Princess zetulah viridian POV;
Iron flooded my mouth—metallic, thick—seeping into my teeth, my breath, my lungs. Like swallowing death itself. My wrists throbbed where shackles bit deep, searing metal branding skin—a cruel mockery of the crown I was meant to wear. Burning flesh choked the air, thick as smoke from piled bodies.
And in the center—
Fenrik knelt. Crimson poured from the gash in his stomach, hands trembling against the wound, fingers slick with life slipping through them. Green eyes flickered. Fighting. My brother. My blood. My tether to the world before it shattered.
"Zet…" His voice—cracked, broken—barely reached me over battlefield roars.
"Fenrik!" My scream clawed out—raw, wretched. I lurched forward. Chains yanked me back. Knees slammed into dirt. Still, I fought, body straining against iron biting into skin. No pain. Only rage. Terror. Agony as the blade lifted again.
"Don't—" The plea fled before the sword drove down.
The blade wrenched free. That sound—gods—ripped through the air. Wet. Sickening. Carved into bones. A sound I'd hear with every closed eye. Every breath.
Fenrik collapsed. Motionless. The boy who'd laughed with me in gardens. The prince who'd sworn to protect me. My brother—now another Emberclaw corpse.
The noise from my throat wasn't a scream. Wasn't a word. Raw. Inhuman. A sound I didn't know. Clawed out, scraped my throat raw, left me gasping—gutted.
Emberclaw soldiers laughed.
The sword-holder sneered at Fenrik's body, red eyes gleaming with twisted satisfaction. He turned, wiping his blade on his cloak, like my brother's death meant nothing.
A shadow loomed.
King Ragnis wasn't here. His soldiers came—message clear. No negotiations. No mercy.
I lifted my head—slow, deliberate. My body shook. My voice didn't.
"You think this is the end?" My whisper cut through the chaos—laced dark. Lethal.
The soldier smirked. "you and your survivors of your house falls tonight, Princess."
My house?
My house wouldn't fall.
Not while I breathed.
I curled my fingers into dirt. Into my brother's blood. Into screams swallowed by flames. Let it anchor me. Brand my marrow.
They took my brother. My power. Forgot one thing.
I'm not a girl to break. Not a princess to cage.
I'm a storm.
I'll burn their world.
—-------------------------------
The sky was a gaping wound, torn by the first light of dawn.
Smoke curled through the battlefield, thick with the copper stench of blood. Bodies lay broken, steel half-buried in the mud—forgotten weapons of forgotten men.
Kaelith knelt.
Blood dripped from his lips. His ribs? Cracked. His sword? A dead weight in his grip.
Above him, a shadow loomed.
A titan of fire and fury.
King Ragnis Emberclaw.
His father.
"You disgust me," Ragnis growled, voice laced with molten rage.
Kaelith exhaled. Pain rattled his ribs. Still, he lifted his head—crimson eyes dull but unbroken.
"Then I have finally done something right."
A flicker. A pause. Ragnis's grip on his sword tightened. A father who could never understand his son. A son who would rather die than yield.
The sword came down.
A killing blow.
Kaelith raised his own blade.
Steel met steel. Sparks hissed. The impact slammed through his bones—a collision of mountain and storm.
Ragnis didn't budge.
Kaelith was breaking.
But he couldn't fall.
Not when somewhere, I was still fighting.
If he died here—
I would be next.
Kaelith struck.
Steel carved deep. Blood burned. Flesh split.
And Ragnis—
Laughed.
The sound rumbled like thunder on a dying battlefield.
"Foolish boy."
Kaelith's breath hitched. A second too late.
Then—
Fire erupted.
Not his.
His father's.
Flames poured from the wound, licking at Ragnis's skin—but instead of burning, they fed him. The embers in his eyes flared, turning to an unstoppable inferno.
Kaelith staggered back. His own fire twisted against him—betrayed him.
Ragnis moved too fast.
A hand snatched his throat.
"You should have joined me," Ragnis murmured. And for the first time, there was something in his voice that almost sounded like—
Regret.
Then—
Kaelith's back slammed into the ground. His world tilted. Sound faded. Light flickered.
He didn't move.
He couldn't.
The world darkened.
Above him, Ragnis turned.
Victorious.
But—
Kaelith's fingers twitched.
His breath—shallow.
His body—broken.
And yet—
His eyes burned.
Not golden.
Not his father's fire.
Something older.
Something his father never saw coming.
—-----------------
Lady Syrene twirled the letter between her fingers, golden eyes gleaming.
"The little princess comes to me for aid?"
Her voice was silk over steel.
Beside her, the advisor stood unmoving, emerald robes ghosting over the marble floor.
"Will you grant her request?"
Syrene smiled.
Slow. Knowing. Dangerous.
"Oh, I'll meet her, certainly."
She discarded the letter. Fingers
traced the hilt of a hidden blade.
"But whether she leaves alive…" Syrene smirked.
"…depends on how entertaining she is."