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Elora’s hand grasped weakly at my arm, and her eyes, still bright with fight even as her life slipped away, pleaded with me. She couldn’t speak, but I heard her anyway. Don’t give up.

My throat clenched. Closed.

My entire world, everything , was crumbling around me, thread by thread. If I lost them, there would be nothing left of me. Nothing left to fight for.

The goddess may as well have struck me herself, for surely this torment was divine punishment. I was powerless, my strength meaningless, and the realization was a dagger in my chest.

The sea inside me screamed.

I summoned my magic, my palms glowing with a feverish, frantic light. Their blood rose with my call, curling like threads around my fingers as I forced every shred of power into healing.

It wasn’t enough.

The effort ripped through me, pain like fire in my veins, but I didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop . I would bleed myself dry if it meant saving them. I pressed against Elora’s wounds first, coaxing the blood to knit her flesh, to stitch the torn pieces of her back together.

“Stay with me,” I whispered through clenched teeth. “You’re my sister, my other half. I can’t lose you too. I won’t survive it.”

One by one, I knit her wounds back together with trembling hands, my breath hitching in my throat.

The magic burned through me like fire underwater, unforgiving, but I didn’t stop.

I couldn’t. Every time her blood bubbled to the surface, I pressed harder, screamed louder in my mind.

Heal. Please, gods, heal . I shook, my vision dimming, spots of darkness creeping in at the edges, my body screaming in protest, but I kept going.

“I need you,” I whispered to them both. “Don’t go. Not yet. Not like this.”

Elora drew in a sharp breath, her chest rising in the barest, almost imperceptible movements.

“Thank you.”

I slumped forward, forehead resting against her shoulder, the smallest gasp leaving me. Not relief. Not really. It felt like I was falling apart cell by cell, barely stitched together by my desperation .

This wasn’t pain. It was devastation . And I was already drowning in it.

I turned to my grandmother.

Her breathing—so shallow, so fragile—was a countdown I couldn’t stop.

“No, no, no,” I whispered, crawling to her side, slipping in the blood that painted the water like ink.

With my palms pressed to her chest, the green light sparking from them, a weak and flickering.

I shoved more magic into her, dragging it from places I didn’t know I could reach.

My bones screamed, lungs ached. My power strained under the weight of her injuries.

Her blood coated my fingers. Hot. Slick. Wrong.

“Please, Grandma, don’t leave me too.” I begged, barely hearing my own voice. It was thin. Hollow. Not enough. The glow from my hands faltered, sputtering like a dying star. Her body was resisting me. Or maybe… maybe it was already letting go.

“Don’t do this,” I whispered, leaning over her, teeth clenched. “Don’t you dare.”

Her eyes fluttered open, dull, but still hers, and for a moment, the world paused.

“Remember, child…” Her voice was a thread unraveling, but still lined with steel. “You are the queen this kingdom needs…”

“No. Stop. Don’t speak,” I croaked, shaking my head. My tears fell, mingling with hers. “Save your strength. Please, just…just hold on.”

Her hand, light as a feather, touched mine. I clung to it like a lifeline.

“It’s not your fault,” she said, her breath hitching painfully. “Do not blame yourself.” Her fingers squeezed, barely perceptible. “My sweet child… I’ve always loved you. I always will.”

A sound, raw and broken, tore from my chest. I didn’t recognize it as my own .

Then, her eyes closed.

I waited.

One second. Two. Five.

Nothing.

“No,” I breathed, panic crashing down on me like a wave. “No, no, no!” I shook her gently, then harder. “Don’t leave me! You can’t…you can’t do this to me!”

I pressed my palms to her chest again, forcing more magic out. It sparked. Flickered. Then died. My power had nothing left to give.

She was still.

My scream didn’t echo. It ripped through the room. I crumpled over her, fists clutching her lifeless form, the cold sinking into my skin like a curse. All I could feel was the emptiness she left behind. The air itself felt heavier. My lungs refused to work. My heart was a fist clenched too tight.

I had saved one… only to lose the other.

And now, with her warmth fading under my fingers, I knew one thing with unbearable clarity.

I wasn’t enough. I had failed her.

And I would never be whole again.

It hit me all at once. No warning, no mercy.

Like a heavy piece of stone crashing straight into my chest, the world buckled. The silence after her last breath was louder than any scream. My ears rang, vision blurred. My lungs refused to expand.

She’s gone.

