There was no pain.
No sensation at all.
Only black.
Not just the absence of light but sothing deeper. A velvet nothingness, weightless and infinite.
Elysia floated in it, suspended like a feather in an ocean with no surface, no floor. There was no heat, no cold, no sound.
Just the black.
It wrapped around her softly, like a lover’s embrace or a grave’s final touch. She didn’t rember falling.
Didn’t rember the blade. Only the warmth of Malvoria’s body against hersthe sll of ash and blood in the airthe desperate need to protect her.
And then nothing.
A blank canvas of endless dark.
Her breath should’ve caught in her throat. Her heart should’ve pounded. But here, she didn’t breathe. She didn’t move.
She simply... was.
At first, she thought this was death.
She waited for a voice, a gate, a tunnel of light anything.
But there was only stillness.
Until sothing shifted.
Far in the distance though what distance ant in this space was unclear she felt the ripple of movent. It wasn’t physical. It was a pull.
A sensation deep in her core, like a mory trying to resurface.
Curious, she willed herself toward it.
She didn’t walk.
She drifted.
Her feet never touched ground—there was no ground—but with each pulse of that distant sensation, the dark began to change.
Grew... thicker. Denser. Shadows within shadows. Like smoke inside a cloud, forming barely-perceptible shapes.
She squinted, and those shapes beca sothing more.
Forms.
Familiar ones.
She reached for them, hesitant. Her fingers—ethereal and shimring in this space brushed against one, and in an instant, the blackness peeled back.
Like curtains parting on a forgotten stage.
A scene flickered to life.
She stood in the old castle garden. But not as it was now. This was a mory. She recognized the soft pinks of the azalea beds she’d begged the gardener to plant one spring.
Her child-sized hands were covered in soil, her laugh high and bright. Her father stood at a distance, arms crossed but smiling. And near her watching over her like a sentinel stood Lady Seraphina.
Elysia’s breath caught.
She’d forgotten this day.
The sun, the breeze, the way Seraphina had knelt beside her and helped shape the garden rows. "A ruler knows how to nurture," she’d said. "Just as she knows how to defend."
And now... now that sa woman had raised her sword against her.
The mory fractured like glass.
And Elysia fell again.
Back into the black.
It felt colder this ti.
Lonelier.
She turned.
Another flicker.
This ti it was the halls of the human palace—her bedroom. Her teenage self standing in front of a mirror, tears in her eyes, clutching a letter from Zera.
A goodbye. A confession. A declaration of war disguised as heartbreak.
"I’m going to fix this world," the letter had said. "Even if you hate for it."
Elysia reached out to touch the parchnt—and it burned to ash.
The bedroom dissolved.
Another ripple of mory.
This ti—her wedding night in Malvoria’s castle. Cold. Terrifying. She’d tried to stab her in the middle of the night, trembling with rage and fear.
Malvoria had caught her wrist and said nothing only looked at her. And sohow, that gaze had shaken Elysia more than any words.
From blade to bed.
From war to wonder.
The way she fell in love... slowly. Against all logic. Against herself.
And now—
Now that love might’ve cost her everything.
The mories stilled.
Silence.
The dark began to shift again, this ti not peeling back, but coiling—like it was alive.
And for the first ti, Elysia felt sothing.
Fear.
Not the kind that quickened your breath.
But sothing cold. Ancient. Crawling up her spine.
Sothing watching.
"Who’s there?" she asked.
Her voice didn’t echo.
It vanished the mont it left her mouth.
No reply ca.
But sothing moved.
A swirl of violet and silver deeper in the black. Lightless, yet glowing. And then—a whisper.
Faint.
Childlike.
But so clear.
"Mom..."
Elysia froze.
The shadows stirred again.
"Mom, let help you... please?"
The voice was so small. So fragile.
Elysia turned slowly, eyes wide in the dark, searching for the shape she thought she saw moving in the swirling void.
The space around her pulsed faintly tides of mory and sothing deeper, sothing older than she understood.
The voice had co from the mist.
From that single flickering light glowing lavender in the dark.
Her throat tightened. "Who are you?"
The shadows curled tighter in response, but the child’s voice returned—gentle, full of sothing Elysia couldn’t na. Not quite hope. Not quite grief. Sothing in between.
"I can’t say much."
A pause.
"But I won’t let my mother die."
The words struck harder than any blade.
Mother.
Elysia staggered, a hand flying to her chest. She still didn’t know if this was a dream or sothing deeper—soul-deep—but her fingers trembled. Sowhere in the space between life and death, sothing impossibly sacred pulsed through her.
A thread connecting her to sothing new. Sothing growing.
Inside her.
"Is it... are you—?" she tried, but the child was already fading.
The light brightened around her—not blinding, not searing. Just warm. Gentle. Like the sun rising behind her eyelids.
And then—
Fla.
Not red, not gold.
Purple.
It spiraled from her fingertips without heat, soft and flickering, illuminating the darkness as though the void itself was afraid of it. The shadows fled. The black dissolved.
The last thing she heard before the light consud her was that sa voice, now further away, yet more certain.
"I’ll protect you too."
And then—
She breathed.
The air stung her lungs as her eyes flew open.
Smoke.
Stone.
She was back in the throne room.
Elysia blinked rapidly. Her vision cleared just in ti to see Malvoria standing over Zera and Seraphina, fire gathered in her hands, eyes white-hot with wrath.
"No," Elysia whispered, and the magic stirred again—before she even consciously called it.
Purple flas burst from her fingers, rushing across the scorched floor like a wave of moonlight.
They didn’t burn.
They wrapped—tender and firm—around Malvoria’s arms, halting her final blow.
Malvoria’s head jerked toward her.
Her entire body stilled.
For a heartbeat, silence hung.
Then, like a collapsing dam, Malvoria dropped her magic and sprinted.
The fire died instantly, extinguished by grief and disbelief.
"Elysia!" Her voice cracked as she fell to her knees beside her, gathering her up, holding her like sothing made of glass and miracle. "You’re alive—stars, you’re alive—"
She clutched her close, forehead against Elysia’s as her whole fra shook. Not from fury this ti—but from relief.
"I thought I lost you," Malvoria whispered.
"I’m okay," Elysia rasped. "Not... great, but okay."
They held each other tightly, the chaos montarily silenced between them.
Until a sudden scuffle caught Malvoria’s ear.
She turned—
Zera and Seraphina had regained their footing and were trying to flee through the ruined archway, dragging each other.
Elysia’s eyes narrowed.
She raised her hand.
The purple fla obeyed.
It soared across the floor in a graceful arc, splitting into two streams that coiled like ribbons around the two fleeing figures—then hardened into translucent bindings of magic, freezing them in place mid-step.
They couldn’t move.
Couldn’t escape.
The fire didn’t burn.
But it didn’t release either.
Trapped.
Elysia exhaled slowly, her fingers still glowing with violet light. "We’re not done."
Reviews
All reviews (0)