SELENA'S POV
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Darkness speaks louder than light.
Especially when you're trapped in it.
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I woke to silence.
Not the kind that soothes — the kind that suffocates.
Stone beneath me. Chains on my wrists.
The air was thick, like it remembered screams.
I tried to move — but the weight wasn't just metal.
It was something... older.
Magic.
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A low hum echoed through the cave-like room — a sanctum carved into earth and ash. The walls breathed, pulsed, alive with ancient whispers.
In the corner, Zack lay still. His head bled red into the floor, but his chest rose. Barely.
We had been taken.
Dragged from the in-between — the space between death and awakening — and pulled into something far darker.
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Footsteps.
Soft. Controlled. Too graceful to be human.
A shadow moved across the sanctum's entrance, and then he entered.
Ravyn.
Eyes silver like moonlight striking a blade.
Voice like silk soaked in venom.
> "The girl who should've ruled... and the boy who dared to follow her."
He smiled — not out of joy, but curiosity.
> "Tell me, Selena. Do you know what you are now?"
I didn't answer. Not because I couldn't.
But because I didn't know anymore.
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Then came the trio.
Each stepped in, silent as breath.
The Fallen Guardian — cloaked in broken armor, wings torn, eyes burning with betrayal.
The Shade Assassin — faceless beneath a veil of smoke, blades humming with cursed runes.
The Forest Witch — moss-draped, barefoot, lips stitched with vines that whispered secrets.
They stood in a circle around me.
Watching.
Judging.
Waiting.
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> "She is not ready," the Witch murmured, voice like leaves cracking underfoot.
"She is broken," said the Assassin.
"No," Ravyn said. "She is reborn."
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The chains tightened as something inside me stirred.
The part of me I was afraid to name.
The hunger.
The voice that came when I closed my eyes.
The one that told me:
> They lied to you. You were never theirs. You were always ours.
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Ravyn knelt beside me. Close enough to feel his cold breath.
> "This sanctum," he whispered, "is a test. Not for your strength... but for your loyalty."
He lifted something from the folds of his cloak — a dagger, black and ancient, pulsing with red veins.
> "You killed your past. Now you must bury it."
He turned the blade, offering the hilt.
> "Prove to us you're not their child anymore. Prove you're our Queen."
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Behind him, Zack stirred.
Eyes fluttered open. Bloodied, weak — but alive.
> "Selena… don't."
His voice cracked like glass.
And suddenly the silence shattered.
Because I remembered who I was.
And who I was becoming.
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🩸 Endnote
The Sanctum is not just a prison…
It's a mirror.
Are you ready to bleed for the crown?
— Mysterious_frnd