The alarms screamed and the storm wailed, but none of it was louder than the pounding in Elara's chest. On the monitor, the hooded figure shoved a second silhouette forward — bound, soaked in rain, their defiance barely restrained.
Her child.
Her hand trembled on the desk, cigarette falling forgotten to the floor. She couldn't breathe, couldn't think. All the years she had buried the memory, all the walls she had built — they cracked in a single heartbeat.
The figure yanked the child's head back so the cameras caught their face. Older now, carved by hardship, but those eyes… those eyes were hers.
And then, the child spoke. Their voice was hoarse, strained, but each word cut like a blade.
"Don't come for me."
Elara's blood turned to ice.
The hooded figure's laugh slithered through the speakers. "Even your own blood despises you, Phantom Queen. Do you hear it? Your empire, your mask — they mean nothing here. Not when the one thing that ties you to humanity spits in your face."
The child struggled against their restraints, not toward Elara, but *away* from her. Their glare through the rain was pure fire.
"You're no mother to me," they spat. "You're the monster they warned me about. If I die tonight, it won't be because of them—it'll be because you exist."
The words struck harder than any blade.
Elara's hand slipped from the desk. For a moment — just a moment — her mask cracked, her breath faltering as though she had been gutted.
Kain's fists clenched at his sides, fury burning in his eyes. "Lies. They've poisoned the child's mind. Boss, say the word and I'll—"
"Silence."
Her command was quiet but absolute. Her eyes stayed locked on the screen, on that face that mirrored hers yet rejected her.
The hooded figure leaned closer to the camera, rain dripping down their mask. "Kneel, Elara. Kneel before the storm. Or watch your bloodline end — not by my knife, but by their will."
The feed cut. Static swallowed the room.
For a long time, Elara didn't move. Didn't speak. Only the storm filled the silence, hammering at the steel walls of her empire.
Finally, she stood. Her movements were deliberate, steady, but Kain could see it — the war inside her.
Her lips curved, but there was no warmth, no softness. Only a smile carved from sorrow and steel.
"They can twist my child's heart against me," she whispered, voice shaking with rage, "but they cannot kill the blood that binds us. Not yet."
She turned, silver hair catching the glow of the monitors like threads of lightning.
"Kain. Ready the armies. Tonight, the city will learn the cost of touching what is mine."
Kain bowed his head, hiding the storm of pity and fear in his eyes. He had seen her fury before, but never like this. This was not just the Phantom Queen. This was a mother scorned — and the world would bleed for it.
Elara pressed her palm against the glass one last time, where her child's reflection had glared through the storm. Her voice was low, almost a prayer.
"You may hate me now, but blood remembers. One day… you will know why I became the monster."
Thunder cracked, shaking the city to its bones. The war had shifted. It was no longer about empire or power.
It was about love turned to ash — and the rage that follows.
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