The room was now filled with its light, it had been days if not months since ive last seen it. Yet here it was charging at me with much vigor. I mean i had been the victim here...she abonded me but im the one getting attaacked !
I came to with a gasp, my body arching off the cold stone floor as Aurora's heart gave a violent lurch against my ribs. The ice spreading through my veins crystallized into razor-sharp fractals beneath my skin. Every breath sent needles through my lungs.
Sey's hands gripped my shoulders, his shadows frantically probing my chest where blue light now pulsed through my flesh. "Look at me. Look at me! Your eyes keep—"
He choked on the words as my vision flickered—one moment normal, the next washed in that same eerie blue glow as the creature's.
Across the ravaged throne room, the stitched-winged horror staggered, its runes flashing erratically. Each pulse matched the rhythm of my heartbeat now, not its own.
"It's calling to her," Yassie realized, his broken sword still raised. Golden light dripped from his tattoo like liquid sunlight. "The heart wants to return."
Lyr writhed on the floor nearby, his perfect features contorted as the necrosis crawled toward his jawline. "Kill...the beast..." he rasped. "The binding...rune...on its—"
The creature screamed.
Not in rage this time—in terror.
Its talons scrabbled against the marble as it suddenly backpedaled, wings beating frantically against some invisible force. The blue glow from its runes was being sucked inward—toward me.
Toward its heart.
Aurora's memories flooded my mind in a torrent:
A girl with Yassie's smile pressing a flower into her hand.
Sey's shadows gently curling around her fingers in the dark.
Lyr's laughter as he slipped poison into her cup.
The moment she realized her own sister had ordered the assassination.
And then—the worst one.
The memory of her still-beating heart being ripped from her chest by the same hands that had once braided her hair.
I vomited violently, bile and blood splattering the stones. The ice in my veins was melting now, replaced by liquid fire. Sey's shadows recoiled as blue flames erupted across my skin—not burning me, but cleansing me.
The creature collapsed, its wings disintegrating into ash. The human face beneath the feathers became clearer—younger. More familiar.
Because I'd seen her in portraits.
In the reflection of every mirror since I'd stolen her life.
"Aurora...?" Yassie whispered, his sword clattering to the ground.
The creature—no, the girl—lifted her head. When she spoke, her voice was finally her own:
"The heart isn't mine anymore."
Her gaze locked on mine.
"It chose you."
Then she was gone—just a pile of feathers and melting runes.
Silence.
Then a wet cough from Lyr. "Well...that was..." His fingers clawed at the blackened veins spreading across his face. "...suboptimal."
Sey's shadows lashed out before I could speak, wrapping around Lyr's throat. "You knew," he snarled. "You knew she was still—"
"Stop!" My voice came out wrong—echoed, like two people speaking at once. The blue flames coalesced into a corona around my head as I stumbled forward. "The necrosis...it's from shadow magic. Your magic, Sey."
All eyes turned to the fading black tendrils on Lyr's skin—the same inky darkness that had just been squeezing his throat.
Yassie went very still. "That's impossible. Sey would never—"
"But Father would," Lyr gasped, his smirk bloody. "Poetic, isn't it? The king's favorite weapon...was always his spare."
The throne room doors burst open.
King Veyrian stood framed in the doorway, his ceremonial armor glinting, a dozen fresh guards at his back.
And in his hands—
A second heart.
Still beating.
Still blue.
"Enough theatrics," he sighed, as if scolding children. Then he *crushed* the heart in his fist.
Lyr screamed.
And so did I.