A storm was coming.
Mariluna could feel it in her bones, humming beneath her skin like a whispered threat. She sat alone in her chambers, the rain battering the world just beyond the wide-open window. The fire burned low, its light barely brushing the walls where shadows loomed thick and restless.
David's words still haunted her.
"She belongs to us now."
Us.
She didn't know who they were. Only that Veritas had escaped. And that he'd left that message behind.
For Lorenzo.
Or maybe for her.
A knock at the door broke the silence, soft but firm.
She expected Lorenzo.
But when she opened it, it was Cassandra.
She stood there expressionless, the bruises on her cheekbone faded but still visible, her gaze cool, unreadable. In her hands, she held a small, velvet-wrapped box.
Mariluna narrowed her eyes. "What do you want?"
"You need to see this."
Mariluna tried to shut the door, but Cassandra caught it with her foot.
"I'm not here to fight," she said. "Not tonight."
Reluctantly, Mariluna stepped back.
Once the door clicked shut behind them, Cassandra held out the box.
Mariluna didn't take it. "What is it?"
"Something my father kept hidden," Cassandra said, voice low. "I found it the night before you were taken. At first, I thought it was nothing. But after what I saw you do… what you are… I know better now."
Mariluna slowly reached for the box and opened it.
Inside sat a ring.
But not just any ring.
It looked identical to the Blood Veil Lorenzo had given her, only darker. The gem shimmered with a strange, violet-black gleam that didn't feel right.
She touched it.
Pain tore through her skull like lightning.
She gasped and dropped the ring, clutching her temples.
"What is that?" she managed to say, breath ragged.
"I don't know," Cassandra replied. "But my father… he called it the Crown-Breaker. Said it was meant to kill a queen."
Meanwhile, in the Veridian Slums
Veritas knelt within a cathedral made entirely of bone.
At the center stood an empty throne, carved from shadow and silence.
Around him, the Unblooded gathered.
Their faces were pale, their features sharp and strange. Some bore horns. Others wings. All were marked, bound to bloodlines that rejected them, born from magic the world tried to erase.
Veritas raised his arms.
"She walks among mortals," he declared. "But she is ours."
Murmurs rippled through the crowd like wind through dead leaves.
A female voice, cold and cruel, rang out: "Is she ready?"
"She burned a man in half," Veritas answered. "She is ready enough."
The throne pulsed.
From within the darkness, a voice finally spoke.
"Bring her home."
Back at the estate
Mariluna paced her room.
The Crown-Breaker was locked inside a glass case now. Cassandra had already left—but not before saying something that had lodged itself deep in Mariluna's mind:
"You should ask your lover why he keeps a copy of that ring in his vault too."
The words stopped her cold.
She didn't want to believe it.
But the puzzle pieces were shifting. And nothing was fitting the way it used to.
If Lorenzo had another ring like it… he knew.
He knew what she was.
Or worse, what they were trying to stop her from becoming.
The door creaked open behind her.
She turned.
Lorenzo stood there, rain-soaked and silent, his shirt clinging to him, shadows clinging harder.
"I told you not to speak to her."
"She came to me."
"I should have her killed."
"You already killed my trust," she said, stepping forward. "What else have you hidden from me?"
He didn't respond.
So she shoved the glass case toward him. "Do you recognize that?"
His jaw tensed. "Where did you get this?"
"My uncle. The one you said was just a greedy bastard. The one who sold me. The one you let torment me while you played god behind the scenes."
"I was protecting you. "
"No," she cut him off. "You were grooming me."
Silence thickened between them.
Then he spoke, quietly, but every word struck like a hammer.
"I had to make sure you chose me. Because once the Court finds you… they'll never let you go."
Lightning cracked outside the window.
Mariluna looked at him, really looked. Once, his eyes had promised safety. Power. Now all she saw in them was fear.
Not for himself.
For her.
"You knew about the Court."
"Yes."
"You knew what I was."
"I suspected."
"And still, you kept me like a pet?"
"I kept you alive," he said, low and sharp. "Because if the Unblooded Court had gotten to you first, they'd have put you on that throne in chains."
"And you're different?"
"I'd die before chaining you."
A pause.
Then.
A scream tore through the silence, echoing from the west wing.
Cassandra.
Mariluna didn't hesitate.
She ran.
And behind her, in the quiet she left behind, Lorenzo whispered to no one:
"They've come."