The Queen of the Underverse - Chapter 24
- Donovan Evans-Foto Dono
- Dec 15
- 15 min read
A Note from Foto Dono: So it's official - Book 1 final version has been uploaded. No more revisions can be done. Dotted T's and crossed I's are permanent. I'm sure there is something else I missed, but it will release officially on Dec 15th. Thank you to everyone who helped me with beta reading. Also, thank you to everyone who encouraged me to continue.
So… it’s been a long six months working on this project, and somehow, I've crossed the finish line. Honestly, it’s something I never thought I would actually complete. There were moments I wondered why I decided to publish what started as a personal, fun story I was writing for my son.
There’s a lot of me in this book. Every character is a shard of me—some obvious, some… well, hidden behind questionable life choices and cosmic nonsense. But the one I relate to the most is Rebecca. Which is funny, considering she gets put through the wringer.
What does that say about me?
You can find the book available on Amazon here. https://a.co/d/gxn61Ai
Previously on The Queen of the Underverse…
Lyrie chose to stay behind, freeing the remaining Memory Orphans. Chalky and S’Rah, left with no good options, improvised a plan to save Rebecca. Sometimes a plan is just waiting and hoping it holds.
Then there are the plans you don’t survive unchanged.
Ye saga continues…
Book 1 - The Queen's Saga - Chapter 24 - We Break Promises, Memories Break Us
S’Rah looked at Becks, bound to the “comfy” chair, as Kai called it. She looked terrible. She was unconscious. Asher still had her hands tied behind her, and Kai seemed to be nursing his arm. They were standing nearby, off to the side. She could almost reach her.
Kai slapped Becks. “Wake up! I’ve got a surprise for you!”
“Stop that! Leave her alone!” S’Rah saw Becks’ head tilt back and forth.
Kai ignored her and looked at Asher. “Well, that memory, or whatever that was, knocked her out.”
“Do you want me to collect her now?” Asher asked, holding his hand over S’Rah, and she winced.
“No, not yet.” Kai looked at Becks as if he were sizing up a juicy steak. “We still have an hour here. Let’s see if she wakes up first.”
S’Rah looked at her friend and asked, “Can I tend to her?”
Kai looked at Becks, licking his lips. “Hmm… oh, hell no. The Human is fine where she is. You need to be silent.” He turned to S’Rah. “You may be a memory, but you can still bleed and feel pain—before I need you.”
The door to the room swung open, and a Memory Merchant entered.
“Look, I know you still have at least an hour left, but there have been complaints…” His voice faded. “What the hell is going on here?”
Kai sighed. “This is not a good time. I’m still busy.”
“Busy? Busy! It seems like you’re tormenting someone at the Memory Farm.”
“Well, that’s why I’m so busy.”
“Look, you need to take that somewhere else.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No, I don’t.”
“This is damn irregular; Auntie Myne would never have approved of this.”
“What you’re saying is she didn’t like to torture?”
“No, I’m saying she would disapprove of torture on the premises.”
S’Rah realized no one was paying attention to her. She was just a silly memory, after all—tied up and helpless. She could feel firecloak moving beneath her clothes. It reached the leather bonds around her wrists.
Asher was smiling as he stepped in front of S’Rah, watching Kai and the Merchant argue.
She sensed the firecloak weaving beneath the bonds, subtly widening them until her hands slipped free. With deft precision, the firecloak coiled the loosened restraints around the chair’s free arm, making sure they didn’t hang loosely.
S’Rah was partly hidden by Asher’s body, and she reached over to try to loosen the bonds holding Becks. There were sigils in the black straps fastening her to the chair. Abyss, take me, why sigils? She reached out—it was like touching liquid shadows—but she pulled. She could feel firecloak wrap around her hand, trying to help her.
Then she heard a voice from across the room. “And just what do you think you’re doing?”
She turned and saw Kai, Asher, and the Memory Merchant staring at her. They overlooked the small bit of firecloak peeking out from under her sleeve.
“Ahhh…” She stared back at them.
“You think you’re clever, little ghost? You free her, and what then?” Kai shook his head.
“You run? You fight me? You bleed all over this floor together?” He mocked her with sincerity.
