The heart screamed.
Not a sound—a rupture, a shattering of the air itself, as if reality had been cut open and something behind it had screeched in fury. Lysandra's fingers were buried wrist-deep in the pulsating mass, her arm trembling, her teeth bared in a snarl that was more pain than defiance. The veins threading the heart convulsed, writhing like dying serpents, and then—
Light.
Not Valeria's golden radiance, nor Kaelan's comet-bright fury. This was white, pure and searing, erupting from Lysandra's palm like a star being born. It tore through the heart's corrupted flesh, burning away the rot, leaving behind ragged, gaping holes where the light passed through.
Seraphina stumbled back, her own branded forehead throbbing in sympathy. She had seen magic before—had wielded it herself in cruel, careless bursts—but this was something else. This was annihilation.
Valeria made a choked sound. "That's not possible."
Lysandra's eyes were wide, unseeing, her pupils swallowed by the same blinding light that poured from her hand. The heart's black blood boiled where it touched her skin, evaporating into coils of acrid smoke.
And then—
The castle lurched.
Not the slow, sickening undulation from before. This was a spasm, violent and final, as if the entire structure had been a living thing and Lysandra had just plunged a knife into its spine. The walls peeled apart, stone cracking like eggshells, revealing not the sky, not the dawn-scorched horizon, but—
Eyes.
Dozens of them. Hundreds. Floating in the void where the walls had been, unblinking, irises the color of tarnished silver. Watching.
Seraphina's breath left her in a rush.
The Watchers.
She had heard of them only in fragments—whispers in the royal archives, half-mad scribbles in the margins of forbidden texts. They were the ones who had seen the First Queen's betrayal, who had witnessed the curse's birth. And now they were here, their gazes heavy as lead, pressing down on them all.
One of them flickered.
A pupil dilated, and for a single, vertigo-inducing moment, Seraphina saw herself reflected in its depths—not as she was now, but as she could be. A queen crowned in thorns, her mouth stained black, her hands dripping with the same cursed blood that now boiled beneath Lysandra's fingers.
"You could still take it," the vision-her whispered. "The throne. The power. You could make them fear you."
Then the eye blinked, and the image shattered.
Lysandra's knees buckled. The light streaming from her hand was dimming now, the heart's frantic beats slowing, its veins withering. But the cost was written in the cracks spreading across her skin—fine, glowing lines, as if her body were a vessel too small to contain whatever power she had unleashed.
Valeria moved first. She crossed the crumbling floor in three strides, her own light guttering like a candle in a storm, and seized Lysandra's shoulder. "Stop. You'll burn out."
Lysandra didn't—couldn't—answer. Her breath came in shallow, ragged gasps, her free hand clutching at her chest as if something inside her were tearing loose.
Seraphina reached for her, then froze. The Watchers were leaning closer.
Not physically—they had no bodies, no forms beyond those vast, silver eyes—but the pressure in the air thickened, the hair on Seraphina's arms standing on end. One of them pulsed, and a voice that was not a voice echoed through the crumbling hall:
"She is not yours to save."
Valeria's head snapped up. "You don't decide that."
The Watchers did not react. But the eye fixed on Valeria narrowed, and the first queen hissed as her light flickered violently, Kaelan's fire inside her dimming further.
Seraphina acted without thinking.
She stepped between them, her back to the Watchers, her hands closing over Lysandra's and Valeria's. "Enough."
The heart gave one final, shuddering beat.
Then it burst.
The explosion was soundless.
One moment, the heart was there, a grotesque, living thing. The next, it was gone, dissolved into motes of light and shadow that spiralled upward like dying fireflies. The floor sealed itself, the flesh and veins receding as if they had never been.
The castle fell silent. Not the silence of peace. The silence of a held breath.
Lysandra collapsed, her hand smoking, the cracks in her skin fading to faint, silvery scars. Valeria caught her before she could hit the ground, but the effort cost her—her form was translucent now, barely more than a silhouette sketched in gold.
Seraphina turned to face the Watchers. They were fading too, their eyes drifting shut one by one, but the last one held her gaze for a long, unnerving moment.
