Selena's POV
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Pain isn't always loud.
Sometimes it creeps in like fog — soft, invisible… until you can't breathe.
That was what I felt after Thornwake showed me the truth.
She wasn't just a vision.
She was my mother.
And she had died to keep me hidden from the crown that bleeds.
---
Zack held me as I gasped awake.
The mark still burned on my chest — thorned flame twisting around itself like a sealed promise.
But I felt something else now.
Power.
Not the kind I stole or was given.
The kind buried in blood.
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> "You saw her," Zack said.
His voice was soft — unsure. Afraid, maybe.
"Didn't you?"
I nodded, though it felt like my bones were shaking.
> "She said… I was born in fire. Raised in lies."
> "That if I stay human, I'll forget everything. But if I awaken, I'll burn."
---
He frowned. "Selena, what does that mean?"
The answer was already blooming beneath my skin.
It meant I couldn't go back.
---
The altar pulsed again — red veins crawling up the silver thorns of the tree behind it.
And then… the forest moved.
Not with wind — but purpose.
From the edge of the trees, they emerged:
The Fallen Guardian, wings stitched with pain.
The Shade Assassin, blades smoking with silence.
The Forest Witch, her eyes mossy and ancient.
They circled us again — but this time, something had changed.
They didn't look at me with doubt.
They looked at me like a prophecy breathing.
---
> "The crown has found her," the Witch said, bowing her head.
"But will she wear it?"
Ravyn stepped out from between shadows, expression unreadable.
> "You were meant to break," he said to me.
"But instead… you bloomed."
He drew a crimson vial from his cloak and held it to the light.
> "This is the blood of your line. Sealed by the death of your mother. Meant to awaken the last truth."
He held it out.
I didn't hesitate.
I drank it.
---
The world fractured.
---
My back arched as fire clawed through my spine.
I screamed — not in pain, but in release.
Visions poured in like floodwaters:
A castle built in bone.
A girl bathed in starlight, then drowned in shadow.
My mother — on her knees, offering her blood to bind me.
My birth — not in a cradle, but in a crypt.
And finally...
The Crown.
Forged from dusk and death. Floating above a throne no one has dared to sit in centuries.
Waiting.
For me.
---
I collapsed.
But I wasn't the same girl who touched the altar.
---
Zack rushed to me — but paused.
His eyes were wide.
> "Selena… your eyes."
I looked down at my hands. My skin shimmered briefly — black veins pulsing under the surface.
And in the reflection of the silver thorns, I saw my face:
Eyes glowing.
Fangs bared.
A crown of shadows hovering just above my head.
I was no longer becoming.
I was awakened.
---
Ravyn approached and knelt.
> "Welcome back, Queen of Ash and Flame."
---
🩸 Endnote
She is no longer lost.
She is rising.
The coronation has begun… but not all thrones are meant to be sat upon.
To my Mystics — bleed with me in the comments. 👑🖤
— Mysterious_frnd