The night felt like it had stretched on for weeks.
Since the end of the Council of Seasons, something in me had changed—or perhaps it had always been there, dormant, like a spark buried beneath the fog of royal duty. But in that pre-dawn hour, with the halls of Cardan swallowed in shadow, I wasn’t a princess, heir, or political promise. I was just Violet. And Violet needed to breathe.
My cloak whispered against the stone steps as I slipped through one of the old tunnels that connected the royal library to the outer gardens. I had memorized their paths during my history lessons with my governess, but I had never dared use them. Not until now.
The moon hung low and veiled, as if the sky itself was afraid to watch what I was doing.
My steps carried me to the old back gate, where the wall held a nearly invisible crack. I passed through like a shadow, my heart pounding—not from fear, but from freedom. I only wanted to see the city asleep. To feel the world without the eyes, the expectations, the protocols.
That’s when I heard it—not hoofbeats, not alarms—but footsteps. Light. Quick.
— “Princess?”
I froze.
The voice was young, but carried the sharpness of training. I turned slowly and saw the outline of one of the newer soldiers of the castle: Elior, nephew of one of Cardan’s generals, recently assigned to the night patrol.
— “What are you doing here?” he asked, more surprised than accusing.
I swallowed hard. For a moment, I considered lying. But my eyes betrayed any excuse.
— “I needed air,” I said simply.
He hesitated. His eyes scanned the area, then returned to mine. He didn’t seem ready to reprimand me or follow protocol. He looked… concerned?
— “They’re looking for you,” Elior lowered his voice. “It’s about your sister.”
My stomach dropped.
— “What?”
— “She’s worse. They said you should be with her… now.”
I ran.
I passed him without another word, the sound of my cloak and footsteps slicing through the stillness of the dawn.
The lights in the royal wing never went out, but that night, they burned with too much gold to be kind. Dozens of physicians gathered in the hall outside her room, whispering, wringing their hands, exchanging notes. My father stood at the center of it all, face pale and drawn tight like a pulled bowstring.
He didn’t look at me when I entered. His eyes were fixed on the girl lying in the center of that massive bed, wrapped in layers of silk and sweat. My sister, barely more than a child. Once fire and laughter. Now… still.
— “Her fever spiked again,” one of the royal healers whispered. “The potions aren’t working.”
A hand touched my shoulder. One of the maids, eyes red and swollen.
— “She needs more than that. She needs a real healer.”
She meant magic.
And she was right.
The physicians finally named it—a rare blood disease. A magical imbalance in the immune system, they said. So rare it was often mistaken for exhaustion or simple fever. In her case, it began quietly—weakening her white blood cells, breaking her body’s ability to recognize and fight even the smallest infection. A cut became a battlefield. A cold became a war. Her body, they said, was attacking itself.
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— “We need a bloodbinder,” the maid whispered. “Someone from Aurum.”
— “No,” my father snapped. His voice cracked through the room like a whip. “I will not place my daughter’s life in the hands of sorcerers.”
— “She’s dying!” I cried.
He turned to me. Finally.
— “She is not dying. She will not… We are Cardan. We do not negotiate with the cursed.”
I wanted to strike him. Scream.
Instead, I turned and walked out.
Two days passed. Aurora’s condition worsened. That’s when I made the decision that would sever what was left of my ties with my father.
That night, I wrote three letters in secret.
All addressed to the Kingdom of Coins.
To Gold. Ouros.
If Aurum was fear and fire, then Ouros was knowledge. Precision. They didn’t speak in riddles or cast spells in the dark. They worked with herbs, bone, and balance. Their healers—the golden-robed “physicians”—were revered. And one of them owed me a favor.
I sent the letter through a private courier. I used my mother’s old seal. It was reckless. Maybe even treason. But I didn’t care.
When he arrived, it was already too late.
She passed at dawn.
Her hand in mine, her skin cold and thin as glass over bone.
She didn’t speak. It had been hours since she last did.
And then she breathed—once, sharply—and went still.
The silence after a child’s death is not empty.
It screams.
The healer from Ouros—Master Silvar, older than time and twice as weary—arrived just after.
He touched her wrist. Her neck. His golden rings caught the light.
Then he looked at me. And said:
— “Had I been summoned two days ago, she would have lived.”
The world tilted—not from his words, but from the weight behind them.
— “She had a rare strain of Black Root Fever,” he continued. “Where the immune system turns on itself. It’s treatable in the early stages. There are infusions, cleansing rituals. But once it reaches the spine…”
He didn’t finish the sentence.
My father never looked at me during the funeral.
He blamed me. I could feel it.
But I blamed him more.
And in that moment, something between us broke. Not like glass. Like steel. Silent. Permanent.
He refused to speak of it again. Refused to acknowledge the healer. Ordered him to leave the city within the hour.
I, however, kept Silvar’s letter.
He left a second note in secret.
“There are signs this wasn’t natural. Not entirely. Something accelerated it. Exposure to a rare toxin. Possibly magical in nature.”
I said nothing.
But I remembered every word.
The nights after my sister’s death were waking nightmares.
And when sleep did find me—or when I collapsed into it from exhaustion—the dreams came.
Always the same.
She lay in that massive bed, eyes open but hollow. Fever had made her skin translucent. Her veins like dark branches beneath the surface. Her mouth trying to shape words that time had already strangled.
But in the dream, she spoke.
“You promised, Vi… you promised you’d protect me…”
“You said you’d take care of me… like Mama took care of you.”
“Why did you take so long?”
I woke up with a dry throat and a pillow soaked with tears.
During the day, no one spoke of her.
My father buried himself in diplomatic audiences and closed-door councils. No touch. No gesture. Only absence. As if erasing her memory could erase the guilt.
But I remembered everything.
The laughter in the garden.
The little hands mimicking my movements with a wooden sword.
The way she called me her “hero.”
She had no mother.
Neither did I.
Now she had no one.
Neither did I.
Not even a father—only a bitter man with power over everything and love for nothing.
I wanted to understand. I wanted to know why he did what he did. I confronted him, days later.
I stood in his chambers and stared at the man who had once been my father.
I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry. I just wanted to know.
— “She died because of pride. Your pride.”
My father didn’t lift his eyes from the papers on his desk.
— “You went too far, Violet. Deals with Ouros without my seal? Using your mother’s sigil? That’s treason.”
— “She was your daughter!”
— “And you were my daughter.”
— “Were?” I repeated, bitterly.
He looked up. Cold as polished steel.
— “You dishonored this house. Brought sorcerers within our walls. What consequences did you expect?”
— “I expected my sister to live.”
Silence.
He said nothing.
Because deep down—deep, deep down—he knew I was right.
But a king does not yield.
A king hardens.
Sometimes I wonder if he cried. Alone. Where no one could see.
But I never saw it.
And if there’s pain in his heart, it’s sealed behind the same shield he raised when my mother died.
He loved her. I saw it in his eyes when I was young—before the war, before everything.
But when she died, she took everything with her.
Love. Warmth. Hope.
And now, my sister was gone too.
And I remained.