My gaze drops to the dress that clings to my skin, once white, now soaked through, its fabric torn and scorched where the fire has taken it. It hangs from me in ruined folds, the hem trailing faintly against the floor.
My fingers brush it lightly before I look back up.
They are all looking at me. At us. At what stands before them, what has entered their home without being asked, without being stopped, without anything left that might bar the way.
Radu’s father steps forward first, the torch raised, his voice breaking into something that tries to command, to reclaim what has already slipped from his grasp. It ends before it begins. Lucian’s hand closes at his throat, the flame falling, skidding across the floor as the man is lifted and undone in the same motion, his body folding inward with a sound too soft for what it is. He drops where he stood, the life leaving him without struggle.
His mother cries out, but it is short lived. A single movement and she is silenced, her hands still half-raised as though they might yet reach for something that no longer exists.
Only Radu remains standing. The knife slips from his hand, striking the floor with a hollow sound, his arm trembling with something he cannot master. The boy I once knew flickers there for a moment—wide-eyed, uncertain—before it is swallowed by something smaller, something that cannot hold itself upright beneath what stands before him.
He stumbles back, his breath breaking, his gaze darting, searching for escape where none remains.
Lucian stops before him. Taller. Unyielding.
"So this is the hand," he murmurs, eyes dropping to Radu’s fingers, "that closed in her hair."
No answer comes.
"You dragged her to her through the dirt as though she were less than the ground that bore you," Lucian continues. "Pulled her like an animal to her death… while she cried out. While she bled."
Radu shakes his head, a sound tearing from him, half plea, half denial, but it does not reach far.
"And you lived through it."
Lucian's gaze lifts, cold.
"That was your mistake."
His hand finds Radu’s wrist, and the first crack splits the air. Radu’s scream tears out of him, immediate, as his hand folds wrong. Bone gives, one after the other, each break answering the last, each one slow enough to be felt, to be understood. Fingers bend where they should not, collapse into themselves until the hand that once held, that once pulled and tore. Now it hangs wrong, useless, no longer shaped for harm or anything at all. His knees buckle as the pain takes him, as his body tries and fails to pull away.
Lucian lets go.
Radu's body hits the ground, his broken hand clutching at itself, his breath coming in ragged, sobbing bursts, his voice stripped of anything that once resembled pride.
Lucian watches him in delight for a second, before he bends again. His hand closes in Radu’s hair and the scalp tears with a wet, sickening sound, strands ripping free with pieces of flesh that follow, leaving behind raw, exposed skin that shines beneath the candlelight. Blood follows, running down his face, into his eyes, his mouth, his voice breaking into something unrecognizable as he thrashes beneath it, his hands clawing uselessly at Lucian’s arm, at the air, at anything that might make it stop.
It does not.
Elena screams, but Lucian does not care for her.
His hand rises again, and the blow lands.
Radu’s body leaves the ground, strikes the wall with a force that cracks something deeper than bone, his head snapping back, the sound dull as it meets the wood. He falls where he lands, no longer moving, no longer shaped by anything living.
Elena is already moving before we do, her knees striking the floor, her hands reaching, finding the ruined edge of my dress as though it might still mean something. Her fingers clutch at the fabric, smearing it further, tightening with a desperation that rattles her whole body.
"Raveena—" the name breaks, reshaping itself into something smaller. "Please… please, I am sorry—"
Her tears fall endless, catching on her lips, her chin, her voice unraveling with them.
"I only ever wanted to protect you," she pleads, her grip tightening. "Since we were little, you remember—you remember—"
Her forehead dips, almost touching me.
"Forgive me," she whispers. "I am so sorry. Do not do this, please. We are the same."
I look down at her.
