The air inside the black-and-white door was alive. It pressed against me like storms colliding, each breath pulling knives into my lungs, each heartbeat echoing like a drum against the hollow vault of the world. My skin burned hot and cold at once. Shadows stretched and light bent. Sound trembled like an unstrung chord.
Before me stood the three.
Death. Life. Music.
They did not move like mortals. They did not even move like gods. They shifted like truths written in the fabric of the universe. Death's shadow curled into ash where his robes brushed the air. Life's every step scattered flowers that bloomed and wilted in a breath. Music lifted his violin, and the bow's faintest brush against the strings sent my heart into rhythm with the note.
I had said I wanted to be myself. Not Elara. Not Seraphina's mask.
And together, their voices had answered:
"Then you will be ours."
The power struck like a hammer.
I fell to my knees, the ground searing against my skin, though there was no ground at all, only shifting black and white. My breath ripped from me in a scream that echoed into silence.
It was agony.
Death's hand brushed over me first, a cold so deep it cracked through my bones. My veins turned to ice, my heart stopped, my vision went black. Every fear I had buried clawed its way up, hissing that I would end here, alone, unloved, and undone.
Then Life's touch came, searing against the death-frost. Fire and bloom. My blood boiled, flowers pressed out of my skin before withering, veins glowing with light. My body swelled with warmth until I thought it would burst. Her voice hissed through me: "To be alive is to burn."
Then Music. Oh, Music.
His bow drew across the strings, and my body split open in sound. It was not flesh-tearing—it was something deeper, something that stripped me bare. Every lie I had ever told myself, every mask I had ever worn, every false laugh and polished smile, shattered like glass. His music wove into me, filled the cracks, and forced truth into my bones.
I was screaming. I was sobbing. I was laughing. My voice became notes I didn't understand.
The agony and ecstasy blended until I no longer knew which was which. I wanted to tell them to stop, but I couldn't. I was too broken to speak, too broken to even remember myself anymore.
Outside, in the garden, my body convulsed.
Caelum had lifted me into his arms with surprising gentleness, carrying me swiftly through the corridors to my mother's chambers. My father strode beside him, barking orders with a voice that shook only slightly. My mother followed, her face pale, her eyes too bright.
"Physician!" she shouted as they laid me across her great bed. "Now!"
The family physician, an older man with trembling hands, rushed in. His tools clattered to the floor when he saw my body arch, my back bowing unnaturally as light and shadow cracked through my skin.
"This—this is not sickness," he stammered. "This is—this is something beyond—"
"Save her," my father growled, grabbing him by the collar. "Do something!"
"I cannot!" the physician gasped. "She is not dying. She is… becoming."
Inside the door, the ritual burned on.
Symbols carved themselves into my flesh, curling across my arms, shoulders, stomach, thighs. Black as night, white as bone, they twined together like vines. They were not drawings. They were alive. They pulsed with every beat of my heart, moving like serpents, branding me from within.
On my chest, a great thorned circle bloomed. Across my back, wings of shadow and light unfurled before sinking into my skin.
And then my eyes—oh, my eyes.
Death pressed his hand to them. Life breathed upon them. Music drew his bow across the strings and burned its mark into me. When I opened them, I saw both nothing and everything.
The left eye was black, with a white sigil blooming on the iris—a twisting mark of Death. The right eye was white, with a black sigil curling sharply—the mark of Life. And in the center of my forehead, glowing faintly, a delicate symbol like a treble clef etched itself—the mark of Music. I collapsed, trembling, gasping, remade. I felt pain for the first time in my life. I always hid my pain and eventually grew numb, but I felt real pain this time around.
My hair, once black, spilled down my shoulders, lengthening in a rush. It turned pale, silver-white, shining like snow under moonlight. It grew and grew until it brushed my ankles, heavy but weightless at once.
My body changed, too. The hollowness of Elara's thin frame melted away. My hips curved fuller, my waist drawing sharp, my chest rising with new strength. My skin glowed faintly, alive with the pulsing of the gods within me. I had become something more—something untouchable.
Outside, the physician dropped to his knees.
Her hair grew, he whispered. Her eyes changed.
Her body, broken and frail, was filled with life.
"She—she is…" His voice trailed into awe. "She is binding something. Something no mortal should touch."
My siblings stared, their masks gone. Diana clutched Selene's arm. Selene's cold face cracked with fear. Maris, silent as always, pressed her hand to her lips, trembling. Caelum's hand went to his sword, as if he could fight what he saw, and my mother—Lady Duskbane—knelt at my side, stroking my hair with shaking hands as though afraid it would vanish if she let go.
"My daughter," she whispered. "What are you becoming?" The servants were too scared to even move, and some were crying and holding my mother to help her.
Inside the door, the gods drew closer.
Death's hollow flames wrapped around me, binding my bones. Life's flowers tangled into my veins, blooming with each breath. Music's chords tied it all together, sealing the cracks until I was whole.
"You are no longer mask nor shadow," Death intoned.
"You are no longer curse nor shame," Life whispered.
"You are no longer silent," Music sang.
"Then what am I?" I asked, my voice raw, my body trembling from the torrent of power.
They answered as one, "Ours."
And then they showed me.
The image burned into my mind—of a boy. His face was still shadowed, but his eyes gleamed with fire. He held a crown in one hand and a sword in the other. And beside him, I stood. Not weak. Not masked. Not villainess. A queen.
"With him," the gods said, "you will build the kingdom you dreamed of but never dared. A kingdom of thorns and music. A kingdom where masks shatter and truths live. Seek him. Find him. Claim him."
The image vanished. And the power sank into me, final and eternal. The glass broke underneath me, and my spirit fell deep into darkness. I noticed that Elara's spirit fell, too, but I haven't seen her since then.
My body on the bed gasped—one sharp breath, cutting through the silence like lightning. My eyes opened. Black and white. Symbols gleaming in the irises.
The physician arrived in a rush, his satchel clutched tight. He dropped to my side, his hands swift, checking my pulse, my breath, my eyes.
"She's—she's gone," he whispered at first. "There's nothing—"
Then my body convulsed.
The tattoos burned across my skin, black and white thorns twisting like fire. My hair lengthened before their eyes, white spilling across the sheets. My chest heaved, breath rushing back with a force that rattled the windows.
"Gods above," the physician gasped, stumbling back. "What is this—what is happening?"
My eyes snapped open. One black, one white. Both glowing with impossible symbols. The mark of Music burned on my forehead, pulsing with faint silver light.
I sat up slowly, the sheets falling from my shoulders. My body was remade, fuller, stronger, alive with power.
My family stared in horror. And awe.
"She contracted…" Selene's voice broke. "That door… she…"
"No one has ever—" Diana whispered, her voice shaking.
"Impossible," Caelum said, but his hands trembled.
My mother's tears spilled over, her hands covering her mouth as she whispered, "My daughter…"
The physician dropped to his knees, trembling. "This… this is not possible. No god—no god has ever taken one such as her. Not one, and never three."
I rose slowly from the bed, my white hair spilling down, my body alight with the marks of gods, and fell to the ground on my face. My entire body was weak. Just because my body has become fuller doesn't mean that I won't be hungry.