Just us

Never be better than me

Chapter Eight

The mirror shattered against the marble wall with a shrill cry, its fragments raining like frozen tears across Lyana’s chamber floor.

“Useless! All of you are useless!” she shrieked, her elegant voice twisted with fury as she swept an ornate vanity table clean with one violent motion. Perfume bottles, jewelled hairpins, and powdered compacts crashed and splintered at her feet, but still, the fire in her chest refused to die.

A trembling maid knelt nearby, forehead pressed to the cold floor. “M-My lady… p-please, calm yourself…”“Calm?” Lyana’s lips curled, eyes blazing like a storm about to consume all in its path. “Do you know what I just heard?” She turned sharply, silk skirts whispering as they dragged through broken glass. “The Queen. The great, untouchable Queen who barely spares a glance at anyone… is pleased with Camila.”

The name tasted like poison.

Camila. Her sister. The shadow refused to disappear no matter how much Lyana tried to bury it.

“I worked for everything!” she screamed, snatching a crystal goblet and hurling it across the room. It exploded against the wall, red wine bleeding down like a wounded heart. “Every smile, every compliment, every step up the noble ladder— I clawed my way there! And now she dares to rise higher than me?”

Her nails dug into her palms as memories surged — whispered comparisons at grand balls, pitying glances when Camila was praised for her “gentle grace,” the way society always measured them side by side like two rival jewels.

Lyana had sworn long ago that she would never be second.

“I made Father despise her,” she muttered darkly, her voice dropping into something cold and sharp. “I made Mother see her as a burden. I took what was meant for her — her fiancé, her future, her pride.” She let out a slow, trembling breath. “And still… she stands above me?”

The thought gnawed at her soul.

She imagined Camila standing before the Queen, the monarch’s approval resting upon her like a crown of light — and Lyana’s vision blurred red with hatred.

“No…” she whispered. “This will not happen. She will not outshine me. Not now. Not ever.”

Silence fell heavy in the ruined chamber. Then, slowly, her lips curved upward.

An idea.

A wicked, brilliant idea.

Her gaze snapped to the maid, still kneeling. “Bring me parchment,” she ordered smoothly, the sudden calm in her tone far more frightening than her rage. “And summon the swiftest courier we have.”

The maid hesitated. “My lady… a message to where?”

Lyana’s smile sharpened, eyes glinting with malicious delight. “To our family home,” she said softly. “To the head maid. She will know exactly what to do.”

She dipped her quill into ink, writing with graceful precision — each stroke a promise of ruin.

Camila had always been too pure. Too trusting.

Lyana intended to use that against her in the most devastating way possible.As the wax seal pressed shut with a quiet click, Lyana leaned back in her chair, satisfaction curling through her like sweet venom

“Enjoy the Queen’s favour while you can, dear sister,” she murmured. “Because soon… everything you love will crumble.”