perfected weapons loyal only to Project Pandora’s final protocol. Dozens of subjects, faster and deadlier than ever before, march toward the throne room. Cambria has awakened as Queen but she may have to become more than a monarch to survive what’s coming.