---
As Vienna moved swiftly through the shadows with Millis close behind, a sudden, cold realization slammed into her.
'Shit—Serelith! I forgot to tell Laraine that Serelith is alive!'
She froze mid-step, and Millis nearly collided with her.
"What's wrong?" Millis asked, alarmed.
Vienna didn't answer right away. A wave of regret surged through her, tightening her throat as she trembled.
'How could I forget something so important?'
'How could I let this slip?'
---
The smoke was a blessing.
It curled around Serelith's form like a veil, hiding her in flickering shadows and ember-light. She moved without sound, gliding between broken carts, bodies, and the flicker of panicked torches. Her hands, steady as stone, cradled twin daggers as if they were old friends whispering lullabies of blood.
Laraine was just ahead.
A flash of Blue hair, drenched in sweat and firelight. Her voice—sharp, commanding—cut through the chaos, rallying the broken rebel line. Her blade struck down soldier after soldier, desperate to carve open a path through the ambush. She was magnificent in the way only the doomed could be.
Serelith paused behind a shattered supply wagon, eyes narrowing.
She had watched Laraine fight a hundred times. Had once admired her fire. Had once… almost hated how much she reminded her of herself.
But this wasn't admiration.
This was the end of the game.
The Queen commands it, Serelith reminded herself. And I obey.
The dagger in her left hand pulsed slightly—its edge smeared with a sleeping poison so potent that even the fiercest warrior would fall like crumpled silk. She would not kill Laraine yet. Not unless the Queen ordered it. Not unless the crown demanded it.
No, she would break her.
Let her watch her rebellion burn. Let her choke on the ash of failure.
Then Serelith would step from the smoke, press her blade to Laraine's heart, and watch the fire leave her eyes.
She crept closer, boots never stirring ash, her body a whisper on the wind. Ten paces. Eight. Five.
Laraine turned suddenly—something in her eyes flickered. Instinct? Fear? That damned sixth sense of hers?
Serelith froze.
Then their eyes met—only for a second—but Serelith felt it. Felt the shift in Laraine's stance. The sudden awareness. The tensing of muscle.
Damn.
With a fluid motion, Serelith vanished into smoke again, heart steady despite the near-miss.
The dagger had not struck yet.
But it would.
Soon.
---
The battlefield roared around her—steel clashed, fire screamed, and her lungs burned with every breath of smoke—but Laraine's focus narrowed to a pinpoint.
That presence.
It was like a ghost brushing her spine. Cold. Familiar.
She turned—instinct screaming—and her gaze locked with eyes she hadn't seen in years.
Eyes she'd once trusted.
Eyes that betrayed her.
No.
The breath punched from her lungs as if she'd been struck. In that fleeting moment, everything else—arrows, fire, screams—fell away.
Serelith.
Alive.
Her stance faltered, her blade dipped, and a soldier lunged for her. Cleo shouted something from behind, but Laraine reacted a heartbeat too late.
The soldier's blade scraped her side before she drove her own sword through his gut, fury sharpening her movements again. Blood splattered her boots, but she hardly felt it.
'Serelith's alive?'
Impossible. She died. They told her Serelith died in the purge three years ago—torn apart by mercenaries.
That face in the smoke—it was real. Older, colder. But still her. Still Serelith.
Laraine spun in place, searching the haze. Nothing. Just shadows and ruin.
Had she imagined it?
No.
She knew that look. That controlled stillness. That poised silence, the same silence Serelith once wore like armor when she was hiding something.
Rage, sharp and disbelieving, began to simmer beneath Laraine's skin.
'You're alive... and fighting for them?'
'You came to kill me!'
She clenched her sword tighter, blood dripping from her wound, her knuckles white.
"Fall back!" she roared to her rebels, voice shaking with fury. "Form up near the ridge—NOW!"
As Cleo rushed to her side, Laraine didn't look at her. She couldn't.
The battlefield had become something else entirely.
Not just a war.
A reckoning.
And Serelith—once her fiercest enemy—was now the shadow in the smoke. The ghost with a dagger. And Laraine would not run.
---
{Royal Palace – Antechamber Outside the Dungeons}
The surveillance pool shimmered like moonlit glass, casting flickering light across the chamber walls. Fire danced across the misty surface—arrows raining down, soldiers falling, rebellion unraveling. Adana watched in silence, her expression unreadable.
