The silence that followed the explosion of power was deafening. Everything that had happened in the blink of an eye—the ritual, the chaos, the prince's appearance—seemed to have been swallowed up by the darkness, leaving only a stillness that felt almost unnatural. For a long moment, I could hear nothing but the pounding of my own heartbeat, drowning out everything else.
When I finally forced myself to stand, my body aching from the force of the blast, I looked around. The once grand chamber had been reduced to a crumbling mess of stone and dust. The walls were cracked, the floor shattered in places. But through it all, the thing that stood out was the light—blinding, pulsing, emanating from Cinderella at the center of the room.
I took a cautious step toward her, my breath caught in my throat. She hadn't moved, her body still as a statue, but her eyes... her eyes were different. They weren't glowing with the same strange, otherworldly light that had overtaken her before. No. This light was different—softer, warmer, more like a sun on the horizon than the cold, cruel magic of the prince.
But there was something else, something deeper within her. I could feel it, that raw power—tamed, but not gone. It still lingered in her veins, and I knew that whatever we had just done had changed her. The bond had been severed, but in its place, something new had taken root.
I stepped closer, my feet heavy with each movement, as if the weight of the moment was pressing down on me. "Cinderella?" I said her name softly, as though speaking too loudly might shatter the fragile peace that had settled in the room.
Her eyes flickered toward me, and for a split second, I thought I saw fear there—a flicker of uncertainty—but then it was gone, replaced by a calmness that I didn't quite understand.
"Red..." Her voice was barely above a whisper, but there was a strength in it that hadn't been there before. "I don't know what I've become."
I reached out to her, taking her hand in mine. Her skin was warm, but there was an intensity in the way she gripped my fingers, like she was holding onto something—maybe herself, maybe the last shred of who she had been. "You're still you," I said, my voice rough. "But... there's more to you now. A part of you that was always meant to be."
Her lips trembled as she stared at me, her gaze conflicted. "But what if I can't control it? What if I become like him?" She wasn't just talking about the prince anymore. She was talking about her father. The bloodline. The dark legacy that had been forced upon her.
I shook my head. "You're nothing like him. You're stronger than that."
She didn't seem convinced, but before she could say anything more, a distant noise reached our ears—a soft, but unmistakable clatter of footsteps. My head snapped toward the entrance to the chamber, every muscle in my body tensing.
The prince's soldiers. They were coming.
Without thinking, I grabbed Cinderella's arm, pulling her toward the back of the chamber, away from the entrance. The room was too destroyed to hide, but there was an old door on the far wall, half-hidden behind a collapsed bookshelf. It was our only way out.
"Come on," I urged, my voice low and urgent. "We can't stay here."
We moved quickly, almost stumbling over the debris, but Cinderella didn't seem to notice. Her mind was somewhere else, still lost in the tumult of the ritual and the power that was now pulsing through her. I couldn't blame her. I had never felt anything like what she had just experienced. But there was no time to think about that now. We had to keep moving.
As we reached the door, I glanced back toward the center of the room. The glow from Cinderella's body had faded, but the air still felt thick with magic. It was like the world itself had been altered, warped by the events that had just transpired.
I shoved open the door, and we both stepped into a narrow, dark hallway. There was no light here—no flickering candles or torches to guide us. It was just darkness, the kind of darkness that wraps around you like a heavy cloak. But we had no choice. We had to keep going.
"Where do we go?" Cinderella asked, her voice faint.
"We need to get out of the castle," I said, my thoughts racing. "If we can make it to the forest, we'll have a chance to regroup. But we have to move fast. The prince will be looking for us. He won't let this go."
I didn't need to say more. We both knew what the prince would do to us if he found us. His hunger for control, for power, had no limits. And now, we had taken something from him. Something precious. The power that he had wanted to control, the very thing he had tried to use to mold Cinderella into his weapon, was now... no longer his.
But as we moved deeper into the castle's winding hallways, I felt a sudden unease settle in my stomach. Something wasn't right.
A low, menacing laugh echoed through the darkness, and I froze. It was faint at first, like a whisper in the wind, but it grew louder, closer. And then, from the shadows ahead, a figure stepped into view.
It was him.
The prince.
But he wasn't alone.