The fire crackled low, soft embers glowing like dying stars against the night wind. I didn't move. I couldn't. The letter still rested in my hands, crumpled at the edges where my fingers had gripped it too tightly. Even now, the seal of King Dematricus—my father—gleamed in the dim light, golden and cold, like the man himself.
He had written only a few lines.
No greetings. No sentiment. Just a command.
Return to Delyra . Your mother's life stands at the edge of my mercy . You will offer yourself in her place. You will not fail this time.
I stared into the fire, the words burning behind my eyes more fiercely than the flames before me. The cold winds of the mountain pressed against my skin, but I barely felt them. My soul had already gone numb.
This was it.
The summons I always knew would come.
And it was not a request. It never was.
My father was not a man who bargained. He issued ultimatums dressed as duty. And I… I was the cursed child, the waste of a perfect union, the blemish on a kingdom that once bathed in sunlight. I was never supposed to live, let alone grow strong. Let alone become something the kings of the west now whispered about in cautious admiration.
But none of that mattered to him.
Not the battle I'd won in Sevila . Not the blood I'd spilled to carry Delyra's banner forward. Not the soldiers who'd followed me into the maw of death and returned singing my name.
No.
To him, I was still a mistake. And now, I was the coin with which he'd purchase silence. He wanted me gone.
And for the first time, I didn't resist.
Let the gods take me, I thought. Let the crown finally rid itself of its shame. If it would bring my mother peace… if it would keep her safe, untouched in her quiet bed, then so be it.
I would walk back into the mouth of the beast.
I would die if I must.
I turned my head slowly toward the shadows beyond the tree line. The moon hung high, painting the snow in shades of silver and sorrow. I could feel them again—the watchers. Eyes hidden in the dark, breaths held just out of reach. They'd been following me for days now. Silent. Patient.
Assassins, perhaps. Or spies. I didn't know.
What I did know was this: too many hands wanted me dead. Some feared the warrior I'd become. Others envied the legend they hadn't lived up to. But most simply couldn't understand how something they'd deemed cursed had not just survived… but risen.
My eyes—those pale, otherworldly eyes—had become prophecy. A warning. A spark that could ignite rebellion or fear or both. And men like my father did not tolerate sparks. They smothered them.
But this wasn't fear tightening my chest. It was grief. And it had become so constant that I no longer cried. My body had grown too familiar with loss to waste tears on it.
I thought of General Crane—how he'd raised me like steel instead of a daughter. He had not shielded me from the world's cruelty. He had made me match it. Surpass it. And I had.
But even his training couldn't prepare me for the kind of ache that lived inside me now.
Not the ache of pain. Of bones bruised or skin torn.
But the ache of knowing… it would never be enough.
No matter how strong I became, how many enemies I felled, how many lives I saved—I could not change who I was to my father.
A scar on his pride.
A cost he never wanted to pay.
I stood slowly, the letter falling from my hand into the snow.
The fire hissed as flakes began to drift from the dark sky above, soft and soundless. I pulled my cloak around me, not for warmth, but for protection. The kind a soldier wears before walking into the final battle.
Because that's what this was.
Not a war of blades. Not a clash of kingdoms.
But the final chapter of my life.
And I was ready.
I turned toward the cabin, where my mother lay beneath furs that could not warm her, in a bed she had never risen from. Her breath, shallow and slow, was the only sign that the gods hadn't yet taken her. I approached quietly, kneeling beside her like I always did. I placed my hand on hers—fragile, soft, still.
"I'm going home," I whispered, voice breaking. "Not for glory. Not for revenge. But for you."
Her lips didn't move. Her eyes didn't flutter.
But I like to think… she heard me.
I stayed there a while, until the fire behind me died, and the world grew dark again.
And when I rose, I didn't look back.
I saddled my horse in silence. The wind howled like a mourning song through the valley as I rode out—toward the city of my birth, toward the man who had given me life and then cursed me for it.
Toward Delyra.
Toward death.
Let them have their legend. Let the kings play their cruel games and drink wine over broken bones.
All I asked… was that my mother live.
Even if I never would.