Behind her, Xander and Levi stood frozen, having watched it all unfold beside her. At first, they hadn't understood what they were seeing—just shapes and fire, a battlefield far removed. But the moment Laraine's face appeared in the swirling vision, blood on her cheek, defiance in her eyes, everything changed.
"That's her," Levi said, breath shallow. "That's Laraine."
"She's fighting alone," Xander murmured. "You sent those soldiers after her."
Adana didn't flinch. "She chose to lead a rebellion. She knew the consequences."
"She's our sister!" Xander's voice rose, cracking with disbelief.
"Our blood," Levi added, stepping closer to Adana. "And you're going to let her die out there?"
"I'm going to watch her learn," Adana said coldly. "The world isn't built on sentiment. It's built on power. I taught you both that."
"She's outnumbered," Xander growled. "That's not a lesson, that's a butchering. We want to go. We're going to help her."
Adana turned to them at last, the dim glow of the scrying pool painting sharp shadows across her face.
"You're not going anywhere."
Xander squared his shoulders. "You can't stop us."
Adana's lips curved into something like amusement, but it was cold, sharp as a blade. "Can't I?"
She stepped forward slowly, deliberately, eyes locked on both her sons.
"If you so much as move toward the gate," she said, voice low and lethal, "I will brand you traitors. I will strip you of your titles, your names—everything I gave you. Do not think being born of my blood makes you untouchable."
The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on.
Levi's mouth parted, words caught behind clenched teeth. "You'd… you'd really turn on us too?"
"I did it once," Adana said, turning her gaze back to the pool. "Don't make me do it again."
The light from the surveillance magic flickered. On it, Laraine fell to one knee, her sword catching a soldier's blow just in time. Cleo rushed to her side. Vienna stood nearby, shielding Millis.
Xander's voice was quiet. "She's not the enemy!"
"She's not your puppet!," Levi added.
Adana didn't respond.
But the look in her eyes said enough.
She'd already decided.
And she would burn the whole world before she let Laraine win.
---
Ash clung to Laraine's hair like snow, her armor scorched, her breath ragged.
But she stood.
Through bloodied smoke and fractured cries, she rallied what was left of her force. A dozen rebels had already fallen, throats slit by shadows. Arrows still rained sporadically, flames consuming supply carts and screams piercing through the haze.
"Cleo! With me—anchor the flank!"
Cleo nodded, her eyes sharp with panic but focused.
"Form up!" Laraine shouted to the survivors as she limped forward. "Shield wall to the ridge! You want to live? Then move!"
They obeyed. They always did. Not because they believed they would win—but because Laraine made them hope it was still possible.
She gritted her teeth as pain shot through her ribs—a shallow cut, but deep enough to burn.
Serelith.
She could still feel the stare in her bones. The ghost in the smoke.
Had Vienna known?
Laraine's fury sharpened.
"Set a perimeter," she barked at one of her lieutenants. "Booby traps. Whatever's left."
"But we're outnumbered."
"Then let's make every one of them bleed."
Behind her, the ridge was nothing but ruin and firelight.
The rebellion had stumbled.
But it hadn't broken.
Not yet.
---
Farther behind the new lines, Vienna crouched near a scorched wagon, shielding Millis with one arm as she watched the horror unfold.
Screams. Fire. The smell of burning flesh.
She cursed herself a hundred times over.
She had known Serelith was alive.
And she hadn't told Laraine.
"What is this?" Millis whispered, her voice trembling. "This wasn't supposed to happen. We were winning—this was supposed to be our moment."
Vienna's jaw tightened. "It's a slaughter."
Her eyes darted to the trees—shadows moved between the trunks. Silent. Swift.
Not Adana's soldiers.
Assassins.
"I need to get you away from here," she said quickly. "This isn't safe."
"I'm not leaving," Millis said, wide-eyed but firm. "Laraine's still fighting. I'm not just—"
"I said," Vienna snapped, grabbing her shoulders, "this isn't about bravery. This is about survival. She told me to protect you, and I will. Even if I have to drag you."
Millis blinked—but then nodded.
A nearby explosion sent embers flying.
Vienna glanced up. The arrows had stopped—but the air was thick with something worse. Anticipation.
"This ambush wasn't just brute force," she murmured. "It's strategy."
Millis looked at her, dread creeping into her voice. "What are you saying?"
Vienna's eyes narrowed.
"I'm saying this isn't over."
She looked toward the center of the battlefield—where Laraine stood like a wounded lioness.
And somewhere in the smoke…
Serelith was still hunting.