everyone heard me, all I wanted was the moon goddess to hear my pleas. My pain. “Why did you curse me to suffer? To lose everything?”
I gripped the railing tighter, my nails digging into the cold metal. “Is this what you wanted, Moon Goddess? To watch me break?
To take everyone I care about and leave me with nothing?”
The wind carried my words away, offering no answer.
“You took Olivia,” I sobbed, my voice trembling. “You let her die for nothing. You gave me a mate who rejected me, a sister who wants me dead, and a life that’s nothing but pain.”
The tears came harder now, blurring the world around me. “Why?” I whispered, my voice cracking. “What did I do to deserve
this?”
For a moment, I thought the goddess might answer, that the moon would shift or the stars would align in some celestial apology.
But there was nothing, only silence.
I let out a bitter laugh, wiping my tears with the back of my hand. “Fine,” I hissed, my voice low and venomous. “You want me to
suffer? You want me to be weak? You’ll be disappointed.
I straightened, my grip on the railing firm as I stared out at the dark horizon. The pain in my chest hadn’t lessened, but
something else burned beneath it now, a fire I hadn’t felt in years.
The fire that I had quenched so I can be my sister stepping ground.
“I’ll show you,” I said, my voice steady now, though it shook with anger. “I’ll show all of them. Amira, Max, every single one of
them who ever thought I was nothing.”
I clenched my fists, my nails biting into my palms. “I’ll destroy them. I’ll make them pay for every scar, every tear, every loss.
They’ll regret underestimating me.”
The words felt foreign on my tongue, but they filled me with a strange sense of purpose. I didn’t know how I would do it, how I
would rise above the chains that had bound me my entire life, but I knew I would.
No one would break me again.
The wind howled around me as I stood there, the moonlight casting long shadows across the balcony. My tears had stopped, though the wetness on my cheeks remained.
And then, just as the silence began to settle, I heard it.
Whispers.
They were faint, almost not heard, like the rustling of leaves in the wind. My head snapped up, my eyes scanning the darkness around me.
tremCropping
“Who’s there?” I called out, my voice trembling despite my newfound resolve.
+15 Bonus
The whispers grew louder, though I couldn’t make out the words. They seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once, surrounding me in a ghostly echo.
I stepped back from the railing, my heart pounding in my chest. The cold air felt heavier now, tinged with an unease I couldn’t explain.
The whispers didn’t stop.
“Who’s there?” I asked, my voice trembling despite the edge of anger I tried to infuse into it.
The only reply was the wind, carrying fragments of sound that felt too deliberate to be natural. Words seemed to swirl just out of reach, dissolving the moment I tried to focus on them. I turned sharply, scanning the dark corners of the balcony and the hall beyond, but there was nothing.
I backed into the doorway, my steps faltering. That’s when I heard it–low voices coming from deeper inside the castle.
I paused, straining to catch the words.
“…doesn’t matter what she said. We can’t trust her.”
The voice was sharp, clipped. I recognized it instantly, it was Knox.
“She’s here under my orders.” Alaric’s voice followed, low and firm, but there was an edge to it, something unsettling. “She’s a pawn, nothing more. For now.”
A sinking feeling settled in my stomach, but I crept closer to the source of the voices, careful not to let my footsteps echo against
the stone floor.
“You don’t think she’ll try to prove herself?” Knox asked, his tone almost amused.
“Perhaps,” Alaric replied, his voice quieter now. “But it won’t matter. She’ll break before long. They always do. The bold ones. who thing they can handle everything. They are the quickest to break.”
The words hit me like a slap. So this is what he thought of me, a weak, disposable tool to be used and discarded.
I pressed myself against the wall, heart hammering in my chest.
Knox chuckled. “You sound almost certain of that.”
“I don’t have the luxury of uncertainty,” Alaric said sharply. “If she can’t serve her purpose, then she’s expendable.”
A lump formed in my throat, but I bit it back.
