She sat upon the Iron Throne, her posture rigid—not out of discipline, but because she could no longer bend. The contamination had won. Her skin had turned entirely to a dark, iridescent obsidian, cracking where the joints met. Her eyes were open, staring at nothing, glazed over with a milky film.

Not the city of stone and steel and cathedral spires. The other city. The one beneath. The warren of catacombs and sewers and forgotten foundations. She saw the roots of the city—not tree roots, but something else. Veins. Arteries. The city was not built on soil. The city was built on something that had been sleeping.

The body is a resilient thing, but it is not a fortress; it is a sponge. Elara felt the change first in her teeth. One morning, the sharp incisor she used to tear meat felt loose, a creaking hinge in her jaw. She pressed her tongue against it and tasted copper, then ash. When the tooth fell out onto her pillow, it was not white, but black—a jagged little monolith of decay.

The darkness answered. Not in words. In memory .

In her lap, her hands clutched the royal seal, but the fingers had fused together, melting into the gold. There was no distinction left between the ruler and the instrument of her power. She had become the throne: cold, hard, and lifeless.

In a world where pollution and contamination are rampant, even the most majestic and revered figures are not immune to their devastating effects. The queen, a symbol of power, elegance, and refinement, is no exception. As the pervasive influence of contamination seeps into her life, it threatens to corrupt not only her body but also her soul.