Sanguinious Blooderflies

It is truly a sight to behold, the Blooderflies gathering, their crimson wings whispering as they feed. They take the blood before it cools, before the last warmth leaves the body, if they can find it quickly enough.   There upon her moonstone-cut throne she sat, her hollowed bones glittering for all to see. Moonlight streamed through her, refracting through the cage of her ribs and scattering across the macabre marble hall. There is no one here, not truly, only echoes. Her steps resound on the hollow tiles of white stone, each one a whisper of what she once was.   The hollows of her skull face forward as if watching fragments of life no one else can see. On her outstretched hand, the delicate bones of her fingers hold a Sanguinious Blooderfly. Its wings, dark and lustrous, spread wide and drip scarlet onto her pale frame, the blood tracing delicate rivers down the ivory bones.   Her hair stirs, though there is no living breath. A strange wind of the dead moves through her and around her throne. Inside her bones, something pulses. It is blackened with age and rot, motionless yet alive. Thin, fragile veins push blood outward, and over time more Blooderflies gather, bringing small offerings to The Hollow Monarch.   She says nothing. The thing inside her chest rattles against bone, silent yet beatific, a deathly, eerie presence. Blood drips over her sparkling bones, feeding the lost queen on her throne. They drift in and out, tiny red wings dancing across the room. Cobwebs cling to still bodies, slain long ago.

Nestled in the deep valley of Shuanala lies the Hollow Court, a place marked by silver trees and ancient, thick forests. The castle is hidden almost completely from the world, a sanctuary for those who once fled to live within this pocket of magic. It was tended by the family known as Eira, though all records of this place have faded with time itself. When the world shattered, a rift opened between the Middle and the Undersanctuary, severing what once bound them.   The Hollow Court still lies hidden. It is said that only the Blooderflies and the Forest King know the way, unless you stumble upon it by accident or by fate.   It was here that the Hollow Monarch, Iskara, first met the Forest King, Rowan Thorne. He had wandered into her woods as she was reinforcing the boundaries of her lands.   It was not love at first sight.   The chilled air moved past her as she saw him, swift and startled like prey from a predator, terrified by the gleam of his weapons and the foreign weight of his presence. He pursued her through the silver glades until she found herself cornered beneath the ancient Silverglen Oak, the heart of her forest. There he caught her, not with violence but with reverence, holding her as though she were something fragile, something sacred.   “Easy there,” Rowan said, his voice low, like soft thunder.   Iskara writhed beneath him and the tree, dark eyes wild until they met his. She could hear him saying more, but her heart was beating too fast to understand the words. His hand came to rest against her chest, feeling the frantic rhythm beneath his palm.   She looked up and met his green eyes. For a heartbeat, everything stilled. The forest seemed to hold its breath with them.   Iskara’s gaze traced the lines of his face, the rough stubble along his jaw, the shape of a man who should have been her enemy. Words caught in her throat, unspoken. Slowly, she placed her hands against his chest, as if to steady her own heart by feeling the calm strength beneath his.

“Are you going to kill me?” Iskara asked. Her voice was soft, scared, unsure.   Beneath her fingertips she felt it — his pulse, steady and warm, so achingly similar to her own. Rowan’s eyes widened at her words.

A gentle wind moved through the glade, brushing against them both, as if the Hollow Court itself were aware of their meeting.   “Why would I kill something so luminous?” Rowan’s voice dropped to a whisper. He reached up, tucking a dark lock of her hair behind her ear.   A shiver ran through her. She had never met anyone like this.   “Are you not the Hunter?” she whispered. “The Forest King who collects trophies?” Her voice trembled, the question breaking somewhere between fear and awe.   Those words made him still. She was pinned to the tree beneath him—captured. The forest held its breath, waiting for something to happen. His eyes lingered over her as if assessing her, and even that gaze left her flushed. There would be no struggle; he’d caught her in her own woods. By law, she was his now. Did he know that? She wondered, staring into those green eyes.   “My friends call me Rowan,” his voice rolled through her like a soft vibration, wind threading through leaves.   “Rowan... Thorne,” Iskara whispered. She knew him. She was right—he was the hunter.   “And you are?” Rowan’s voice dropped low.   “Iskara Eira... the Hollow Monarch,” she supplied almost too quickly.   “Iskara? Like a fresh winter’s snow?” he said, studying her again. The way he looked at her made her flush.   “So you know of me. How is it I do not know of such a pretty, luminous creature wandering the deep woods?” Rowan’s voice was low as his hand moved to cup her jaw. She went still once more.   “You’re not in the Deep Woods,” she almost stammered, heat rising in her cheeks. “This is the Hollow Court.”   The Hollow had almost no visitors—none that she knew of. Her parents always said the place had been forgotten, hidden by its own silence. Yet here she was, pinned to an oak by a man who, by the ancient laws of court itself, had won her.   “Hollow Court,” Rowan repeated, the words stirring something old in him. His eyes widened, realization flickering like light through the canopy.
“I caught you,” he whispered.

