Perfect, Benita 😈💔
We're going right into the storm now. Chapter Three is where everything crashes — betrayal goes public, the heartbreak becomes unbearable, and Elara's fate is sealed in the eyes of the kingdom.
This is where love dies… and vengeance is born.
Let's go.
The bells of Valenor tolled again — but this time, not for celebration.
The sound was deep and mournful, rolling across the grey sky as rain poured over the castle courtyard. Hundreds of nobles and commoners gathered to witness the trial of Lady Elara Vayne, accused of poisoning the late king.
She was brought in shackles, her once-elegant gown reduced to a tattered shadow of what it had been. Her hair clung to her wet face; her eyes, however, burned bright with defiance.
At the front of the hall sat King Darius.
The man she had once loved.
The man who had condemned her.
He looked regal, cold, and utterly unreachable on his throne of black marble. The crown that had once belonged to his father gleamed on his head — heavy, undeserved.
Elara's heart twisted, but she kept her chin high as the guards forced her to her knees.
---
The High Inquisitor stepped forward, voice echoing through the hall.
"Lady Elara Vayne, you stand accused of treason, regicide, and consorting with forbidden magic. Do you have anything to say before judgment is passed?"
Elara raised her head slowly, her gaze locking with Darius's.
"Yes," she said. Her voice didn't tremble. "I didn't kill the king. I loved him like a father. And you—"
Her eyes burned into Darius.
"You know that."
A murmur rippled through the court.
Darius's expression didn't change. He spoke softly, but his voice carried across the hall.
"You were found at the scene. The cup was in your hands. Your servants confessed that you'd been acting strangely for weeks."
"They lied!" Elara cried. "You told them to—"
"Enough!" the Inquisitor barked. "The king will not be accused in his own court!"
Elara laughed bitterly, the sound hollow and broken.
"Of course not. The truth is treason in Valenor, isn't it?"
For a moment, something flickered in Darius's eyes — guilt, pain, something almost human — but it was gone in a breath.
He turned to the Inquisitor.
"The sentence stands. Death at dawn."
The room gasped.
Elara froze.
Death.
So that was it.
No mercy. No chance to speak.
He had chosen power over her.
Her throat tightened. "Darius…" she whispered.
He didn't look at her.
---
The guards dragged her toward the doors. The rain was louder now, hammering against the stained glass windows.
Just as she was about to be pulled from the hall, she tore free for one final moment — enough to look back at him.
"You will regret this," she said, her voice low but clear. "When your crown turns to ash, remember this moment."
Darius said nothing.
But his hand trembled slightly on the armrest.
---
Back in her cell, she sat in silence as the storm raged.
Her wrists bled from the chains. Her mind replayed his face — calm, cold, unshaken — and every time she saw it, something inside her cracked a little more.
She thought of the whisper in the dark, of the black flame that had fused with her blood.
She thought of how it had burned when she swore she wanted to live.
Maybe this was what it meant.
Maybe the gods had already decided — she would not die quietly.
---
At midnight, a sound echoed through the hall — the faint click of a lock turning.
Elara looked up. The cell door creaked open.
A figure stood there, cloaked in grey.
"Who are you?" she asked.
The hood lowered, revealing a woman with pale eyes like frost and hair the color of silver ash.
"I am sent by the Veiled Circle," the woman said. "Your blood was marked by our master's flame. You are one of us now."
Elara stared, speechless.
"If you wish to live," the woman continued, "come with me. But understand this — once you step through that door, you can never go back."
Elara's gaze flicked to the torchlight flickering on the wall, to the storm outside, to the memory of Darius's cold eyes.
"I don't want to go back," she said quietly.
The woman nodded once. "Then come, Thorn-Blooded. Your rebirth awaits."
--
As they slipped into the darkness beneath the castle, Elara looked back one last time.
Through the cracks of the corridor, she could see the throne room in the distance — faint light spilling from under the doors.
She whispered, almost to herself,
"Sleep well, Your Majesty. The next time you see me… you'll wish I had died."
And with that, she vanished into the night —
the last trace of the woman she had been washed away by the storm.