███████████ stood in the throne room, surrounded by daemons.
His eyes—no longer sapphire, now burning crimson—stared at nothing.
The grimoire lay open before him. Pages turning themselves. Whispers filling the air with promises of power.
The Guardians stood at the edges of the room. Watching. Helpless.
They could not disobey. They could not intervene. He had not commanded them to act.
And so they watched their King fall.
[WARNING: Timeline becomes unstable]
[Multiple witnesses report different versions of what happened next]
I stepped forward.
Not because he commanded it. Not because I was bound by the essence he used to create me.
But because I chose to.
"My King."
My voice cut through the whispers. The grimoire's pages stopped turning.
His crimson eyes focused on me—█████████, Guardian Queen, first among the 147.
"What are you doing?" His voice was wrong. Layered. As if something else spoke through him.
"Saving you."
[TELARIA'S TESTIMONY - Recorded centuries later]
"I felt it the moment she made the choice. The fabric of Order itself shifted."
"Free will exercised within a system designed to prevent it."
"It was... beautiful."
I reached for the grimoire.
The Eldritch magic lashed out—darkness trying to consume me, corrupt me, destroy me.
But I was made from ███████████'s essence. The same essence now being poisoned by the book.
If the corruption could flow from book to King...
Then it could flow from King to Guardian.
I placed my hands on the grimoire.
And I pulled the darkness into myself.
[PHYSIOLOGICAL READINGS: Subject experiencing catastrophic essence corruption]
[Recommendation: Immediate termination]
[Override: Subject refuses to stop]
The pain was beyond description.
Every fiber of my being screamed as Eldritch corruption poured through me. My vision blurred. My magic fractured.
But I could see his eyes.
Crimson bleeding back to sapphire. Clarity returning. Horror dawning as he realized what I was doing.
"Stop," he whispered. "Please. Sapphrine, stop."
I smiled.
"The only way to counter Chaos is with Order."
"But it will require much more work and sacrifice than that of Chaos."
I took all of it. Every drop of corruption. Every whisper of madness.
And when there was nothing left to take...
I shattered.
[RENALDO'S TESTIMONY - Recorded immediately after]
"She should have died. The corruption should have killed her instantly."
"But Guardians are created from their King's essence. They cannot truly die while he lives."
"So instead, she broke. Fractured into pieces. Scattered across the dimension."
"Huh. She found a loophole."
What happened to Sapphrine's fragments?
Want to know Sapphrine's full story?
Her awakening. Her love. Her three years of happiness. The war. The corruption. The sacrifice that shattered her soul.
READ THE GUARDIAN QUEEN'S STORY