Chapter 30
RAVENA
The air hung thick—choking, heavy with the acrid sting of smoke and the sharp bite of blood.
Candlelight flickered feebly against the towering bookshelves; their soft gold was swallowed by the crushing dark pressing in on the grand hall.
Velvet-draped windows loomed like the silent sentinels, their heavy fabric swaying just enough to whisper secrets into the waiting void.
Then I saw her.
A younger Vespera—barely nineteen—stood in the centre of the room.
Her dark robes hung flawlessly, flowing like spilt ink, threaded with silver runes that pulsed faintly with some unseen power.
Her hair, longer than it is now, had been styled with meticulous care…
a sharp contrast to the smears of blood slashed across her face.
It streaked her pale skin in cruel, crimson trails—across her cheekbones, tracing the sharp line of her jaw, staining the soft curve of her lips. But she wasn’t trembling. She wasn’t crying.
She was smiling.
Across the hall, a woman lay crumpled at the base of the grand staircase—her once-regal gown torn and clinging to her in blood-soaked shreds.
One shaking hand weakly against the gaping wound in her side, her breath shallow and broken.
Even in agony, there was something fierce in her—soft features taut with pain, short brown hair plastered to her damp skin.
But it was her eyes that made my stomach knot.
Piercing green. The same shade as my mother's.
Vespera's mother.
The air throbbed with raw, twisted magic—suffocating, clinging to my skin like rot. Even the walls seemed to hum with it… ancient, tainted, and wrong.
“You have to stop this…” the woman rasped, her voice a frayed whisper, clinging to life by a thread.
Vespera stepped forward, her heels clicking softly against the marble. Her head tilted, eyes dark and expression unreadable. No triumph. No regret.
Just ice. Detached and merciless.
“Stop?” she echoed, a faint curl at the corner of her mouth. “You taught me to be powerful. To take whatever I want. And now you beg me to stop?”
The woman coughed, crimson staining her lips. “I taught you to lead… not destroy.”
Vespera lowered herself with chilling ease, ignoring the mess around her.
Her gloved fingers drifted over the dagger lodged in her mother’s ribs, tracing its hilt with a slow, surgical precision that seemed to warp the air around them.
With her other hand, she drew a second blade—sleek, wickedly sharp.
Its deep violet hilt shimmered faintly, silver stars glinting along the middle.
My dagger.
“You always said power belongs to those strong enough to seize it,” Vespera murmured calmly. “I’m just honouring your lessons, mother.”
With a swift, merciless thrust, the dagger sank deep into her mother’s heart. A ragged gasp tore free, her body convulsing, fingers grasping weakly at Vesperas's wrist —then stillness.
The light faded from her emerald eyes as blood pooled over the silver stars etched into the blade.
I wanted to move. To scream. To stop it all. But I was rooted, helpless—trapped in the nightmare of watching Vespera kill her mother with the very dagger I now carried.
It was a memory, locked in the past, untouchable… yet unbearably real.
Then, from the shadows behind Vespera, a figure emerged—tall, imposing, radiating a power so thick it wrapped around me like a deep, slow tide. Dark and absolute, he was cloaked in midnight robes, embroidered with the same faintly glowing runes that pulsed with ancient magic.
There was something hauntingly familiar about him, but his face blurred, shifting—like my mind refused to let me see the truth, as if the revelation was meant to remain hidden from me.
“It is done,” Vespera said softly, rising with a predator’s grace. She wiped the blood from her gloves with the care of something brushing away a stray thread—like it meant nothing.
The figure stood beside her, stared down at the lifeless body, silent… until he gave a single nod.
“And your father?” he asked, but I couldn’t make out his voice.
A smile curved her lips as she looked up. “He’ll be next.
Their eyes meet—an unspoken understanding passing between them—before the man seized Vespera, crushing his mouth against hers in a brutal, claiming kiss.
Revulsion twisted in my gut. I squeezed my eyes shut. But before I could block it out, a violent surge of raw magic slammed into me, ripping through my chest like a fist.
The world around me splintered—cracking, breaking—shards of sound and light exploding in every direction.
And then… the truth bled into my mind.
Vespera hadn’t been forced. She killed them—her own parents by choice. And the dagger that I have carried with me for years, believing it to be some dark token from a demon ally of my mothers.
But it was hers.
The very blade she’d used to murder her parents… to claw her way to power… to claim a crown soaked in blood.
All this time, I’d carried it.
A legacy of murder disguised as protection. A curse bound to a lie I never saw coming.