⚠️ Content Warning
This story deals with emotional trauma and suicide attempts without depicting them explicitly or idealizing them. These themes are handled with sensitivity and without glorification; the narrative purpose is to show their consequences, not to promote them.Sensitive readers are advised to proceed with caution.
If at any moment you relate to the protagonist's thoughts or are going through something similar, please seek support as soon as possible: talk to someone you trust or reach out to a professional. You are not alone.
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It was the fourth time this week that the Supremus Arkifilius summoned me to the main palace.Nothing could make me feel more fulfilled. I walked with my retinue through the white corridors of the Solarys Palace, lifting my head higher than ever, finally feeling like the worthiest of the exalted ladies—as I deserved to be: the most beautiful and perfect among his consorts.
The moment I enter the chamber, I see him.
Vaelion Solarys, bathed in the light of the great window, looked like a marble statue blessed by the sun. With his golden hair and serene gaze, I was convinced there was no man more beautiful and perfect in the entire universe. It was that perfection that revealed to me, from the very beginning, that we were destined for each other.
When he turned from the garden and saw me, a smile curved upon his lips. My heart sped up, but I hid it behind a graceful expression as I approached him.
"Ravenna, you look as beautiful as ever today," he murmured, brushing his fingers along my cheek.
I gathered every bit of willpower not to lean into his touch like a domesticated creature.
"That is because I always strive to be the woman you deserve," I replied, meeting his gaze.
"Without Aureliane's interference, I can finally see it," he said seriously, his hands gripping my shoulders. "No one would be a better mother to Solarys V than you."
My breath caught.
"Do you mean it? Tell me this isn't a dream."Emotion slipped into my voice; this was the only thing I had ever desired since I was chosen as his consort.
"Of course. No one is more suited to be the next Matrem Altissimus," he declared, pulling me into an unexpected embrace.
I allowed myself to melt into his warmth. I rested my head against his chest, feeling his heartbeat, knowing that everything I had suffered and sacrificed finally made sense.
"Between us… tell me something," he whispered. "Did you have anything to do with all this? Did you help me see the obvious?"
I pulled back slightly, trapped between his closeness and my uncertainty.
"Come now, Ravenna," his voice softened even further. "I know that whatever you did was for me. I want to understand your devotion. Aureliane no longer matters. The past died with her. Only you, me, and our future matter. But there can be no secrets between us."
His forehead touched mine. His breath trembled against my lips.
"My lord… I would do anything for you."
"Then let me hear it. I want to know the extent of your devotion."
I hid my face against his chest. He was right. Everything I had done proved how deeply I worshipped him.If someone ever did for me what I had done for him… I would finally feel worthy.
"I couldn't allow Consort Aureliane to stand in your way," I confessed at last. "She didn't deserve you. Her dedication could never match mine. There was no dignity in her. I couldn't allow a woman like that to become Matrem Altissimus."
He waited in silence.
"I removed her," I continued. "I ordered soporo placed in her lipstick. They said it was undetectable. They were right."
"Would you do it again?" he asked. "If they chose another Matrem?"
His words wounded me, but I answered firmly:
"You just said you know I'm the chosen one. How could they ever choose someone else?"
He sighed, sorrow in his voice.
"Ravenna… even as Arkifilius, I cannot control everything. If my father or the Order desires another consort…"
"Then don't worry," I interrupted. "If necessary, I will eliminate all of them. Just like Aureliane."
A heavy silence settled between us.
"But, Ravenna… Aureliane's death may ignite an interstellar war. Does that not concern you? Not the Lunar Houses? Not the billions who could die?"
I looked into his eyes and found refuge there.
"None of that matters. Nothing stopped me with Aureliane. Nothing will stop me from being by your side."
Vaelion leaned in. I closed my eyes, expecting his lips.
But his mouth went to my ear.
"Oh, Rávena… you, least of all, are worthy of being Matrem Altissimus. I would sooner plunge a dagger into your chest myself than allow it."
My eyes snapped open, frozen.
"Vaelion… my lord?"
He stepped back. His voice turned cold and firm:
"All have heard the lady's confession. Let there be no doubt among the Houses and the Order as to why Ravenna Selene of House Noxirian is condemned to eternal imprisonment."
A wall turned transparent.Behind it, the Legatus of the Lunar Houses and Resonants stared at me in horror.
"No… no… what does this mean?" I cried in confusion.
The face that had once looked at me with devotion now gazed with absolute disgust.
"Guards. Remove her from my sight. I never want to see her again."
"Vaelion! You said you understood me, that you saw my devotion, that I was the one—"But my words broke as they dragged me from the chamber. [...]
