The platforms are still moving, still spinning their deadly orbit. I track Zevran’s position, calculate the rotation, and jump.
My fingers catch the platform’s edge. The stone burns – actually burns, leaving blisters across my palms – but I haul myself up anyway. My ankle screams. I don’t care.
I reach their platform just as Lord Castor winds up…
“Get away from him.”
My voice doesn’t sound like my own. It’s cold. Commanding. Filled with power I’ve never heard before.
Lord Castor turns, surprise flickering across his features. “Advisor, you’re violating?—”
I grab his wrist.
The air ripples. The heat turns blinding. For a heartbeat, the whole arena seems to stop breathing.
Then something within me ignites.
The power that flows through me is nothing like healing. This is solar fire, the fury of a star going supernova. Pain erupts from my touch and pours into Lord Castor like molten metal through his veins. He screams, convulses, tries to pull away, but my grip is iron. Pain floods through him, through me, until I can’t tell whose voice is screaming.
Power courses through me in waves – not the gentle euphoria of healing, but more dangerous, more addictive. I’m blinded by pure ecstasy, sent into another dimension with ungodly pleasure.
On my chest, beneath my robes, a sun sigil blazes to life for the very first time. The fabric scorches, blackens, then falls away in ash. Golden light pours from my skin, and everyone in the arena can see the solar mark etched into my flesh.
This is his power … and this is his sun sigil. The Sun King’s brand – the same symbol burned into every history text and propaganda banner from before his fall. I recognize what’s happening only from stories – this is my father’s power, awakening after twenty-eight years of dormancy.
Lord Castor collapses, alive but writhing in agony. I release him and turn to Zevran, switching powers with a thought. Blood drips from my nose, hot and copper, as my vision halos white at the edges. The moon sigil replaces the sun as healing magic flows into him, knitting his wounds and restoring the strength the arena’s heat has stolen.
His eyes flutter open, focusing on my face with recognition that fractures into something unreadable. Horror, yes. But something else too – grief.
Because now he knows who I am.
The arena has gone silent except for the crackling of artificial starfire. Every leader, every observer, every guard is staring at me with expressions ranging from shock to fury to fear.
Lady Isolde’s voice carries clearly across the platforms: “Cyra of the Sun Kingdom … daughter of the tyrant king…”
Suddenly, a voice booms across the arena. “This trial is hereby suspended until further notice.”
I watch as guards emerge from the sidelines. Emergency medics are dispatched to the platforms, a few head straight to Lord Castor and Zevran while I’m placed under arrest – not in chains, but with an escort of white-armoured guards that have made their way to the platform as well.
I catch one last glimpse of Zevran. He’s standing now, strength restored but eyes hard with betrayal.
I don’t resist as they take me away.
The holding chamber is barely larger than a closet. No windows, no furniture except a metal bench that juts from the wall like an afterthought. The only light comes from symbols etched into the ceiling that pulse with cold, artificial fire.
I press my back against the wall and slide down until I’m sitting on the floor, knees drawn to my chest. The metal wall is freezing against my spine, but I barely feel it. Everything else is numb.
They know.
Everyone knows.
Twenty-eight years of hiding, and it took one moment to undo everything. My life as a simple healer, gone. And now they’ll kill me for it. They have to. The Sun King’s daughter, alive and walking among them – it’s an insult to everything the Conclave stands for … a threat to the peace they’ve built on the ashes of my father’s reign.
I think of Mother, wherever she is.
Did they take her because they knew? Have they already…
No. I can’t think like that.