“You thought you’d get her out? That I wouldn’t notice? Gods, you’re adorable.” He sighed, smiling and giving her his widest grin, showing all his teeth.
“I mean, Asher would have stomped you for sure.”
Asher smiled at her. “Yep.”
“Maybe I’ll keep you both.” Kai chuckled. “One for screaming, one for show.” Kai crossed his arms, looking at her like a parent scolding a child. “Was there a plan? Or did you just hope I’d pity you?”
“Distraction?” S’Rah said hopefully.
“Distraction?” He repeated, brow furrowing—then the sound snapped behind him like fate answering.
“Distraction,” Chalky said from behind him.
A few minutes ago…
Chalky was lurking outside the warehouse, and the glyph tracker blinked faster and faster. She was alone. Lyrie had stayed behind to make sure the rest of the younglings reached safety.
There were several buildings along this path on the edge of the Memory Farm Complex. They all appeared to be storage and warehouse structures. She muttered to herself, “Why do I always end up in fights in warehouses?”
She noticed a Memory Merchant walking along the path, striding confidently. It did not look happy. “Of course, it entered the same building I needed to enter,” she muttered again. She took out the ManaShard pistol and looked inside her mana pool.
When she claimed to be magic, she wasn’t joking. She was made of living marble. However, she didn’t have an infinite supply, but she could—with the help of the pistol—turn the shards into mana converters. Whatever the shards hit was transformed into mana, and the object they struck disappeared in light and smoke. If she happened to be nearby, she could absorb it and recharge.
“Okay, time to go for your brave, Chalky,” she tried to boost her courage. Lyrie called her a badass warrior, but in the warehouse, there was some version of the Dente Nocturn. She needed all the courage she could get.
She carefully opened the door, and she could hear voices inside. She was able to hide behind some crates near the door when someone said,
“This is damn irregular; Auntie Myne would never have signed off on this.” That was probably the Memory Merchant.
“What you’re saying is she didn’t like to torture.” Okay, that’s Kai.
“No, I’m saying she would disapprove of torture on the premises.”
They went quiet for a moment, and she peeked over the top. The Merchant, Kai, and Asher were staring at S’Rah, who had somehow gotten loose while trying to free an unconscious Rebecca strapped to a chair. Rebecca looked like she had been dragged through hell.
Kai was taunting S’Rah, and everyone was watching her. Chalky had a perfect chance to catch them off guard. The Merchant, unfortunately, was blocking her way. Well, she thought, I can fix that.
She snuck up behind the Merchant, and she saw that S’Rah noticed her, but she didn’t say anything. Good girl.
Kai was standing there with his back to Chalky and his arms crossed in front of him. He was gloating at S’Rah. “Was there a plan? Or did you just hope I’d pity you?”
S’Rah said in the most perfect deadpan voice, “Distraction?”
Chalky grabbed the Merchant around the mouth and the top of his head. He struggled briefly.
Kai asked—he seemed dumbfounded—“Distraction?”
She snapped the Merchant’s neck, and he crumpled to the floor. Chalky said, “Distraction,” and leveled the ManaShard pistol at Kai.
Chalky saw Kai turn, and Asher flinched. Inside, she was terrified, but she remained calm and fired at a crate next to Kai. There was a whooshing noise, and it came apart in a flash of light, smoke, and mana.
She had it leveled back at Kai. “I’ll dust your boss with the next one if you don’t let her go now.”
Kai raised his hands and smiled. “Asher, I think we need to cut our losses.”
Chalky fired, and darkness shot out from Kai’s hands. There was another whoosh with a bright flash, followed by smoke, but no mana—and Kai was still standing. Schist!
She ran for cover and yelled for S’Rah and firecloak to do the same. “Keep her covered, firecloak!”
Kai ducked behind another line of crates. She fired at the crates, and one of them disappeared in light and smoke. She shouted, “You can’t hide behind those forever!”
Kai popped up, and tendrils shot out from his hands; a crate next to her shattered. “We’ll see who runs out first!”
Every time she poked her head out and took a shot, she looked for S’Rah. I hope she doesn’t try anything.
Finally, she saw her. She was fighting Asher. Wonderful. She saw firecloak reach out and fight with her like a third arm. It was still wrapped around her, but it had a small appendage with a round ball at the end. Way to go, firecloak. Another crate shattered nearby.