"You will see us again," it seemed to say.
Then it was gone.
Dawn's true light spilt through the shattered walls at last, painting the three of them in shades of rose and gold.
Somewhere deep in the castle, a bell began to toll. The absence of the heart's pulse was louder than its beating had ever been. Seraphina knelt on the scorched floorboards, her hands still outstretched where she had touched Lysandra and Valeria. The air smelled of burnt sugar and iron, the remnants of the curse dissipating like smoke. The castle, once a living, breathing entity of hunger and deceit, was now just stone again—cold, dead, and crumbling.
Lysandra lay motionless in Valeria's arms, her chest rising and falling in shallow, uneven breaths. The cracks that had glowed so brightly moments before were now faint silver lines tracing her skin like delicate lacework. But they were moving. Not healing—shifting, as if something beneath her flesh were rearranging itself.
Valeria's light flickered weakly, her form barely more than a gilded shadow. She looked up at Seraphina, her sunfire eyes dim but unyielding.
"We need to leave," she said, her voice a frayed whisper. "Before the king's men come."
Seraphina didn't argue. The tolling bell in the distance was answer enough—someone had noticed the castle's death throes.
The halls were unrecognisable.
Where once there had been opulent tapestries and gilded archways, now there were only jagged cracks splitting the walls, staircases leading to collapsed voids, and an eerie, echoing silence. The castle's sentience had fled, leaving behind a corpse of mortar and memory.
Seraphina took Lysandra's weight from Valeria, slinging her sister's arm over her shoulder. Lysandra was lighter than she should have been, as if part of her had been burned away along with the heart.
Valeria led the way, her fading light casting long, wavering shadows. She moved like a ghost already, her steps soundless, her figure flickering in and out of focus.
"There's a passage," she murmured, pressing her palm against a section of the wall that looked no different from the rest. The stone melted under her touch, revealing a hidden corridor—one of the castle's old escape routes, built in an age when kings still feared coups.
The air inside was thick with dust and the scent of damp earth. Seraphina coughed, tightening her grip on Lysandra as they stumbled forward. Behind them, the wall resealed itself with a quiet sigh, cutting off the distant shouts of approaching soldiers.
Lysandra stirred halfway through the tunnel, her fingers twitching against Seraphina's side.
"...Sera?" Her voice was rough, as if she'd been screaming.
Seraphina nearly dropped her in her haste to look at her face. "Lys. Lys, can you hear me?"
Lysandra's eyes were open, but they weren't hers anymore.
The pupils were too wide, the irises ringed with that same silver from the cracks. When she spoke again, her words were slow, deliberate—like someone translating a language they'd only just learned.
"They're waiting for you," she said.
A chill crawled down Seraphina's spine. "Who?"
Lysandra's head lolled to the side, her gaze fixing on Valeria. "The ones who remember."
Valeria went very still.
Then, without warning, Lysandra's body arched, her back bowing off the ground as a soundless scream tore from her throat. The silver scars on her skin burned to life again, and for one horrifying moment, Seraphina saw shapes in them—symbols, maybe, or fragments of a map.
Then it was over. Lysandra went limp, her breathing shallow but steady.
Valeria exhaled sharply. "We're out of time."
The tunnel spilt them out into the skeletal remains of an ancient garden, its hedges long dead, its fountains dry. Beyond the rusted gates, the first hints of the forest beckoned—safety, or at least the illusion of it.
But between them and the trees stood a line of soldiers.
Not the king's men.
The king himself.
He stood at the centre of the formation, his armour gleaming in the dawn light, his face a mask of cold fury. At his side, Seraphina's elder sister—the perfect, poisonous heir—smiled like a knife.
"Did you think," the king said, his voice carrying across the ruined garden, "that I wouldn't feel it? The death of my throne?"
Seraphina tightened her grip on Lysandra. Valeria stepped forward, her light flaring one final time.
"Run," she said, so softly only Seraphina could hear.
Then she turned to face the king, and the last queen of the old world burned.