“Guilty,” she whispered, trying to steady herself. He was still holding her against the tree.   “Guilty,” he repeated, his voice low as realization settled. “You’re mine.”   Then the forest stirred, as if acknowledging the claim spoken aloud. The wind threaded through the silvered leaves, the trees bending subtly in response. They both shivered, connected to the pulse of the woods. Time seemed to pause between them, the magic itself marking the pact.   There, at the hollow of her throat, appeared the mark of the Forest King: roots encircling a crown of antlers. He, too, bore a mark—the hollow bones etched into his flesh. Both shimmered briefly, then settled, as if ancient magic itself had acknowledged the bond.   “Are… we bonded now?” he asked, his eyes on her throat, lingering on his sigil etched into her soft skin, visible in the fading light of day.   “Not exactly,” Iskara said, trying to slip free of his hold. “Yes,” she whispered finally.   His hands settled at her waist. He held her as if she were made of glass. Tilting her head up, she met his gaze. He leaned closer, and she stopped struggling. Something in his eyes, in his quiet gravity, told her to stay. To be still. To trust.   The scent of rain drifted through the air; he smelled of cedar and smoke. Then he closed the distance, moving with the grace of a hunter, and kissed her. She melted beneath the gentle press of his lips.   “Mine,” he murmured against her mouth.   “Yours,” she breathed.   The forest bore witness, alive and listening, moving with them. The trees seemed to sigh as he lifted her, carrying her toward the castle he glimpsed through the mist, her castle.   They spoke of everything and nothing. Time slowed, soft and strange around them. Rowan had never known anyone like her — the queen of the Hollow Court, luminous even in the shadow of death.   He spent days, then years, in her presence, their love born of something ancient and peaceful. For her, he wove the magics of nature and beasts.

For him, she revealed the gentleness woven through her realm — the way shadows obeyed her call, and how the wandering spirits drifted close when she sang.   Sometimes, Rowan left to fulfill his duties in his own realm, but he always returned with gifts for her. The time between was never long. By the rites of the forest and the Hollow Court, they were bound — soul to soul, light to shadow.   Peace did not last. Shadows beyond the Hollow Court grew vicious and restless, whispering through the trees. More and more, Rowan found himself listening to rumors of the Dae walking among mortals. He had hunted them before and slain them in his own lands, but the Hollow Court was different, suspended between realms. Here, she was not as strong as he.   He spent longer hours defending her and the small court He considered this place home, dividing his time between the Hollow and his stronghold in the Deep Wood at the edge of Shuanala.   “The veil is torn. I can feel it, Rowan,” Iskara said, her dark eyes alight with pain.   He gathered her against the marble column in the Court’s great hall. Night pressed against the windows and the wind stirred the silken drapes. The world beyond was fracturing. The Dae were no longer rumor; they were spilling from the Undersanctuary and wreaking havoc across the middle.   She trembled in his arms, shadow and light shifting beneath her skin. She was part spirit, part mortal, a being caught forever in the between. The moment was coming; she could feel it coursing through her veins. The shadows were tearing at her seams. She saw what he could not.   With a sudden cry, she shoved Rowan, her forest king of oak and steel, away from her. Her eyes were wide with pain and terror, her only thought to save him. To save the Forest King.   The look on his face broke her heart—shock, confusion, hurt—as the pull of the veil began to devour her.   “I love you... please,” she gasped, reaching toward him, her voice breaking. “Don’t forget me.”   He felt her agony through the bond. When she pushed him away, the pain hit like fire. The tearing began—a rift through his very soul. His heart shattered as the connection was ripped from his chest.

“Iskara, no!” he cried, voice raw and shaking with her pain. In a desperate act, he reached into the depths of his magic, calling on the wild power of the Deep Woods. Roots of ancient oak wound around her fading form, tethering what remained.   When the veil sealed, only her bones remained. Her lovely bones. Her heart still beat within ribcage, bound to him, while her soul was lost beyond the rift. Her hair fell in moonlit shades from the crown of her skull. Only empty sockets remained where her beautiful eyes had once watched him. Rowan lifted her bones gently; she was so light now. Tears fell freely, his beloved Iskara was still tethered to him. He could feel her, faint but there.   With reverent care, he set her upon the throne. His hand trembled as he caressed her glittering mandible, tracing the remnants of what had been his queen.   Wasting no time, he drew his knife and cut into his forearm, spilling blood across the white marble. It soaked into the veins of the tiles, and as the crimson spread, he began to speak in the ancient tongue of the forest. From his blood, the Sanguinious Blooderflies rose, birthed anew in grief and devotion.   His eyes burned molten red as he whispered to them, “Find her pieces. Feed her. Keep her alive.”   The Blooderflies took flight, their newly formed wings glimmering as they scattered into the night—bloody harbingers of life.   Rowan turned back to her. He kissed her as he once had flesh, pressing his lips to cold bone. Slowly, her hand lifted, skeletal fingers curling weakly toward him. He took it in his, gazing at the delicate ivory lines.   “Iskara,” he murmured. “I will never leave you. I will hunt down every piece of you until you are whole again.”   He kissed her bones one last time and laid her hand upon the marble armrest of her throne, a gesture both sacred and final.   “There is no place you can hide from me,” he said.   Then he turned and walked away, the Blooderflies rising in his wake—letters of love and open wounds of grief.