Chapter 37 The Sister I Chose
thirty-seven
The Sister I Chose
Miralyte
The chains around my wrists burned like captured starlight. Every movement sent liquid fire through my bones. I could taste the metal on my tongue, could feel it singing in my blood.
The Sun Court's grand throne room stretched around us like a cathedral built from golden glass.
Light refracted through crystal pillars the size of ancient trees, casting rainbows across marble floors that gleamed like polished bone.
Everything here was designed to blind, to overwhelm, to make mortals feel small.
But I wasn't just mortal. Not anymore.
Ylvena sat on her throne of carved amber, watching me. Her wings spread wide behind her, each feather edged in fire. She wore a crown of twisted sunbeams that hurt to look at directly. Beautiful and terrible, like a fallen star given flesh.
My sister. The word tasted like ash.
"You've come so far from that frightened little vessel," she said, her voice carrying the warm caress of summer and the promise of drought.
I looked down at my wrists. The metal was beginning to glow, to soften. Heat poured out of me in waves. The chains were singing, a high note of stressed metal and failing magic.
This was impossible. These shackles were forged in the heart of the sun itself, blessed by powers older than kingdoms. No prisoner had ever broken free. That's what the books had said.
"Impossible," Ylvena breathed, leaning forward on her throne. Then louder, switching to the old tongue. "Caelith neth!"
The guards moved at her command, their armor catching the light like polished mirrors. But they were too slow.
The chains shattered with a sound like breaking glass mixed with thunder.
They came at me from all sides. Sun Court warriors in golden armor, moving with fluid grace and killing precision. I'd never fought multiple opponents before. Never tested my power against trained soldiers. But rage was a teacher all its own, and fury made me faster than fear.
The first guard reached me with a blade that sang as it cut through superheated air.
I caught his wrist, let sunfire pour through the connection.
His scream died in his throat as light consumed him from the inside out.
The second came low, trying to sweep my legs.
I spun away, power lashing out like a whip.
It caught him across the chest, sent him flying into a marble pillar that cracked under the impact.
More guards poured into the throne room. Too many. But I didn't care about the odds anymore. I was done being careful.
This was what Ylvena had created when she filled my mind with lies.
This was her weapon, finally unleashed.
Sunfire exploded outward in waves, forcing the guards back. Their formation scattered as they dove for cover behind pillars and overturned furniture. The golden throne itself began to smoke, its perfect surface marring under the assault of uncontrolled heat.
Through the chaos, through the screams and the sound of shattering crystal, I heard another voice.
"Miralyte!"
Pelbie.
My attention snapped toward the sound. Two guards were dragging her toward a side door, her healer's robes torn and bloodied. One of them held a blade to her throat while the other yanked her arms behind her back. She was fighting them, struggling with everything she had, but they were stronger.
"No!" The word tore from my throat.
That moment of distraction cost me. Ylvena struck like lightning, faster than thought, faster than anything that large should have been able to move. She knocked me off my feet, my shoulder hitting the marble hard enough to make me cry out in pain.
"Look at what you've become." Her voice was ice and blood and the end of everything. "So much power, all gone to waste. We could have ruled this world together."
Pain shot through my ribs where she'd struck me. Each breath felt like swallowing glass. But I pushed myself up anyway, sunfire flickering weakly around my fingers.
"We're not ruling anything together." Blood trickled from the corner of my mouth. "You're a murderer and a liar."
"I'm a survivor." She circled me like a predator, white eyes never leaving mine. "I've made the choices you're too weak to make. Sacrificed what needed sacrificing. Built something lasting from the ashes of sentiment."
"You built nothing. You destroyed everything you touched."
Her laugh was winter wind over broken glass. "I gave you purpose. Direction. Without that grief, without that driving need for revenge, you would have lived and died as nothing more than another mortal peasant girl."
Every word felt like acid eating away at my soul. "You were jealous." I spat blood, wiped it on my torn sleeve.
"You know nothing about—"
"All this power." I struggled to my feet, legs shaking. "All these centuries. And you're still just the daughter she didn't want…"
"Shut your mouth."
"Tell me, Ylvena. When you killed her... did Emystra call out for me instead of you?"
Ice crystals began forming on the broken marble. Ylvena's white eyes blazed with something beyond rage, beyond fury. Something primal and wounded and utterly lethal.
