Evelina's POV
The black light shoots up from the seal like a pillar of darkness reaching for the sky.
I scramble backward, my heart hammering. The ground shakes so violently I can't stay on my feet. I fall hard against the cold stone of the seal, my back pressed against the symbols that burn with silver fire.
"What did I do?" I gasp. "What did I—"
The voice comes again, louder now. Filling my head until there's no room for my own thoughts.
"You called to me," it says. "You offered your rage. Your pain. Your desire for revenge."
The black light starts to fade, sinking back into the seal. But the shaking continues. Cracks appear in the stone beneath me, spreading outward like a spider's web.
Then, as suddenly as it started, everything stops.
Silence.
I'm alone in the ruins again, breathing hard. The seal looks normal—just carved stone with fading symbols. Like nothing happened.
Did I imagine it? Am I going crazy from grief and exhaustion?
My whole body starts to shake. Not from fear. From everything. From losing my family. From being betrayed. From walking through a cursed forest to die alone.
I collapse fully against the seal now, too tired to hold myself up anymore. My legs won't work. My arms feel like they weigh a thousand pounds.
I have nothing left. No strength. No hope. No reason to keep fighting.
"I don't want to do this anymore," I whisper to the empty ruins. To the dead trees. To the god who may or may not have heard me. "I'm so tired of hurting."
Tears stream down my face, but I don't bother wiping them away. What's the point? There's no one here to see me break. No one to judge me for being weak.
I can finally stop pretending to be strong.
My hand goes to my pocket—a habit from my old life, when I always carried a handkerchief like a proper lady. But there's nothing proper about me anymore.
My fingers touch something sharp.
I pull it out carefully. It's a piece of broken mirror, no bigger than my palm. One of the guards must have knocked it into my pocket when they searched my room. The edge is jagged and sharp, catching the last rays of dying sunlight.
I stare at my reflection in the glass.
I don't recognize the girl looking back at me.
Her face is covered in blood and dirt. Her hair hangs in tangled knots around her shoulders. Her eyes are empty and dead, like all the light has been sucked out of them.
This isn't Lady Evelina Ashcroft, future queen of Valenmoor.
This is just a broken girl with nothing left to lose.
"Maybe it's better this way," I say to my reflection. "Maybe I should have died when they executed me. At least then it would be over quickly."
The mirror piece feels heavy in my hand. Sharp. Dangerous.
One quick cut. That's all it would take. One slice across my wrist and I'd bleed out in minutes. I'd fall asleep and never wake up. Never have to think about Isolde's smile or Adrian's lies or my father's disgust.
I'd just... stop.
"They win if I die here," I whisper, but the words sound hollow. "But I win if I leave nothing for them to remember."
Is that true? Or am I just making excuses?
The mirror piece trembles in my hand. My whole arm shakes.
Do it, part of me screams. End the pain. Stop hurting. Just let go.
But another part—a smaller, quieter part—whispers: If you die, they never pay for what they did.
"I can't make them pay anyway," I say out loud. "I'm powerless. Nameless. Nothing."
You spoke to a god, that quiet voice reminds me. He answered.
"That was probably just my imagination." My laugh sounds broken and crazy. "I'm talking to myself in cursed ruins. I've definitely lost my mind."
My hand raises the mirror piece to my wrist. The sharp edge presses against my skin, right where my pulse beats.
One cut. Just one.
But my hand won't stop shaking.
"Do it," I tell myself. "Just do it. You wanted to die anyway. That's why you chose the ruins instead of execution. You wanted this."
Did I? Or did I just want to die with dignity instead of as their entertainment?
The mirror shakes harder. My vision blurs with tears.
"I can't," I sob. "I can't do it. I'm too much of a coward to even kill myself properly."
The shame is overwhelming. I can't live with what they did to me. But I can't die either. I'm just stuck here, broken and useless and alone.
My hand drops.
The mirror piece falls from my fingers.
It hits the seal with a sharp crack, shattering into even smaller pieces. One shard bounces up and slices across my palm before I can pull away.
Pain flares bright and hot. Blood wells up immediately, flowing freely from the deep cut.
"No!" I grab my wrist, trying to stop the bleeding. "No, no, no—I didn't mean to—"
But it's too late.
My blood drips onto the seal.
One drop. Two drops. Three.
The silver symbols start to glow again. Brighter than before. So bright I have to close my eyes against the light.
The ground rumbles beneath me. Not shaking this time. Humming. Like the entire earth is vibrating at a frequency I can feel in my bones.
"No," I whisper, pressing my bleeding hand against my chest. "I didn't mean to. It was an accident—"
The seal cracks.
Not small cracks like before. Massive breaks that split the stone in half, then quarters, then into dozens of pieces. Black fire shoots up through the cracks, burning without heat. The symbols flare so bright they're painful to look at.
And something rises from beneath the seal.
Not slowly this time. Fast. Powerful. Unstoppable.
A presence so huge and overwhelming that I can't breathe. Can't think. Can't do anything but stare as darkness pours out of the broken seal like water from a dam.
The darkness takes shape.
First a shadow. Then an outline. Then—
A man.
Tall and terrifying and beautiful in a way that hurts to look at. His hair is black as midnight and moves like smoke even though there's no wind. His eyes are silver with black pupils, like dying stars. Strange marks cover his skin—symbols that match the ones on the seal, but these are fading, breaking apart.
He's wearing nothing but shadows that cling to him like clothes. Power radiates from him in waves, making the air shimmer and twist.
He stands in the center of the broken seal, looking around like he can't quite believe he's free.
Then his eyes lock onto me.
I stop breathing.
This is him. The Betrayer God. Kyroth.
And I just freed him with my blood.
He moves toward me with impossible grace, like he's floating instead of walking. Each step makes the ground tremble. The ruins themselves seem to bow before him.
I try to back away, but my body won't obey. I'm frozen, paralyzed by the sheer force of his presence.
He stops right in front of me. Reaches out one hand. His fingers are long and elegant, but I can see power crackling around them like lightning.
He touches my chin, tilting my face up to meet his star-bright eyes.
His touch burns cold.
"Impossible," he breathes, his voice like silk and thunder mixed together. He studies my face with an intensity that makes me feel naked. "A daughter of Ashcroft, bleeding on my prison."
His lips curve into a smile that's both beautiful and terrifying.
"Either fate has a vicious sense of humor," he says softly, dangerously, "or you're the stupidest mortal I've ever encountered."
His eyes bore into mine, seeing everything—my pain, my betrayal, my broken heart.
"So tell me, little queen," he whispers, his cold fingers tightening on my chin. "Did you free me on purpose? Or did you stumble into releasing a god by accident?"