ELARA'S POV
I woke up coughing.
My lungs burned. My eyes watered. Everything hurt.
"Don't move," Mira's voice said through the haze. "The antidote needs time to work."
I blinked until my vision cleared. I was lying on my tower floor, surrounded by guards. Mira knelt beside me, her face pale but determined. And Helena—sweet Helena who'd tried to murder me—was pinned against the wall by shadows that weren't mine.
Cassian stood in the center of the room, his hand raised, dark magic pouring from his fingers like smoke.
"Tell me again," he said, his voice deadly calm, "who sent you."
Helena sobbed. "The council! What's left of it! They said the witch had to die before she destroyed what remains of Luminveil!"
"She IS Luminveil," Cassian snarled. The shadows tightened around Helena's throat. "She's your rightful queen."
"She's a monster!" Helena screamed. "We all saw what happened at the banquet—the shadows, the chaos magic! She'll kill us all if—"
"Enough." Cassian flicked his wrist. The shadows released Helena, who crumpled to the floor gasping. "Take her to the dungeons. I want names of everyone involved in this assassination attempt."
Guards dragged Helena away. She looked at me one last time, and I saw not hatred but pity in her eyes.
Like I was already dead.
Maybe I was.
"Can you stand?" Mira asked gently, helping me sit up.
"I think so." My voice came out raspy from the poison gas. "What was in that vial?"
"Nightshade vapor mixed with something else—something designed specifically to kill chaos magic users." Mira's expression darkened. "Someone who knows a lot about your condition gave them that poison."
"Vex," I said immediately.
"Most likely." Cassian turned to face me, and I saw something in his eyes I couldn't quite name. Guilt? Fear? "How do you feel?"
"Like someone tried to murder me with my own lady-in-waiting," I said bitterly. "How should I feel?"
He flinched. "Fair enough."
An awkward silence fell. The guards shifted uncomfortably.
"Everyone out," Cassian ordered. "Except Mira."
The guards filed out quickly, clearly relieved to escape the tension.
When the door closed, Cassian moved toward me. I scrambled backward instinctively, and he stopped like I'd slapped him.
"I'm not going to hurt you," he said quietly.
"You already did." The words came out sharper than I intended. "You unleashed this magic. Gave me a death sentence. Turned me into exactly what Helena called me—a monster."
"You're not a monster."
"Then what am I?" I held up my shadow-wrapped hands. "Because everyone seems to think I'm dangerous. My own people just tried to kill me rather than let me live."
"Your people are terrified," Mira said gently. "They don't understand what's happening to you. They just see the power and assume the worst."
"Maybe they're right to." I looked at Cassian. "Maybe I am the worst thing that's ever happened to Luminveil."
"Don't say that," he said fiercely. "Don't let them make you believe their fear."
"Why do you care?" The question burst out before I could stop it. "You invaded my kingdom. Destroyed my life. Used me as bait. And now I find out you're the reason I'm dying. So why do you care what I believe?"
He was quiet for a long moment. Then: "Because I made a mistake. A terrible one. And I need to fix it."
"You can't fix this!"
"I can try." He took a careful step closer. "My mother died because she had no one to help her. She fought the chaos magic alone, in secret, too proud to ask for support. I won't let that happen to you."
"You don't get to decide what happens to me."
"You're right. I don't." Another step. "But I'm asking. Let me help you control this before it's too late."
I wanted to refuse. Wanted to throw his offer back in his face and tell him to leave me alone.
But the shadows around my hands pulsed hungrily, and I remembered the terror in Helena's eyes.
"Fine," I said. "Help me. Teach me. Whatever. But don't expect me to forgive you."
"I don't expect anything," he said quietly. "Except maybe that you'll survive long enough to hate me properly."
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
Mira cleared her throat. "I should mention—there's something else you need to know about today."
"What now?" I asked tiredly.
"Lady Seraphine. After what happened in the garden, Cassian banned her from court for a week."
I blinked. "What?"
"She humiliated you publicly," Cassian said, his voice hardening. "Tore your dress, mocked your grief. That's not acceptable."
"She's a noble lady who—"
"Who hurt someone under my protection." His eyes met mine. "You're under my protection, Elara. Anyone who harms you answers to me."
The words should have felt comforting. Instead, they ignited something hot and furious in my chest.
"I'm under your protection?" I laughed bitterly. "You destroyed my kingdom, killed my guards, gave me a death curse, and now you think banning some jealous noble for a week makes you my protector?"
