raised as a weapon

She says that night was her nightmare. All she could see was darkness - thick and endless, swallowing the world whole. All she could hear was chaos. "Madam, run - I got shot -" the maid cried, her voice breaking before it disappeared into a scream. Then men shouting. "Catch her! Don't let her live!" Gunfire split the air. Glass shattered. Blood painted the marble floors red. She remembers slipping. Hands shaking. Her dress heavy with someone else's blood. Her husband lay on the ground behind her - eyes open, body still, soaked in red. She didn't stop to scream. She didn't stop to cry. Grief would have gotten her killed. She ran. Down corridors she once ruled. Through doors that once opened at her command. Now they slammed shut behind her. She remembers the pain most. Not the gunshots. Not the cuts on her skin. But the sharp, needle-like agony in her chest - the moment she understood she had lost her husband forever. She stumbled into a narrow opening beneath the estate grounds. A hole barely wide enough to breathe. She crawled inside. Mud pressed against her body. Her breath caught in her throat. Above her, boots thundered past. Voices shouted. Guns were reloaded. She covered her mouth with trembling hands and held her breath. Seconds felt like hours. Minutes felt like a lifetime. When silence finally came, it didn't feel like safety. It felt like waiting. An hour passed. Maybe more. Time had no meaning in the dark. When she crawled out, she didn't look back. She ran again. Past the gates. Past the roads. Past the last lights of civilization. Until the world turned wild. The forest swallowed her whole. Branches tore at her skin. Roots grabbed at her feet. By the time her strength gave out, the only sounds left were crickets, crows, and the distant call of owls watching from the dark. That's when the pain became unbearable. Blood soaked her clothes. Her legs gave in. She fell to her knees in the dirt, gasping, screaming into a world that didn't care. That's where she gave birth. No doctors. No lights. No mercy. Only blood, mud, and hatred beneath the open sky. She says I didn't cry like a normal child. She says I screamed - raw, furious, alive. As if I already knew. As if I understood that I wasn't born from love. I was born from betrayal. From a lie told by a servant who learned our house before he stole it. From an empire ripped from our hands. From a man - my father - who lost his mind before he lost his life. She tells me this story every year. Not to make me sad. To make me remember. Years later, I stand before the empire that rose from that night. Marble. Power. Lies polished to perfection. Inside it lives the heir. She doesn't know how it began. She doesn't know what was buried. She doesn't know that I was born because her family decided my mother should die. I didn't come back to be seen. I came back to finish the story. ---