Was here. Past tense. Before the bond shattered. Before she died.
My knees buckle, and I collapse among the moss-covered stones. A sound escapes me—something between a sob and a scream. The ancient trees around the clearing crack in response, bark splitting from root to crown.
Emmett kneels beside me, his presence steady even as my shadows writhe with grief-driven violence. "My lord, we need?—"
"Leave me," I command, my voice dead. "All of you. Leave me."
"I don't think?—"
"That's an order, Emmett." I meet his eyes, and whatever he sees there makes him recoil. "Take the guards. Search the area if you must. But leave me here."
He hesitates, clearly torn between duty and concern. Finally, he nods and rises, gesturing for the guards and Ivy to follow him back into the forest.
Alone in the clearing, I let the grief consume me.
Julia. Seraphina. Two Omegas, two loves, both destroyed by what I am. The curse that killed Julia now claims Seraphina—not directly, but just as surely. My instability drove her away. My lack of control made her fear me. My darkness killed her as certainly as if I'd struck the fatal blow myself.
Ancient power stirs within me—shadow magic I've always resisted, always feared. The darkness my father wanted me to embrace. The monster I've spent centuries trying not to become.
Why resist anymore? Why hold back the very nature that defines me?
Seraphina is dead. The last anchor tethering me to anything resembling humanity is gone.
I rise slowly, fundamentally changed. The grief remains, but something else has taken root alongside it—something cold and ancient and hungry for retribution.
Her father. The Light Court. Everyone who manipulated events to fulfill their prophecy. The forces that drove her to flee. The curse that made me too dangerous to love.
All of them will pay.
"My lord?" Emmett's voice comes from the edge of the clearing. He must have been watching, waiting.
"Find her body," I command, my voice carrying a terrible resonance. "I don't care how long it takes or how far you must search. I want her found."
"And then?"
"Then we return to the Shadow Court." I turn to face him, letting him see the change. "And I declare war on everyone responsible for her death."
"That could mean?—"
"I know exactly what it means."
"My lord," Emmett urges. "We need to find her. To be certain."
"Find her?" A bitter laugh tears from my throat. "So I can see what my darkness drove her to? So I can hold her corpse and know she died believing I was a monster?"
"This is grief talking, not reason," Emmett ventures hesitantly. "Seraphina would not want?—"
"SERAPHINA IS DEAD!" I roar, the words echoing through the broken forest. Dark energy explodes outward, engulfing the area in darkness so complete it seems to devour reality itself. "SHE IS DEAD BECAUSE SHE BELIEVED I WOULD HARM HER! DEAD BECAUSE OF LIES AND MANIPULATIONS!"
The ground splits, a chasm opening that threatens to swallow the trees still standing. Emmett stumbles back, genuine terror in his eyes for the first time in lifetimes.
"She has died believing I was a monster," I continue, my voice becoming razor-sharp. "So a monster I shall become."
Shadowfire coalesces around me, forming a living armor of darkness that pulses with each shattered beat of my heart. The air itself turns liquid with cold, frost forming on the ground, on Emmett's beard, on the hilts of the guards' swords.
"With her dies any chance of peace between our realms," I say, each word like a nail in a coffin. "Now there will only be darkness. Only vengeance."
My gaze shifts to the eastern horizon, where afternoon light fades toward dusk. Where her people wait, unaware that their princess's death has sealed their fate.