"That's not what I—"
"You already harmed me more than anyone ever could!" The shadows exploded outward, cracking the walls. "More than Vex, more than Seraphine, more than Helena with her poison! YOU did this to me!"
The room went deathly silent.
Cassian's face had gone pale. "I know."
"Do you?" Tears burned my eyes. "Do you really understand what you've done? I'm dying, Cassian. Six months. Maybe less. And it's YOUR fault."
"I know," he said again, his voice breaking. "And I'm sorry. For all of it. For the invasion, for the magic, for every moment of pain I've caused you. I'm sorry, and I know it's not enough, and I know you'll never forgive me, but I am desperately, completely sorry."
I'd never heard him sound like that—raw and honest and hurting.
It made me even angrier.
"Get out," I whispered.
"Elara—"
"GET OUT!"
He left without another word, the door closing softly behind him.
Mira started to speak, but I held up a hand. "Please. I need to be alone."
She nodded and left too, though her expression said she didn't want to.
Finally, I was alone in my beautiful prison.
I sank onto the bed, exhausted and hurting and so, so angry.
At Cassian. At my council. At Helena. At myself for not seeing any of this coming.
The shadows around my hands pulsed, feeding on my rage.
"What am I supposed to do?" I whispered to them. "How do I survive this?"
They didn't answer. They never did.
But as I sat there in the growing darkness, I heard something that made my blood run cold.
Voices. Whispering in the shadows themselves.
"Embrace us," they said. "Stop fighting. Let us in completely, and we'll give you the power to destroy everyone who hurt you."
"No," I said firmly. "I'm not listening to you."
"Your people tried to kill you. Your captor cursed you. Your councilors murdered your parents. Don't you want revenge?"
"I want to survive."
"Survival is weakness. Power is the only truth. Let us in, little queen. Let us show you what you could become."
I pressed my hands over my ears, but the voices didn't stop. They were inside my head now, inside my blood, inside my very bones.
The chaos magic was growing stronger.
And I was running out of time to learn how to control it.
A knock at the door made me jump.
"I said I wanted to be alone!" I called.
"It's not Mira," a male voice responded. Not Cassian either. "It's Commander Ryker. I need to speak with you urgently."
I opened the door. Cassian's military commander stood there, his expression grim.
"What is it?" I asked.
"The assassination attempt—it wasn't just one team." He handed me a report. "We've intercepted three more groups trying to breach the castle. All of them from Luminveil. All of them with orders to kill you."
My stomach dropped. "Three more?"
"And we have reason to believe there are others we haven't caught yet." Ryker's jaw tightened. "Your former kingdom has declared you a threat to be eliminated. They're not trying to rescue you, Your Majesty. They're hunting you."
The paper trembled in my hands. My own people. Hunting me like an animal.
"There's something else," Ryker continued. "One of the assassins we captured—she had this."
He held up a pendant I recognized immediately. My mother's pendant. The one she'd worn every day until she died.
"Where did she get this?" I whispered.
"She said a council member gave it to her. Told her it would protect her from your chaos magic." Ryker's expression softened. "But that's not the important part. Look inside."
He opened the pendant.
Inside was a tiny portrait I'd never seen before—my mother, young and beautiful, with shadows wreathing her hands exactly like mine.
"Your mother had chaos magic too," Ryker said quietly. "And according to the records we found, she didn't die in a magical accident."
The world tilted.
"What?" I breathed.
"She was murdered," Ryker said. "By the same council members who killed Cassian's brother. Because she discovered their corruption and threatened to expose them."
I stared at the portrait, at my mother's shadow-wrapped hands, and felt my entire world crack apart.
"They've been planning this for years," I whispered. "Not just my parents' death. Mine too. They wanted to eliminate our entire bloodline."
"It looks that way, yes."
I closed the pendant carefully and looked up at Ryker. "Where is Vex now?"
"In the dungeons. Why?"
"Because he's going to tell me everything," I said, shadows exploding around me darker than ever before. "Every name. Every plot. Every lie. And then I'm going to make sure my parents get justice."
Ryker stepped back, his hand moving to his sword. "Your Majesty, the shadows—"
"Are mine to control," I finished. "And I'm done being afraid of them."
I strode past him toward the dungeons, my shadows trailing behind me like a dark crown.
It was time to stop being the victim.
Time to become the reckoning.
And heaven help anyone who stood in my way.