My mind clung to the words, repeated them, tried to make sense of them, but they cut deeper each time they echoed.

My grandmother. My last thread of sanity.

Gone.

My heart didn’t break—it ruptured . Something cracked open inside me, something wild and suffocating. My hands clutched at my chest as if I could hold myself together, but my ribs felt shattered, my insides hollowed out. I couldn’t find my breath, couldn’t ground myself. The room tilted. Spun.

The pressure behind my eyes built until the fresh tears finally came, hot, blinding, useless.

I gasped, choking on sobs that clawed up my throat, my body convulsing with the force of them.

My hands shook uncontrollably. I curled into myself, forehead pressed against her cooling skin, trying, failing, to anchor myself to what little I had left.

My parents were already dust in memory. Now her.

And me?

I was just… floating . Untethered. A queen in name, but what did that even mean? I had no council. No family. No voice that would say you’re not alone . Only silence. And blood. And emptiness.

The burden of it all crushed down on me, grief so vast, so bottomless, it felt like drowning in ink.

I tried to pull in air, but every inhale caught short.

My throat closed. My vision tunneled. I pressed my palms to the floor, desperate for something solid, something real, but the room tilted sideways, spinning, breaking apart like everything else in my life.

My body trembled violently. Panic swelled in my chest like a scream that wouldn’t come out. My magic flared uselessly, reacting to the chaos spiraling inside me, sparking around my fingers with no direction, no control. Feral.

Breathe. Breathe.

I couldn’t.

All I felt was the absence of her voice, her warmth, her love. The emptiness roared louder than my thoughts.

An orphan. The word struck me like a blade through the ribs.

I had no one.

Not my mother’s arms, my father’s laughter. Not my grandmother’s chastising .

Nothing. Only the crushing weight of a crown that suddenly felt like a curse.

Draven’s laughter set me off of the catatonic state. It echoed like a blade across my raw, open wounds, sharp and merciless.

Applause followed, the mockery piercing through the haze of my despair. He was clapping, as if this were nothing more than some twisted comedy, as if he hadn’t just torn apart everything I had left.

The icy-hot anger burned in my veins in a mix of cool and boil. At the same time my insides were burning and freezing, my chest was tight, my throat blocked with the rising wrath at the sound.

I just lost my world, and he is laughing and clapping. All of it… all of it is a game for him, a path to seize my crown.

Rage spread in my shallow heart like tendrils of ice, solidifying through the numbness. My hands trembled, not from fear but from the force of holding myself back. My vision blurred, not with tears, but with the violent, cold haze of fury.

I wanted to scream, to destroy everything, to make him feel even a fraction of the agony ripping through me. But beneath the anger was something darker, a deep, gut-wrenching despair that whispered cruel truths.

He won.

My breath hitched as my gaze fell back to her lifeless form, her skin full of life now forever in gray hues, her once warm presence now still and cold. The fury faltered for a moment, replaced by a crushing wave of remorse.

I failed her. Failed all of them. I shouldn’t be alive. I should have died with my parents.

His laugh rose again, feeding the shards of my rage until they froze colder than ever. Slowly, I straightened, my hands curling into fists at my sides. He thinks this is over. He thinks he won.

Darkness coiled inside me, snaking through my chest and dulling the raw agony for just an instant. My body shook with the weight of despair, but that darkness, the numb, cold void, offered a bitter relief. I closed my eyes and clung to it, letting the icy stillness settle in my veins.

The noise of his laughter faded, the cruel mockery becoming a distant hum, almost as if it were happening in another world. Only one sound remained: the echo of my grandmother’s last words.

You are the queen this kingdom needs.

Something snapped inside me. Not a crack, but a full rupture, deep and intrinsic, turning into my very soul. It wasn’t sadness anymore, or despair. It was power.

It surged through my veins, unrelenting and feral, a force stronger than anything I had ever felt before. Chases away the numbness, but not in a way that brings pain. It brought clarity.

This was mine. My power. The wild, untamed strength that had always lurked beneath the surface but had eluded me when I needed it most. Now, it answered my call.

When I opened my eyes, everything was sharper—the edges of the room, the glint of the dagger still in his hand, the way his smirk faltered for just a second when he saw me rise.

The corners of my lips curl upward, but it isn’t a smile of kindness. No, this was something darker, something fierce and ruthless.

I remember every second of this nightmare and how it is my turn to make him regret ever crossing me. Now, I would be the one laughing and clapping. The one to ensure punishment.

Starting with his mother.