Chapter 7— The Weight of Morning
Morning came like nothing had happened.
Sunlight spilled through the tall arched windows of the palace, golden and soft, touching the marble floors like a blessing. The kingdom woke in perfect order — bells chimed, servants moved, soldiers took their posts.
And Aelinne rose from her bed with a body that felt ten years older than it had the night before.
She sat at the edge of the mattress for a long moment, staring at the floor, her magic humming steadily beneath her skin again. Power full. Complete. Untouched.
As if she had not stood powerless in an alley with death watching her breathe.
As if she had not tasted a version of life she was never meant to want.
A knock echoed at the door.
"Your Highness," a maid called softly. "The court is assembling."
Aelinne inhaled once, deep and steady.
"The witch returns," she whispered under her breath.
She dressed in layers of dark silk and silver-threaded armor, the weight of her title settling back onto her shoulders piece by piece. By the time the doors to her chambers opened, the girl from the borderlands was gone.
Only the Princess remained.
---
The training grounds were already alive with sound — spells cracking through the air, steel clashing, soldiers shouting commands. Aelinne took her place on the elevated platform without ceremony, eyes scanning the lines of her army with ruthless focus.
"Begin," she commanded.
Magic exploded into motion.
Fire danced. Wind tore through shields. The rhythm was familiar. Comforting. Violent. Her body moved on instinct, correcting stances, amplifying spells, driving them harder than the day before.
Too hard.
Lior noticed first.
He always did.
She watched him study her between drills, his brow furrowing slightly as her voice sharpened and her orders grew crueler.
"Again," she snapped after a soldier collapsed to one knee, trembling. "You will not fall so easily on a real battlefield."
The soldier struggled up at once.
Lior stepped closer to the platform during the break. "You're pushing them past endurance," he said carefully. "They'll burn out before the war even begins."
Aelinne did not look at him. "Then they were never fit for war."
"That's not—"
"Enough."
She finally turned to him then, eyes ice-cold, walls slamming back into place. "You forget who you speak to."
Lior's jaw tightened. Hurt flashed across his face — quick, buried, but real.
"My apology, Princess." He bowed and stepped back without another word.
Something twisted sharply in her chest.
She ignored it.
---
The council chamber was worse.
Generals argued over border movements. Oracles whispered of shifting futures. Witches spoke of vampire sightings near the eastern passes. Maps were spread wide like open wounds over the table.
"Their general has not yet moved," one commander said. "But if Kael advances, it will be without warning."
At the sound of his name, a ripple passed through the room.
Aelinne's fingers curled slowly around the arm of her throne.
Kael.
The heartless one.
The butcher of three realms.
The vampire general she had trained her whole life to face.
Good.
Let him come.
"We hold position," she said evenly. "No strikes until he crosses the border."
"And if he never does?" another asked.
"He will," she replied calmly. "Predators always do."
No one challenged her.
---
Later, alone again in her chambers, the stillness ate at her.
She stood by the window, watching the kingdom move beneath her like a living thing — her people, her burden, her fate. Everything she had sworn to protect.
Yet her thoughts betrayed her.
They carried her back to narrow alleys. To unseen eyes. To the moment she had been nothing more than a breathing target.
For the first time in years, doubt whispered through her mind.
Not about the war.
About herself.
Was she still the same weapon they had shaped?
Or had the night carved something softer, something reckless, into her?
She lifted her hand slowly, a flicker of magic dancing at her fingertips. Strong. Perfect.
But power no longer felt like freedom.
It felt like a cage.
And far beyond her walls, on borderland soil that did not belong to kings or witches or vampires—
The future was already moving..