She heard Kai shout, “Quit fooling around, Asher! Collect her and kill the Human. Don’t make me tell you twice.”
Asher smiled at S’Rah and said, “Right, but he didn’t specify the order I should start.” He pulled out a knife and swung at S’Rah, who jumped back. However, Asher quickly turned and charged at Rebecca.
S’Rah shouted, “Becks!” and chased after Asher. She could feel Firecloak tensing around her, getting ready to attack. No! She’s mine. He can’t have her. Firecloak reached out and was able to grab the nimble Asher.
Asher snarled and spun around, only a few feet from Rebecca. “Well, I guess you can go first,” he said, grabbing S’Rah’s shirt and bringing the knife toward her. Firecloak was quicker, and the ball struck his hand hard, knocking the knife from his grasp. Despite this, Asher held S’Rah tightly. “Once you’re gone, she’s next.”
Chalky ducked behind her quickly disappearing crates. I need one clear shot. It was like a deadly guessing game to see who would pop up next. Rockslide this! She fired at the crate in front of her and saw Kai standing over one of his; she fired again before the smoke cleared.
Kai blindly fired back while he dove, missing Chalky and shattering a chunk of the wall behind her.
Chalky saw that Asher was behind S’Rah and had wrapped one arm around her neck, the crook of his elbow positioned under her chin. Firecloak was bashing Asher in the side of his smiling face. “No! S’Rah!”
Firecloak gave up on Asher’s face and formed a barrier around S’Rah’s neck, then shaped a sharper point on her back that shoved into Asher’s stomach. He loosened his grip, but he didn’t let go.
S’Rah gasped for air. She turned and saw Rebecca’s eyes flutter. “Becks!”
Rebecca looked over at her. “S’Rah?” Her eyes could barely focus. People are fighting?
Then S’Rah felt the Gem. Asher activated it. She thrashed savagely in Asher’s grip, stomped on his feet, and bit the hand holding her, ripping his skin. Firecloak also increased its attacks, pulling the hand holding her away. It stretched itself to stop the other hand from touching her.
“It’s time,” was all that Asher said.
Both S’Rah and firecloak lashed back at the same time, hitting Asher in the chin and knocking him back. He let her go. She fell forward, and as she did, she felt a slight touch across her shoulder. It was a light touch. No!
“I got you,” Asher smiled.
Firecloak spread across her whole body this time. It was dangerously thin. She could feel it trying to contain her—trying to prevent the inevitable. I thought I would have had more. She turned to Rebecca. “No, you don’t. She’s got me.” She ran to her friend. She ran to Becks.
Rebecca opened her eyes and saw S’Rah in Asher’s grip as he was about to collect her. Her heart stopped. S’Rah looked back at her, and she renewed her struggle, biting into the hand like a savage beast. Asher screamed and let go, but his other hand still grazed S’Rah.
S’Rah rushed to Rebecca. She was glowing, beginning to disappear, but she was smiling at her. She touched her face. “I belong with you, Becks.” Then all that was S’Rah flowed into Rebecca.
She could feel the warmth, love, and everything that was S’Rah in her. It was the memories she had collected in her short life that had now become a part of her. They were also giving her power. It was like she was being set on fire in her core. As a massive buildup, it needed a direction—something to contain it.
The firecloak—S’Rah—had been hidden on her body, and it rode the energy of S’Rah as if infused with it. It settled once more on Rebecca and bonded with her. It didn’t ask for permission. It knew if it waited for her to understand what had happened, it would be too late—too late for her and too late for what Asher had just done. Firecloak didn’t understand grief, but it understood what it must protect. It had failed. And firecloak was angry.
The red lines and patterns snapped on her skin. It was like they had never parted.
Rebecca felt an incredible amount of power coursing through her, further enhanced by firecloak. She stared at Asher, who held his bleeding hand. Kai and Chalky had stopped and stared at her. Her eyes were blazing.
Words appeared on her hands: Kill Asher. Kill Kai.
“You took the words right out of my mouth, firecloak.” She stood up. The bonds on the chair broke as if they were made of paper. She wasn’t in pain anymore; she was ready to inflict it.
