---
Laraine remained still after Cleo left, the quiet pressing in like a vice. The outpost creaked around her—the sound of wood shifting in the wind, distant footsteps, the occasional murmured voice of rebels moving through the halls. It all felt far away, like she was standing at the edge of a storm no one else could hear.
She exhaled slowly, her palm resting flat on the map again. Dawn was only hours away.
This was it.
The moment she'd been marching toward since the night she'd been cast out. Since they stripped her of everything.
They thought she would never return.
They were wrong.
Footsteps approached again—softer this time. She didn't look up when she heard the door creak open.
"It's done," Cleo's voice said. "Everyone's armed. They know their roles. No one's backing out."
Laraine nodded once. "Good."
A pause. Then Cleo added, "You should get some rest. You'll need it."
Laraine almost laughed. Sleep? On the eve of this?
"I'll rest when he's dead," she said, her tone like broken glass wrapped in velvet.
Cleo hesitated, then stepped closer. "You sure you're ready?"
Laraine turned to face her. "I've been ready since the day I was born."
The words hung heavy in the air, and Cleo didn't speak again.
She didn't need to.
The silence was enough.
Laraine stepped past her and headed for the corridor. The hallway flickered with torchlight—dim, unsteady. Shadows leaned long across the stone floor, and each step echoed louder than it should.
The others were waiting near the lower barracks, armed and silent. Their faces were grim, eyes steady, but Laraine could read the tension beneath every stance. Fear. Hope. Rage.
They looked to her when she entered.
Not Cleo.
Her.
The exiled daughter.
The cursed one.
Laraine lifted her chin and moved to the front, where a narrow door led to the forest. The air beyond was colder now, thick with the scent of damp earth and pine. The stars overhead blinked like tiny blades, sharp and merciless.
She looked over her shoulder.
"This is your last chance to walk away," she said, her voice clear, ringing through the night. "What we do next is treason. The kind that ends in chains… or victory. There is no middle ground."
No one moved.
Laraine's eyes flicked to Cleo, who offered a crooked, wolfish grin. "Treason's always sounded sexy to me."
That earned a few tight smiles from the group, a ripple of tension breaking.
Laraine gave a single nod.
"Then we move."
She opened the door and stepped into the darkness—her cloak catching on the wind like a shadow unfurling.
The forest greeted them like a grave waiting to be filled.
As they slipped through the trees toward the edge of the palace grounds, Laraine's fingers drifted to the pendant again. Hidden beneath her shirt, it burned against her skin like a heartbeat.
Not fear.
Not hesitation.
Just memory.
Just Millis.
She didn't look back.
She couldn't afford to.
The night had begun, and the path ahead had only one ending.
Blood.
And a throne.
---
Somewhere along the palace outskirts – Hours before dawn
Vienna crouched in the high branches of a pine, motionless, watching the palace like a predator studying its prey.
She'd been here for hours—long before the rebels stirred from their hideout. Her eyes followed every patrol shift, every flicker of movement along the ramparts. The guards were tense, pacing like rats trapped in their own gilded cage. They felt it too—the coming storm.
She could smell the smoke before it ever touched the air.
And still, her thoughts drifted.
Back to the window. Back to the outpost. Back to Laraine.
That pendant around her neck.
Vienna had seen the glint of it in the torchlight. Recognized it immediately. Millis's trinket.
Vienna thought it ridiculous. A soldier didn't wear sentiment around her neck.
But she remembered how fiercely Laraine had clutched it when she left Millis behind.
A quiet breath escaped her lips. She shook the thought away and refocused her gaze on the guards below.
She had work to do.
Whether Laraine lived or died wasn't supposed to matter.
But it did.
And that was the problem.
A soft crunch behind her.
Vienna moved like a shadow—blade drawn, heart sharp—until she froze.
The flicker of black silk caught her eye.
And her breath hitched.
"…You're dead."
The words left her lips before she could stop them.
The figure stepped into the moonlight, and the world seemed to slow.
Serelith.
Alive.
Unchanged.
Unaged.
Vienna stared at the woman like a ghost had just clawed its way out of her past.
Serelith tilted her head, that familiar cruel smile dancing across her lips. "Disappointed?"
Vienna's throat worked uselessly. "You— I saw you fall. The rebellion— You were—"
"Burned? Left for dead? Dismembered?" Serelith offered casually, stepping closer, her voice like silk dragged across razors. "And yet here I stand."
Vienna took a step back, hand tight on her blade. "You're not real."
"Oh, but I am, darling. More real than your little rebellion. More real than your broken loyalties. More real than whatever pitiful thing you still feel for her."
Vienna's voice was low. Cold. "You should be ash."
"And yet you followed every order I ever gave you like a good dog," Serelith murmured, circling her now, like a serpent. "Still do, apparently. Or have you started thinking for yourself again? Is that why you're stalling?"
Vienna's blade didn't waver, but her silence spoke volumes.
Serelith laughed softly. "Of course. It's her. It's always her."
A gust of wind tore through the trees, sending branches creaking.
"I buried you," Vienna muttered. "I buried you."
"No," Serelith said, her eyes glinting with something terrible. "You ran."
The accusation landed like a slap.
"You left me to die when it got messy. Just like Laraine will. That's what she does, Vienna. She leaves."
Vienna's jaw clenched. "You're lying."
"Oh, I've lied before. But not about this," Serelith whispered, stepping even closer now. "And when Laraine finds out I'm alive… Do you think she'll still see you as anything but a traitor who couldn't finish the job?"
Vienna stared at her, heart pounding beneath armor that suddenly felt far too thin.
"If you hurt her—"
"You'll what?" Serelith's smile turned feral. "Kill me? Again?"
Vienna didn't respond.
She couldn't
Not while the world spun around the fact that Serelith—her mentor, her nightmare—was alive.
And worse…
Still in control.
Serelith gave one last, venomous smirk and vanished into the trees without another word, leaving Vienna alone in the wind.
Alone with the truth.
She stood there for a long time, gripping her blade until her knuckles bled white.
Then, slowly, she turned her eyes back to the palace.
Her heartbeat was ragged in her chest.
If Serelith was truly alive…
Then the war hadn't even started.
And Laraine—gods help her—had no idea what she was walking into.
---