Page 201 of A Reign of Chromes & Shadows

He remembered the name.

The last Rainbow Monarch.

His ancestor.

He had just witnessed her birth or the beginning of it, before the vision twisted into prophecy.

He was certain the dream had been a true vision up until the creepy baby.

He shivered.

A clear image still hovered behind his eyelids; he fought a blink as though the very action alone would pull him back under.

The first vision he’d ever had of Skylar resurfaced; the Gods showing her as a child, delivering a riddle, warning of darkness yet to come.

Now, the pieces were aligning.

The iridescent Aetherchrome.

The shadowed vines.

The newborn’s plea.

Skylar’s prophecy.

The connection crystallised; sharp, undeniable, terrifying.

Something was coming.

Something ancient.

Something hungry.

Something tied to him.

And Rain knew he needed answers.

Before the darkness reached him too.

He jerked upright, breath catching in his throat as the remnants of the dream snapped into place like shards of glass forming a single, terrible image.

Skylar wasn’t alone.

She had been born alongside a twin; a brother whose death now pulsed at the centre of the vision like a rotten core. A brother whose existence, and demise, were somehow entwined with the shadowed corruption devouring the Aetherchrome.

Rain’s pulse hammered as he recited the riddle aloud, dragging it from memory with new, chilling clarity.

“The birth of the royal rose twinned with the shadowed seed,

Twisted at root; it should have been destroyed.

In mourning’s grip, you cursed the source.”

He finally understood the beginning.

Skylar—the royal rose.

Beloved. Celebrated. The last Rainbow Queen.