CHAPTER 2
1074 Words
Her palms stung where they scraped against the rough surface, and the taste of blood lingered in her mouth. Even a slow breath hurt enough to make her stay where she was.
She turned her head.
Her crown lay several feet away, where it had fallen during the struggle. Thin streaks of blood marked the polished metal.
Only a few minutes earlier, that same crown had rested on her head. Now it lay abandoned on the stone.
Seraphine pushed herself off the ground and looked up. Rosalind was standing in front of her with Draven beside her. His arm rested around Rosalind as if that was where it had always belonged. The smile on Rosalind’s face wasn’t wide, but it was enough to tell Seraphine she was enjoying every second of this.
“Poor Seraphine,” Rosalind said softly.
She walked closer, taking her time. When she reached the fallen crown, she looked down at it for a moment before placing her foot on it. The metal scraped across the stone as she slowly ground it beneath her heel.
“You really did all the difficult work for me,” she said. “All I had to do was wait.”
Seraphine couldn’t take her eyes off her. The pain from the fall was nothing compared to the ache building in her chest. There was no hesitation in Rosalind’s voice, no guilt or uncertainty. She spoke like someone who had known exactly how everything would end.
In that moment, every memory came rushing back. Every smile Rosalind had given her. Every thank-you. Every tear she’d believed. Every time she’d defended her without a second thought.
None of it had been genuine.
Rosalind had been waiting for this moment all along, and Seraphine had walked straight into the trap without ever seeing it.
"Now Draven is mine." Rosalind's chin lifted, eyes glittering with a cruelty she no longer bothered to hide.
Rosalind turned to Draven and kissed him; she didn’t rush it. They stood there together while Seraphine watched from the ground. Rosalind never looked at her, but she didn’t have to. The message was clear enough. She wanted Seraphine to see every second of it.
"How could you, Draven?" The words scraped out of Seraphine raw, tears cutting clean lines through the blood on her cheeks. "I fed you my blood. Every drop of my strength went into making you the strongest dragon alive, and this is how you repay me?"
Draven didn’t react.
He walked over without any sign of anger or hesitation and stopped in front of her. Then he crouched and grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at him. His fingers dug into her skin, but he didn’t seem to notice or care.
Once, he’d promised to love her for the rest of his life. He’d made that vow before the gods and before the dragons, and now he looked at her as if she were nothing more than a stranger.
“You really thought that blood meant something?” he asked.
His voice was calm, and that made it hurt even more.
“Every drop only reminded me of the woman I actually wanted.”
His grip became firmer.
“Rosalind is the only woman I’ve ever loved.”
Seraphine stared at him, unable to speak.
“Back in the arena, it was supposed to be Rosalind standing beside me,” he continued. “But you claimed me first.”
He gave her a small smile and continued, “You couldn’t stand the thought of losing.”
He leaned a little closer.
“So you took a place that was never yours to begin with.”
The words hit harder than any wound she’d suffered that day.
The man she had loved with everything she had wasn’t just rejecting her.
He was trying to erase every memory they had ever shared, as though none of it had mattered.
"That's not…" Seraphine's voice cracked. "It was Rosalind who claimed first. She didn't choose you because you were weak. That's the truth you've never been able to face, and now you'd rather kill me than admit it."
"Shut up!"
Rosalind's scream came half a second before her hand did, fingers closing around Seraphine's throat, hauling her upright with a strength that had no business belonging to her. Seraphine clawed at the grip, useless, vision sparking white at the edges.
“I’m taking your place,” Rosalind said.
She stepped so close that Seraphine could see every trace of contempt on her face. There was no kindness left to hide behind. All those years of smiles, shared meals, whispered conversations, and being called sister had been nothing more than an act.
“I’m the new Dragon Lord now,” Rosalind continued. “You don’t matter anymore.”
A smile spread across her face.
“Die.”
The shove came so suddenly that Seraphine never had the chance to catch herself.
Her foot slipped off the edge of the cliff.
For one brief second, she reached for anything she could hold onto, but her fingers closed around empty air.
Then she was falling.
The wind slammed into her, whipping her hair across her face as the cliff rushed past. She screamed, but the roaring air swallowed the sound before it could reach anyone above. Her heart pounded wildly as the ground below came closer with terrifying speed.
She knew there was no surviving this.
She lifted her head one last time.
Far above, two figures stood at the edge of the cliff.
Rosalind didn’t move, nor did Draven.
He stood there, watching her fall; not once did he reach for her or call her name.
The man who had once promised to spend the rest of his life with her watched in silence as she disappeared into the darkness below.
"Draven!" His name tore out of her, half curse, half prayer. "If there is a next life, I will never choose you again!"
The wind screamed past her. The ground rose to meet her, fast now, faster.
"I will make you and Rosalind pay for this in blood!"
Her body struck the rocks below with a sound like the world breaking apart, and everything turned red, then white, then nothing at all.
Endless, weightless silence until, from somewhere deep within the dark, a voice she didn't recognize curled softly through the void.
"Open your eyes, my daughter... your revenge has only just begun."
- Writer
