I’ve known pain. Lived in it. Survived it. Seven years of it since the day my mother placed that lock on my powers.
But this… this feels like dying.
My hand shoots out, gripping something solid—rough skin beneath my fingers, warm and real. The scent rushes over me, a different one. Spiced bourbon and dark chocolate.
Kieran.
I gasp, air slicing down my throat like nails. My ears ring, high-pitched and deafening, until I swear the world is splitting apart. Heat trickles down my face—blood maybe, I don’t know.
And then it hits me.
White-hot agony tears through me, folding my body in half like I’ve been hit by a wrecking force. Bones snap—ribs, spine, arms—one brutal crack after another. My muscles seize, locking me in place, and I can’t fight it. All I can do is endure as my body fractures from the inside out, pain consuming every inch of me.
There’s no sound. Only a suffocating, hollow silence.
And in that silence…something inside me splinters—and breaks me completely.
Chapter 30
RAVENA
The air hung thick—choking, heavy with the acrid sting of smoke and the sharp bite of blood. Candlelight flickered feebly against the towering bookshelves; their soft gold was swallowed by the crushing dark pressing in on the grand hall. Velvet-draped windows loomed like the silent sentinels, their heavy fabric swaying just enough to whisper secrets into the waiting void.
Then I saw her.
A younger Vespera—barely nineteen—stood in the centre of the room. Her dark robes hung flawlessly, flowing like spilt ink, threaded with silver runes that pulsed faintly with some unseen power. Her hair, longer than it is now, had been styled with meticulous care… a sharp contrast to the smears of blood slashed across her face.
It streaked her pale skin in cruel, crimson trails—across her cheekbones, tracing the sharp line of her jaw, staining the soft curve of her lips. But she wasn’t trembling. She wasn’t crying.
She was smiling.
Across the hall, a woman lay crumpled at the base of the grand staircase—her once-regal gown torn and clinging to her in blood-soaked shreds. One shaking hand weakly against the gaping wound in her side, her breath shallow and broken. Even in agony, there was something fierce in her—soft features taut with pain, short brown hair plastered to her damp skin.
But it was her eyes that made my stomach knot.
Piercing green. The same shade as my mother's.
Vespera's mother.
The air throbbed with raw, twisted magic—suffocating, clinging to my skin like rot. Even the walls seemed to hum with it… ancient, tainted, and wrong.
“You have to stop this…” the woman rasped, her voice a frayed whisper, clinging to life by a thread.
Vespera stepped forward, her heels clicking softly against the marble. Her head tilted, eyes dark and expression unreadable. No triumph. No regret.
Just ice. Detached and merciless.
“Stop?” she echoed, a faint curl at the corner of her mouth. “You taught me to be powerful. To take whatever I want. And now you beg me to stop?”
The woman coughed, crimson staining her lips. “I taught you to lead… not destroy.”
Vespera lowered herself with chilling ease, ignoring the mess around her. Her gloved fingers drifted over the dagger lodged in her mother’s ribs, tracing its hilt with a slow, surgical precision that seemed to warp the air around them. With her other hand, she drew a second blade—sleek, wickedly sharp. Its deep violet hilt shimmered faintly, silver stars glinting along the middle.
My dagger.
“You always said power belongs to those strong enough to seize it,” Vespera murmured calmly. “I’m just honouring your lessons, mother.”
With a swift, merciless thrust, the dagger sank deep into her mother’s heart. A ragged gasp tore free, her body convulsing, fingers grasping weakly at Vesperas's wrist —then stillness.
