Tonight was the night.
It had ceased to be a dream, a whispered prayer, a desperate plan scribbled in the margins of her diary. It was now a physical truth in the air, as real and cold as the moon hanging like a sliver of bone outside her window.
It was Aurelia's escape night.
She stood before the looking glass, not seeing a princess, but a ghost preparing to flee its own reflection.
The dress she wore was simple, a dull, washed-out grey that seemed to have been bled of all color—a deliberate, dreary camouflage. It was the garb of a servant, a laundress, a shadow.
To blend in was to become nothing, and tonight, she craved that nothingness to escape this world.
Her movements were methodical, sharp with a focused energy that bordered on tremor. She packed a small, worn satchel with only the irreplaceable: her journal, its leather cover soft from secret touches; a single dried flower from a forgotten garden; a dagger with a hilt worn smooth as if she could even use it.
Each item was a piece of her soul, a weight she chose to carry.
"My lady, are you sure you want to go?"
Sorana's voice was a thread of sound in the tense quiet, frayed with fear. She hovered by the door, a silhouette of loyalty and dread.
Aurelia did not answer with words.
Her violet eyes, usually so deep and stormy, were now flat, like polished amethyst—all decision, no doubt. They reflected the candle flame but none of its warmth. She turned from the mirror, her movements fluid yet brittle, as if she might shatter from the sheer force of her resolve.
From a small velvet box, she drew out the final item: a necklace. It was not part of her escape. It was a severance. The chain was fine silver, and from it hung a teardrop pendant that shone with a cold, inner fire, like polished diamonds holding moonlight captive.
"My lady, please, are you listening—"
Before Sorana could finish, Aurelia was already there. She didn't hand over the necklace—she placed it. She took Sorana's work-roughened hands, turned them palm-up, and let the cool silver chain and the dark, heavy pendant settle into her grasp. Then she closed Sorana's fingers over it, one by one. The pressure was gentle, but final.
"This is not for you," Aurelia said, her voice a low thread of sound. Her violet eyes held Sorana's, and in them, a crack appeared—a flash of old, familiar fear.
"It is for the healer. The one who knows about the child. Find her. Give her this." She leaned in, her breath a cold whisper against Sorana's cheek. "Look into her eyes and make her understand. This buys her eternal silence."
Her hand tightened around Sorana's fist, a sudden, hard squeeze that made the metal bite into skin.
Then she stepped back, her gesture sweeping toward an open velvet box on the table. Jewels glinted within, cold and bright. "You can have any necklace you want," she said, the offer hollow. "Any one of these. All if you choose."
Sorana didn't glance at the box. Her fist remained closed around the tarnished silver. "I do not want that."
"Why are you doing this now?" Aurelia's control snapped, the words sharp as broken glass.
"The king is dead." Sorana's voice was a hushed, aching thing. " Lord Tenebrarum has not left the chamber for almost two days. He refuses the world,refuses to eat. Do you not care?"
Aurelia turned as if struck. She gripped the back of a chair, her knuckles bleaching white. "And who am I to console him? He is to marry Isabelle." A brittle, humorless laugh escaped her.
"I have no right to his grief. But this—" she nodded toward the clenched fist, "—this is my only chance. He is broken. The guards distracted. I can leave. I can finally have peace."
She took a step toward the door, her back a rigid line of retreat.
A tear fell then. One single, silent betrayal, tracing a path through the dust on her cheek before it vanished into the dark wool of her gown.
Her voice, when it came, was not the voice of a lady, but of a girl, lost and raw.
"I care, Sorana. I do really care." She swallowed hard. "But what am I now? A shadow he is meant to forget. I cannot help him. All I can do… is cease to be a problem in this palace."
Aurelia did not turn. She simply stood, a silhouette against the grey light of the corridor, waiting for the word that would either break her or set her free.
"Whatever you wish to do, do it," Sorana's voice came, flat and final from the doorway. "Go with Calvus to the human kingdom."
A pause, heavy as a stone.
"But you should know," Sorana added, the words cold and clear, "it is your choice. Every single thing you're about to do is your choice."
Click!
The door shut with a soft sound.
The sound seemed to sever the last taut thread holding Aurelia upright. Her knees buckled. She did not walk to the bed—she stumbled toward it, collapsing onto the edge as if the air had turned to lead. She fell back, the mattress accepting her weight like a shallow grave.
Her hands found her stomach, resting lightly on the still-flat plane of her abdomen.
The child was so little or should I say it was not a child yet, only a secret, a promise taking root deep inside.
In the heavy quiet of the room, she swore she could feel it—a faint, stubborn pulse of possibility, a future waiting in the dark.
Tenebrarum's child.
It was a choice. Her choice.
The only one that had ever truly been hers.
To forge a weapon? No.
She wants to raise a king.
To craft a legacy from shadow and hope.
To train a great PROTECTOR for the human territory.
Her hands pressed a little firmer, a silent vow into her own skin.
This was not an end. It was a beginning, hidden in her own flesh. She had let everything else go—him, her pride, her love.
But this? This, she would keep.
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To be continued...