Rebecca was angry.
Chalky could feel the rage radiating off her. The energy S’Rah infused with her and the re-bonded firecloak, Chalky, was a bit freaked out.
Rebecca held Asher’s hands in one of hers. Chalky could hear Asher’s bones break. She placed her other hand on the Gem embedded in his chest and then tore it out of him.
Asher screamed as he fell to the floor, and small black tendrils were twisting in his wound.
She kicked him like a rag doll, and he hit the wall with a thud. He didn’t move. She tucked the Gem in her pants.
Kai stared at her. “You’re not Dorthy. You’re not even a shadow of her. What the Abyss are you?”
Rebecca said, “I’m your fucking nightmare.” She ripped up the chair from the floor Kai had lashed her to and threw it at him. Kai ducked. He jumped over the body of the Memory Merchant and ran out the door.
She stared at Chalky. “Rebecca?”
Rebecca’s eyes were blazing red, and she noticed Chalky for the first time. “The rest of the children, the younglings — are they safe?”
“Lyrie is getting them to safety.”
“Why are you here?”
“I came to rescue you.”
She looked at the Memory Merchant on the floor. “You killed him?”
“Yes.”
“Good. We might have to kill a few more if they get in my way. I’m going to kill Kai.”
She stepped out of the room and into the hallway. She looked around for him.
“You can run, Kai, but you can’t hide. I’m going to bring this whole place down on your head. Then we’ll count how many teeth you have left.”
She saw Kai standing at the end of the hallway, muttering to himself. “That’s not Dorthy. That’s not a Candidate. Abyss take me, that’s a conduit.”
“I’m a furious motherfucker, and you stole my S’Rah’s life!” she roared, her fury crackling through the air as Kai turned and bolted.
Kai was spent from his fight with Chalky; he had a little power left, but he thought it best to hold it in reserve. He didn’t have unlimited power in the Underverse. He had access to his power through the holes that had been punched, but those were small. Plus, this body could only contain so much. It took a lot to maintain Asher and his body. No, it was best to run and hide. He could live to kill another day.
She sprinted, gripping the Gemstone snatched from Asher, knuckles white with desperation. Through its pulsing core, she sensed memories etched into the very lights, walls, and shadows of the Memory Farm surge into her mind—whispers of anguish and despair.
Unlike the younglings’ faint echoes, these were tormented souls, ensnared within a relentless machine, their essence siphoned until nothing remained.
Her fingers met the wall, and the memories roared through her—channeled by the Gem ablaze with green and orange pulses. Agony and fury slammed into her senses, raw and unyielding. It was as if a dam had shattered: the flood unbound, crashing toward Rebecca and the Gem with unstoppable force.
Their whispers promised salvation, echoing with the dark allure of understanding her wrath. The Gem surged with magnetic force, pulling in the restless memories that haunted the Farm. Like a storm contained within, their energy flowed through the Gem, pouring into her in a steady, relentless rhythm.
She chased Kai through the labyrinthine halls. The corridor curved left—narrow, ribbed with glass conduits that hummed underfoot as memories flared along the ceiling vents. With the memories guiding her, there was no place he could hide.
A Memory Merchant stepped out and brandished an arcane weapon. Rebecca saw her scrawl a sigil in the air—too slow.
She raised the Gemstone, and the firecloak focused through it. Heat blossomed along her arm, bright and arterial, before leaping outward. The blast consumed the Merchant, and Rebecca ran past without slowing.
She smiled.
The memories whispered: Help us tear this place apart, and you can have your revenge too.
She passed rooms where the walls leaked living light. Caged memories, finally free, streamed into her through the Gem.
Chalky couldn’t keep up. She saw the Gem devouring every echo she and Lyrie had faced to reach this place. Rebecca was becoming brighter by the moment—less woman, more conduit.
Rebecca grabbed a chair. Flames chewed through the floor tiles; the air stung of metal and smoke. The moment her fingers closed, the wood caught fire. She hurled it at Kai. It struck his shoulder and seared straight through cloth and flesh.
Black smoke hissed from the wound instead of blood—smoke that writhed like living ink.
He staggered but didn’t fall. “You’re just another failed vessel,” he rasped, voice metallic and layered. “Burning out faster than the last.”
