Smoke curled through the living room like dark fingers, twisting around the broken doorframe. The intruders had vanished as quickly as they came, pulled back by a spell Emerald didn't recognize. She lay on the floor, her ears ringing, her vision hazy.
Someone shook her shoulder.
"Emerald! Hey—Em, wake up!"
Noah's voice. Panicked. Desperate.
Emerald blinked. The world sharpened. Sara and Sam crouched beside her, their faces pale with terror, framed by the eerie flicker of dying black flames.
"Are you hurt?" Sara whispered, checking her for wounds with trembling hands.
"No," Emerald rasped. "I'm okay. I think."
A lie.
Her magic still crackled painfully beneath her skin, trying to break free—only to be strangled by the curse again and again.
Noah helped her sit up. "Who were those people? What was that—what just happened?!"
Emerald swallowed hard, the truth thick on her tongue. Her human family had asked before, when strange things happened around her. She'd always dodged the answers. But after tonight… There was no dodging anything.
"They were after me," she said quietly.
Sam's jaw clenched. "Why? Who are you to them?"
The room felt smaller. The shadows felt heavier. She took a shuddering breath.
"I'm… not human. Not fully," she began. "My parents ruled a realm beneath this one—once. My aunt wants that throne. And she cursed me so I couldn't fight back."
Sara lifted a hand to her mouth. "Emerald… why didn't you tell us?"
"Because telling you would put you in danger." Emerald's throat tightened.
"And now… danger has found us anyway."
A sudden crack outside made them all jump. Something—someone—was approaching the house again.
Noah's eyes widened. "We have to go. Now."
He grabbed car keys. Sam ushered Sara toward the back of the house. Emerald tried to stand but her knees buckled.
Noah caught her. "Hey. Don't you dare pass out now."
"I'm not—" She clenched her jaw. "My powers are trying to react to the threat. But the curse is fighting harder."
"Can you still move?"
"Yes. Just… not fast."
Not fast enough to defend them.
Noah didn't hesitate. He hooked her arm over his shoulder and half-carried her toward the side door.
They stepped outside into the cold night. The quiet was wrong—too deep, too still. Emerald's skin prickled.
Something was here.
"Get in the car," Sam whispered. "Quickly."
Sara slid into the passenger seat, Sam behind the wheel. Emerald was almost inside when a voice floated from the shadows.
"You can run, Princess," it purred. "But you won't get far."
A masked figure emerged from behind the garage.
Emerald's heart nearly stopped. "No, no, no"
Noah pushed her into the back seat and lunged for the door handle.
A blast of black fire hit the ground behind him.
The shockwave threw him forward, slamming him onto the grass.
"NOAH!" Emerald screamed.
Before she could scramble out, the masked figure raised a hand, dark magic swirling in his palm.
He was going to finish Noah.
He was going to kill him in front of her.
Something inside Emerald snapped.
Her power surged—a violent, molten pulse tearing through the curse like a blade. For a single, burning second, she tasted her true strength—raw and ancient.
The ground shook beneath her.
Her aura flared emerald green.
The curse screamed inside her mind—but it couldn't stop what came next.
Emerald thrust out her hand and shouted.
"Get AWAY from him!"
A burst of green fire exploded from her palm.
It struck the masked assassin hard, sending him crashing into a tree twenty feet away.
Noah gasped, scrambling to his feet. "Em—holy—are you?"
Her power flickered. The curse snapped back with brutal force.
Her vision dimmed.
"Get in the car!" she cried, gripping the doorframe to stay upright. "GO!"
Noah dove inside. Sam hit the gas before the doors were even closed.
The car sped down the road, leaving smoke, shattered debris, and the fallen assassin behind them.
Emerald slumped against the seat, chest heaving, her power collapsing into a painful knot.
Sara reached back, tears in her eyes. "Emerald… sweetheart… what are we going to do?" Emerald stared out the rear window at the burning fragments of their once-normal life. "We run," she whispered.
"And when they catch up… I fight."
But deep inside, she knew one thing with chilling certainty:
The curse was breaking.
And her aunt would feel it.