Aeria's POV
The Assassins Attack on Aurel and Luceris
The Veilborn's Assault on the City of Argentum
The cold night pressed down like a weight as Casimir held out a small vial. Inside, a single drop of thick, black blood shimmered faintly under the pale moonlight.
"Drink," Casimir commanded, his voice low and certain. "This is your destiny."
My lips trembled. My eyes darted between Casimir and my mother—Virelya—who stood silently, her gaze cold and sharp.
"No," I whispered, backing away. "Mother, please… don't do this."
But she stepped forward. Before I could react, her hand twisted into my hair and yanked my head back. Pain shot through my scalp. Her voice was a hiss.
"You will drink. You have no choice. This is who you are."
The vial was forced to my lips. I struggled, but it was no use. The drop of black blood slipped into my mouth.
The moment it touched my tongue, it was as if a match had been lit inside me.
Fire exploded in my chest.
Agony, white-hot and all-consuming, tore through me. My scream ripped through the night.
"Ahhhhh, f******k, I can't do this! Noooo!! What did you do to me?! Ahhhh!!"
My stomach twisted. Something monstrous clawed from within. My body convulsed, as I fell crawling through the dirt.
"Noo, please! Have mercy on me!" I sobbed, the terror in my voice raw.
Bones snapped. Muscles tore.
Then came the sound—like flesh tearing—and I felt them.
Wings. Huge, slick, trembling black wings burst from my back. Blood dripped down my spine.
"Rrrrrrraaahhhhhh!! "No, stop!" I wailed, thrashing, my skin aflame.
Symbols burned themselves into my skin, blazing hot. I collapsed, shuddering, gasping, broken.
Through the haze of pain, I heard her voice.
"You were born to do great things, Aeria."
My body trembled. The fire dimmed. My wings twitched and folded inward as I lay crumpled on the ground.
And then, through the night—
They collapsed into each other. I saw them. Casimir and Virelya—my mother—locked in something violent and fevered. A tangle of shadows and lust.
And then, cutting through the silence of the forest—
Her moan.
Low. Shameless. Inhuman.
Casimir was behind her, rough and forceful. Their bodies tangled in something dark, something cruel.
The sound pierced me.
I froze. My body, still trembling, couldn't move. That sound—her pleasure—burned worse than the sigils on my flesh.
I wanted to scream again.
But no voice came.
Only tears.
Then, nothing.
—
The next day. Kingdom Argentum. My chambers.
I woke to silence.
My head ached. My body felt foreign.
I stumbled into the bathroom, gripped the sides of the mirror.
"This is not me," I whispered.
I slapped my face. Once. Twice. Again.
The voices inside me only laughed.
In desperation, I punched the mirror. Glass shattered.
I grabbed a shard.
Dragged it across my arm. Once. Twice. Deeper.
Pain flared—
Then vanished.
The wound sealed before my eyes.
I staggered back. Tears brimmed.
"Ahhhhh! Get out of my body! End it! Please… just kill me!"
The door creaked.
She entered.
Virelya doesn't look like my mother anymore.
"You must accept who you are," she said. Calmly. Coldly. "This power is your birthright. One day, you will rule all realms."
I looked up. My voice was a whisper, a shadow.
She didn't blink.
"But first, you must make sure Aurel dies. So get the f**k up and come with me"
Mother and I went downtown, carrying two pouches of gold. She met with the assassin, the cold mercenary she hired. In her hands, she gave him shards of ashglass from the kingdom. "Forge these into weapons," she ordered, voice sharp and deadly. "Kill the Moonborn and the evil princess."
After that, we parted ways. But I couldn't just leave it like that. Something inside me pushed me forward.
I ran fast—faster than I ever had before. Mother didn't notice as she walked calmly toward the castle. Maybe it was because I wasn't fully human anymore, but my speed surprised even me.
I caught up to the assassin and handed him three more pouches of gold. My voice was cold and deadly.
"Don't kill the princess. Hurt her, just enough to make it look like what the queen wants. But if she dies by your hand, I swear, I will gut you with my bare hands."
I caught up with the Queen easily—too easily. Maybe it was the blood in me now, the part that wasn't human anymore.
She turned to me sharply. "Where did you go?"
My heart pounded. I lied. "I… I dropped my earring while walking. I just went back to find it."
She narrowed her eyes for a second, then turned away. "Walk faster. He might be waiting now."
Then—
Boom.
A fireball tore through the sky, erupting from a swirling black portal. It slammed into the marketplace ahead. People screamed. Fire engulfed them. Flesh, stone, cloth—burned.
I froze. "What was that?!"
But my mother's eyes… she wasn't horrified.
She was smiling.
Not the soft smile of a loving mother.
A twisted one. Ecstatic. Almost… proud.
She grabbed my arm. "To the forest. We go now."
"What?!" I pulled back. "The city is burning. What about the King?!"
She turned on me, her voice sharp, venomous. "Stop fking around and follow me!**"
"No," I said, breath trembling. "This is enough."
I turned to run—
But I never made it.
He appeared right in front of me.
A man. Smiling. Too calm. His wings were void-black, stretching wide behind him like a shadow that swallowed the stars. A crown of twisted black thorns rested on his brow, pulsing faintly with dark energy.
Power rolled off him like waves.
My knees buckled. I couldn't move. My breath caught.
"Where do you think you're going?" he asked, voice like honey dipped in death.
My mother fell to her knees and bowed. "God of the Realm. King Azazel. Here is Aeria—the prophesied doom. Her life is now yours."
I screamed. "Stay away from me!" Casimir stepped out from the smoke, his expression unreadable.
"Do not fight it," he said quietly. "Go with him. He'll take you to the Veil. There, you'll fulfill your destiny."
Azazel raised his hand. A fine red-black powder swirled in his palm.
Before I could scream again, he blew it into my face.
It coated my skin. My vision blurred. My limbs went numb.
And then—
Darkness.
I woke up.
My body felt numb, like the blood had been drained out of me. My limbs barely responded. The room was cold—stone cold—and smelled like ash and old metal.
Then I heard it.
A lullaby. Slow. Off-key. Unearthly.
Coming from the dark edge of the room.
A voice—soft and strange, like a teenage girl singing to herself in the dark.
"Mother loves Morticia… hmm hmm hmm..."
I turned my head toward the sound. My vision was blurry, but I saw her—sitting cross-legged on the floor, just beyond the flicker of dying candlelight.
She looked about sixteen. Pale skin, long tangled hair that covered most of her face, wearing a tattered black dress like it had once belonged to a noble girl… and never been washed since. Her eyes were dark hollows, like something had sucked the life out of them.
She rocked back and forth, hugging a doll made of bones and string. And her voice kept going.
"But now she's dead and burned… hmm hmm hmm…"
"W-who are you?" I asked, barely above a whisper.
She stopped. Slowly turned to face me. That's when I saw it.
Her chest… it wasn't rising or falling.
No breath.
And in the center of her chest, where a heart should be—was nothing. Just a jagged, empty hole, black and cracked like scorched glass.
She smiled. Wide. Too wide.
"No one here has a heart anymore," she said.
"They stole it." Her laugh followed—cracked, hollow, inhuman.
I froze.