Isabella's POV
They say the gods favor kings.
But tonight, I learned they kneel for queens who burn.
I stood alone in the old chapel.
No guards. No court. Just echoes and rage.
This was the place my mother whispered prayers that never saved her.
Where my father bled on the altar because the gods demanded a sacrifice for the curse he passed to me.
I came here for one reason.
To bury the last of my belief.
I lit the offering fire with a flick of my hand. The flame surged unnaturally high gold and violet. A reflection of what lived inside me.
"Come then," I said aloud, to the shadows. "You watched when I was cursed. You watched when I was crowned. Watch now, as I take your silence and return it in kind."
Behind me, the doors opened.
Dominic.
He didn't speak. He didn't need to.
He knelt beside me. Not to pray, but to stand with me.
"You sure this is the right time to spit in the face of the divine?" he asked, dryly.
"I'm not asking for their mercy anymore," I said. "I'm demanding their attention."
And I got it.
The flame burst outward.
The stone cracked.
And for the first time in centuries, the gods answered.
But not with words.
With a vision.
I saw a kingdom in ruin.
My throne, toppled.
My child unnamed and alone.
Dominic, bloodied and screaming my name, reaching for a crown buried in ash.
And me?
I was not dead.
I was forgotten.
Because I had failed to act in time.
I fell forward, gasping. The vision vanished.
The gods had shown me the cost of hesitation.
And I understood now this wasn't about survival.
It was about legacy.
And legacy doesn't wait for the storm to pass.
It becomes the storm.
Back in the war chamber, I summoned every commander, every noble still loyal.
I spoke not as a queen but as the curse they feared.
"I will not beg," I said. "I will not barter. I will burn for what is mine."
The room held its breath.
Then Dominic stepped forward.
And for the first time in public, he knelt not to a crown, but to me.
"I will follow you into fire," he said. "Even if it's the last thing I do."
And when he rose, every hand followed.
Every sword drawn.
Every oath, reforged.
The war begins at dawn.
But tonight?
Tonight, I sleep knowing that the gods may have tried to curse me.
But they also made me unstoppable.