The fire in his wound flared blue. He looked at it, baffled—and for the first time, afraid. “No... not Dorthy.” His voice cracked, disbelief edging into horror. “Not a candidate—she’s the conduit.” The words left him like a calculation he’d checked too late. His shadow peeled away, twisting up the wall in panic.
Rebecca’s next step made the floor tremble.
The shadow turned to flee before the body did.
Kai clutched his smoking arm, the skin fracturing like glass. “Impossible,” he hissed. “I am the constant.” Then realization hit—she was the equation rewriting itself.
More and more power flooded the Gem, and through it, her. Cursing the Memory Market, the Farm, and every Merchant, she pressed on.
Merchants tried to bar her path. She raised the Gem and sent fireball after fireball; each blast hurled bodies aside like paper. She didn’t look back.
Kai stumbled into one of the field rooms. Rebecca smiled as the memories whispered what to do. She shoved all that furious energy back into the Gem. The suspended gems began to spin and glow, blue arcs snapping between them. The whole room trembled.
When Rebecca lifted Asher’s Gem, the air folded in on itself. Kai looked at her one last time—at the thing he had tried to measure and failed. “Fine,” he said, almost tender. “Break me, then. Maybe I’ll understand.”
The Gem flared.
The scream that followed wasn’t human. It was mathematical—an equation tearing itself in half.
The light consumed everything. For a heartbeat, his body shattered into glass; then even the pieces forgot what shape they were supposed to have. His shadow, caught mid-flight on the wall, burned away into nothing.
Rebecca hurled the Gem—now blazing white—and the compressed storm inside it detonated.
It was fundamental physics: when you cram a universe into something small enough, it remembers how to explode.
Kai saw the Gem’s arc, heard the chorus of freed memories screaming their revenge—and then came another flash and heat.
The firecloak flared and folded around Rebecca, shielding her from the blast as Chalky dove behind a massive column. The stone buckled like ribs, shedding plaster—it screamed as it split. The whole complex groaned, a dying animal of stone and light.
When the tremors eased, she looked up. Rebecca lay amid the debris, firecloak collapsing back into her chest like a breath drawn in reverse.
Chalky ran to her side. She was still breathing—S’Rah’s power pulsed faintly under her skin. It sounded almost like a heartbeat—but slower, fading.
Chalky turned toward what remained of the memory field room. The roof was gone, the walls shoved outward as if the air itself had screamed. Shattered Gems littered the floor; their freed energy arced skyward in blue veins of lightning, leaping from building to building.
In the distance, more detonations answered—the entire Farm fracturing, crying itself apart.
“Oh, Rebecca… what have you done?” Chalky whispered.
Rebecca’s eyes opened. Still red—not with rage now, but with grief.
“I promised her I’d smack their asses,” she said, voice breaking. Then she began to sob. She’d meant Kai. She’d meant everyone who took and sold memories. But the words hurt anyway—because she’d broken every other promise.
Rebecca’s eyes closed. Through the trembling in her chest, she could almost hear the hum of her suit again—the soft hiss of recycled air, the pulse of a heart slowed by vacuum. Her family’s voices seemed to echo through that same hollow silence, distant and overlapping with the keening of the firecloak.
The firecloak shimmered across her skin and cried for her, a wail of light that bent the air like static over a radio channel long gone dead.
Chalky knelt, gathered her close, and stroked her hair as the girl shook against her. She looked around at the smoldering bodies, the shredded field, the faint rain of falling crystal. Fires spread in distant corridors, tiny suns blooming one by one.
“You kept your promise,” she murmured.
Above them, the storm of memory light climbed higher, fading into the dark ceiling of the cavern. For a heartbeat, it looked like the stars had returned—then even they flickered out, leaving the same vast hush she’d known in orbit.
For a long moment, there was only silence—the heavy kind that follows miracles and disasters alike.
Then, far beneath the ruin, something darker than shadow twitched once, remembering what pain felt like.
––To be continued
Next Time on The Queen of the Underverse…
An Interlude and an Epilogue
Click here to buy ➡️ BOOK ONE now available – I’d love your honest thoughts on story flow and overall reader experience.
© 2025 Donnavon Evans
December 15, 2025
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