The carriage jolted violently, throwing Magna against the plush, gold-embroidered velvet cushions. Her hands flew instinctively to her chest—searching for the arrow wound that wasn't there. The phantom agony lingered, a cold echo against her ribs.
"My lady!" Sylvara's familiar voice gasped beside her, her usually cheerful face now etched with concern. "You cried out in your sleep. Are you unwell?"
Magna stared at her handmaiden's unlined face, then down at her own unblemished hands, clad in the fine, long sleeves of her rich, shimmering gold gown, the bodice intricate with black beadwork. Outside the window, the turquoise waters of the Korythaei coast sparkled under the midday sun. The scent of salt and pine filled the air—so sickeningly sweet and fresh, so different from the iron-and-ash stench of her last, brutal memories.
This isn't real. This can't be real.
Yet, the chill of her elaborate dark, beaded circlet on her head, the weight of the matching black choker at her throat, felt undeniably solid. She was in the bridal procession again, the very same journey that had led her to Xianthos five years ago, to a destiny she thought had ended in blood and fire.
Her fingers clutched the Storm-Onyx pendant at her throat as fragmented memories, like shattered glass, assaulted her from both timelines:
Lucien's laugh, warm and genuine, echoing through the Moon Garden as he caught her stealing peaches from the imperial trees...
His strong hands, long and elegant, guiding hers on the sword training grounds, his breath warm against her ear...
The way his amber eyes, so often sharp, had softened when she presented him with that first painting—a sunset over Haelmora's cliffs...
And then, crashing through the tenderness, the vivid nightmare: His hands encircling her, holding her upright as her legs failed, his murmur against her ear, "It is the duty of the Queen to die for the king." The sheer, soul-crushing cruelty of it, juxtaposed with the warmth of those early memories, ripped through her. How could both versions of him coexist? How could those tender moments lead to such a monstrous end?
"Stop the carriage!" Magna's voice, though firm, was raw.
She stumbled onto the dusty road, gulping air like a drowning woman. The Scarlet Plains stretched endlessly before her, golden grasses rippling in the wind, a vast, indifferent canvas. At the crossroads ahead, the path split—left to Xianthos and duty, right to Kazaroth and freedom.
Run, whispered a desperate voice in her mind, the voice of her murdered self. Let them destroy each other without you. Change the choice.
But another memory, bittersweet and haunting, surfaced from the 'first' life—Lucien pressing his forehead to hers in their wedding chamber, whispering vows not of politics, but of heartbroken longing: "I wish we'd met in another life." Had that been a lie too? A manipulation? Or had a part of him truly felt it, even as he consigned her to death? The lines blurred between the man she remembered, and the monster of her final moments.
The rumble of approaching wheels broke her thoughts, pulling her back to the immediate, terrifying 'present'. A second carriage, sleeker and darker than hers, pulled alongside. Its black lacquer gleamed with jade and turquoise inlays, catching the midday sun. Through the parted curtains, a man lounged with careless, almost languid grace. His long, flowing hair, the color of spun gold, spilled over one shoulder. His piercing emerald green eyes, holding an ancient wisdom that belied his youthful countenance, glinted with an unsettling amusement. Intricate, swirling patterns of the same vibrant green were subtly etched near the outer corners of his eyes.
Prince Leolvhant.
Magna's breath caught. In her 'previous' life, she'd only met Lucien's exiled half-brother months after her wedding, when he'd come to court bearing Kazarothi spices and irreverent jokes. The man who'd once sketched her portrait by firelight, his slender, graceful fingers moving with swift precision, then burned it before the embers could reveal too much.
His emerald gaze locked onto hers now with unsettling intensity, a knowing glint in their depths. "Lost, little storm?" His lips, a soft, natural curve, barely moved as he spoke.
The familiar nickname sent a shiver down her spine, chilling her to the bone. He shouldn't know that name—not yet. Not until the night he'd found her weeping in the library over a letter from her father, a night that, in this timeline, hadn't happened yet. This was her past, but his words spoke of her future…or her memory of it.
Magna forced herself to look away, back toward Xianthos' distant spires. The answers—the truth of Lucien's betrayal, her father's war, the strange dark stone, and the terrifying whisper of a second chance—all waited there. And perhaps, the truth of how Leolvhant knew her deepest, secret name.
As her carriage creaked forward, she caught Leolvhant's final words on the wind, his voice a low, melodic hum that seemed to carry the weight of distant lands:
"What storms await us in the Sky Citadel, I wonder? Perhaps, my little storm, you will find your own answer there."