"How dare you." Each word came out sharp enough to cut. "How dare you speak her name."
"Why? Because it hurts?" I laughed, tasting copper. "Because even now, even after everything you've done, you know she loved me more?"
"She loved a lie!" Ylvena's composure finally shattered completely. Power erupted from her in waves, cracking pillars, turning tapestries to ash. "A fantasy! A dream child she could mold into perfection because she never had to watch you disappoint her!"
"At least she chose to save me. What did she do for you? Left you here to rot with a crown and a court full of sycophants."
"I earned this throne!"
"You stole it. There's a difference." I wiped more blood from my mouth, never breaking eye contact. "Tell me, sister. In all these centuries of ruling, have you ever felt loved? Actually loved, not feared?"
Her face went white as winter. "Stop talking."
"That's why you needed me to hate you, isn't it? Because hatred is the only emotion you know how to inspire. The only connection you're capable of making." I took a shaky step forward. "Even now, even torturing me, you're still trying to make me need you."
"I said stop!"
"Poor little Ylvena. All dressed up in mother's crown, playing queen of the ashes. No wonder you had to invent a dead sister for me to mourn. You can't even imagine what real love looks like."
That's when she snapped.
Power lashed out like a whip, caught me across the chest, sent me flying backward into a marble pillar. Pain exploded through my ribs. Something cracked. Maybe broke.
"You want to know about love?" Ylvena stalked toward me, light bleeding from her skin like wounds. "Let me show you love."
She gestured toward the guards holding Pelbie. They dragged my friend forward, forcing her to her knees in front of the cracked throne. The blade at her throat drew a thin line of blood.
"This is what love gets you," Ylvena snarled. "This is what caring about weakness brings. Watch closely, dear sister. Watch what happens to the things you try to protect."
Pelbie's eyes found mine across the ruined throne room. In them, I saw fear. But also something else. Determination. The same stubborn courage that had carried her through every hardship we'd faced together.
"Don't," she said quietly. Not to Ylvena. To me. "Don't give her what she wants."
"How touching." Ylvena's smile was all sharp edges and winter cold. "She's trying to save you even now. Trying to spare you the pain of watching her die."
The blade pressed deeper. More blood flowed.
"But you know what the beautiful part is, Miralyte? This won't be an illusion. This won't be some carefully crafted memory I can take back later. When I kill her, she'll stay dead. Forever."
She nodded to the guard. The blade began to move.
Then the world exploded.
Stone and mortar burst inward like a dam giving way, ancient masonry reduced to rubble in seconds. Through the smoking breach came the emberhart.
But not as I'd seen it before. This wasn't the sleek, graceful creature that had stalked Thunder Court's corridors. This was something primal. Transformed. Its body had grown massive, easily twice the height of a man. Three heads emerged from a torso wreathed in living flame. Lion. Goat. Serpent.
The emberhart had become a chimera.
Each mouth opened in a roar that shattered the remaining windows.
The guard holding Pelbie froze, blade forgotten as terror replaced duty.
The chimera's lion head moved faster than thought.
Jaws clamped around the guard's throat with a wet crunch.
Blood sprayed across marble as the body hit the ground, twitching.
The second tried to run, dragging Pelbie with him. Lightning-charged horns punched through his chest, lifted him off his feet. The serpent head struck clean, fangs finding the gap in his helmet.
Both guards hit marble within heartbeats. Dead. Smoking.
"Impossible." Ylvena's voice cracked. "Emberharts are extinct."
The creature's three heads turned toward her in unison. Fire dripped from the lion's mane. Lightning crackled between the goat's horns. The serpent's scales gleamed like molten copper, each one sharp enough to cut stone.
Pelbie rolled away from the chaos, smart enough to stay low while death prowled overhead. The remaining guards scattered, their formation breaking as primal terror overrode training.
That left just me and Ylvena.
And the creature that had just leveled the playing field.
"So be it." Power erupted from Ylvena like a solar flare, turning her robes to liquid light. "If Thunder Court wants to send their pets, I'll put them down like the rabid animals they are."
She gestured toward the chimera. Golden chains materialized around its necks, binding all three heads. The creature struggled, roared defiance, but the bonds held firm.