Page 1 of Fallen Heir

Prologue

I’m staring at a woman I don’t recognize. She looks familiar enough, yet her face seems hollow—a mirror of the pain she’s lived through. Her eyes, though, still hold a small sliver of life. Just enough for me to believe there’s hope. Or maybe it’s just the smallest spark of my own hope for her.

She’s the spitting image of her mother. Except she’s broken. Lost.

The lines beginning to form around her eyes, the dark circles beneath her emerald irises, betray her inability to sleep. Her face is ghostly white. Her body—one that seems to have forgotten what it feels like to be nourished—screams the quiet tragedy of her life.

She’s too young for this. Too young to be lost. Too young to be broken in a way no one should ever have to endure.

Vivid bruising marks her skin, a patchwork of color that tells the story of abuse far deeper than the surface. The bruises cover her body, overlapping old wounds. Cuts ragged and raw line her face—some healing, some still fresh. Her arms are dotted with makeshift bandages, wrapped with the kind of care that only desperation provides.

She did them herself. Her own remedy to survive.

The room around her is still, eerily silent. A flickering lamp buzzes in the corner, casting dull shadows across cracked tile and faded walls. She sits motionless, barely breathing, as if even the weight of her lungs is too much to carry.

I try to clean the wounds on her arm, dabbing alcohol onto the cloth and pressing it gently to her skin. Bubbles rise. It should sting. But she doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t even blink.

She’s too far gone. Numb, it seems, to everything except the fear of breaking.

I lift her shirt to see the bruising across her abdomen—angry purples and deep blues that hide likely broken ribs. Gashes pulled together with some type of glue. My throat tightens.

I know what pain looks like. This is more than pain. This is the agony of a woman fighting not to die, while still not knowing how to fight in order to live.

She wasn’t always like this.

There was a time, not long ago, when laughter still danced at the corners of her mouth. When she believed in love. Believed in promises. Before the night everything changed. Before she stood at her parents' funeral wondering why something felt wrong.

They told her it was a car accident. Quick. Painless.

But it didn’t feel quick. And it certainly didn’t feel painless.

Because after that, he changed.

The man who promised to love her began breaking her piece by piece. First with words. Then with silence. Then with fists.

I stare at her, silently begging her to give me something. A flicker of life. A scream. Anything. But she just stares back, empty.

She shifts slightly, and the back of her shirt rides up just enough to expose what the mirror can’t hide—

Her back.

A cruel collection of wounds run across it, some still angry and red, others jagged and gnarled from healing without stitches. A brutal tapestry of survival. The kind of marks that told stories no one wanted to hear. The kind that burned long after the bruises faded.

She doesn’t look at them.

But I do.

I look back to her face, willing her to give me some sign that she’s still in there. Some sign that she wants to live.

And then I see it.

Around her neck—barely clinging to the fragile rise and fall of her collarbone—is a delicate chain. A small, gold S-shaped charm dangles from it, resting just above the worst of the bruising.

I hadn’t noticed it before. But now, I can’t look away.

It’s the same necklace her mother used to wear.

I reach for it, my fingers brushing against the cool metal—and something shifts. The fog lifts.