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Darkness no longer frightens me.
It stays with me.Wraps around me like an old blanket I never asked for, but is now the only thing I feel against my skin.
I don't know how many days have passed.There are no windows, no lights, no voices in the cell.Only silence.A silence that settles into your bones.
The restraint shirt binds my arms tightly.I don't know if they did it to keep me from hurting myself… or to remind me I am nothing.Perhaps both.Perhaps neither.
Sometimes I think I hear footsteps outside, but they never stop.No one enters.No one looks for me.
Vaelion…Why did you do this?Why did you look at me that way?
I see it over and over again:his hands caressing my face,his soft voice,his warm breath at my ear…and then, the poison of that sentence.The revulsion in his eyes.
I don't understand.None of this can be real.It must have been a trick.A plot by Consort Aureliane or some other lesser woman.Perhaps the Legatus manipulated him.Perhaps someone twisted his words.
I can't accept that he…he himself…delivered me to this fate.
I know what he felt.I know how he looked at me.How his eyes lit up when I entered the room.
He could not have faked that.I wasn't mistaken.I cannot be.
If only he would come…if only he opened this door and told me it was all a lie, that someone deceived him, that he needs me…I would forgive him.Of course I would.
Because what we had is greater than betrayal.
Because I was made for him.
That's what the Arkitectus Noxirian always said.Right?
My throat aches.Not from speaking, but from remembering.
The Arkitectus…he should be here too.He should have defended me, explained me, stood against the Legatus for me.I always did everything he asked.Always tried to become what he wanted.
Where is he?Why doesn't he come?
It can't be that both abandoned me.It can't be that all of this is real.
Hunger no longer hurts; now there's only a strange emptiness, as if my body has given up before I have.Sometimes I feel dizzy, sometimes as if I'm floating, but I always return to the same thought:
Vaelion could never want to hurt me.It must have been another consort.It must have been jealousy.Oh, envy.Oh, lies.Oh, the Order.
I don't understand anything that happened.None of it fits.It doesn't fit that he chose me…only to cast me into this darkness.
My chest tightens.I don't know if it's hunger, cold, or sadness.Perhaps all three.
I have no strength to move, and even if I had, the restraint shirt would prevent it.Even so, there are moments when I wish to stop feeling, stop thinking, stop hoping.
If only…if only my body would give up.If only it stopped insisting on breathing.
I hear nothing.No guards.No orders.No footsteps.
And then I understand.
I haven't been locked away.
I have been forgotten.
Vaelion will not come.The Arkitectus Noxirian will not come.No one.
And the worst part is not dying here.The worst part is realizing—perhaps for the first time in my life—that I was never deemed worthy of affection.Not by my father.Not by the Arkitectus.Not by Vaelion.
And still… still my heart insists on waiting for him.
How ridiculous I am.
Air scrapes into my lungs.My body trembles.The darkness grows heavier.
Perhaps… it won't take much longer.
In the end… perhaps this is how it should be.Perhaps I was never enough.Perhaps everything I believed was a lie.
I only hope the gods look at my soul without disdain.
Just that.
I laugh at myself, because it must be those same gods who brought me here.
The darkness calls to me.I will stop fighting.
A thirteen-year-old Laila Mallory cries as she reads the final line of the book.
She has read it several times already, hoping—somehow—that the words would change.But they never do.
That strange book had appeared in her room without explanation, the blue stone on its cover glowing the moment she touched it.And just like that, the pages filled with tragedies—her tragedies.To everyone else, the book stayed blank.
What is a girl supposed to do when her life is handed to her as a sentence?How does someone breathe after discovering they will never be recognized, never be cherished, that their name will be buried under another?
She wanted to deny it.
She wanted to scream that her family would not die because of her, that she would not be taken by the Arkitectus Noxirian, that she would never become Ravenna Selene of House Noxirian, that she would never abandon her own name.
She wanted to insist she was Laila Mallory.Only Laila Mallory.
But… which Laila was she?The one in the book?The one holding it?The one destined to live those pages?
The book said nothing about her reading it.Nothing about her watching her own fate unfold.
It was too confusing.Except for one thing: Laila had no intention of living that life.
If her future was truly so shameful, so horrid, so unbearably lonely… was it worth walking toward it?
Laila—this Laila—decided it wasn't.
She rose from the great rock hanging over the deep pond.Since childhood she had feared the water; she had never learned to swim.That fear, once enormous, now felt insignificant compared to the terror her own destiny inspired.
With her pockets full of stones and the book pressed against her chest, Laila stepped forward, ready to fall into the moon's reflection on the water and rewrite her end.