Blood Will Show (La Reyna: Vengeance Born)

Milan, Italy — the final autumn before my world caught fire. The sound of high heels echoed along the cobblestone lanes of Piazza San Babila. The sky was grey, the air damp. People rushed past in flocks, yet I walked alone — as if time itself had slowed just for me. No one knew that beneath this simple black dress, I carried a blood-soaked legacy the world had tried to bury. My name is Fathya El Raez. But most now only know me as… La Reyna. Raezmir, my father, was no ordinary man. In Milan, he was hailed as a patron of the arts and a generous philanthropist. But what they didn’t see was that the El’Raez Foundation was only a mask. Beneath his gallery, dark dealings thrived — sorcery, assassination contracts, forbidden weapons. All executed with precision, as if crime itself were an elegant craft. I was his only heir — both by blood and by sin. Raised in a two-storey estate in Brera, I grew up surrounded by street painters, the scent of espresso, and whispers of politics. But my life never mirrored that of a noble child. Each morning began not with school or music lessons, but with silence drills, blade training, and binding spells. My father didn’t raise a daughter. He trained a general. “An El’Raez heir does not cry,” he’d say. “And we never lose.” I learned to identify poisons before I could write a full poem. I could distinguish human blood from that of creatures of the Second World by scent alone. At fourteen, I witnessed my first death — not on a screen, but from the cursed needle I unleashed myself. Yet no matter how hardened I became, I believed in one thing — family. That very family… would one day be the ones to betray me. Maeryss. My adopted sister, brought into our family when I was nine. She was beautiful. Kind. Nurturing... at first. But over time, I saw it — her kindness was a mask. She was too perfect. Too obedient. But not to our family. To something else. And that night — the night Fathya died and La Reyna was born — the truth unraveled. Earlier that evening, Maeryss and I sat in the reading room, pretending to study. She smiled her usual soft smile while I was lost arranging pages from our family’s magical history. “Fathya,” she asked gently, “do you ever feel… that being an heir is a curse?” I looked up, startled. “Why would you say that?” She smiled again. But her eyes didn’t match the curve of her lips. “Maybe because we were never meant to choose. We only inherit sins we never asked for.” Before I could respond, our father entered — flanked by two guards. His face was tense. In his hand, a letter sealed in black — a summons from the Blood Council, the secret rulers of Europe’s arcane elite. That night, I overheard everything. I listened from behind the stairwell. “…if you don’t surrender the true heir, the punishment falls on your entire bloodline,” a deep voice said. “I’ve arranged it. She’ll be gone by midnight,” my father replied. I froze. They were talking about me. And in that moment, every ounce of trust I had — in my father, in Maeryss, in this so-called family — shattered. At exactly 2:00 a.m., they came. Three masked men stormed in from the kitchen. One detonated the warding spells from the back terrace. My father fought back. I tried to help, but Maeryss pulled me away. “Run, Fathya!” she screamed. I obeyed. But when I looked back toward the living room — I saw her blade buried in our father’s chest. “MAERYSS!” She looked at me… and smiled. A scream of sorcery exploded through the hall. Bookshelves ignited. I crawled toward my mother’s preserved body, still sealed within her glass shrine. I reached for her — just in time to watch the glass crack and collapse. The scent of burning flesh. My father’s last cry. And Maeryss’s smile… that’s all that stayed with me. Fathya died that night. And from bone, from ash, from the hell I crawled out of — La Reyna was born. Days passed in silence. I hid in the narrow alleys of Navigli. The wound on my shoulder refused to heal, but it was the one in my chest that truly throbbed. I had lost everything. My home. My father. My mother — once again. But this time, I didn’t cry. My tears had long run dry. For six months, I lived with an old candle maker named Corrado. He found me unconscious behind his shop and took me in without questions. But I knew he wasn’t an ordinary man. His eyes knew more than his mouth ever spoke. “If you’re still breathing after that night,” he once told me, “you’re not done with this world yet.” I began gathering the fragments of who I used to be. I snuck into the archives of my father’s foundation and stole every file I could carry. That’s where I found their names. The traitors. The killers. The cowards who signed the blood pact that ended the El’Raez name. Maeryss. The Lyon family. Agents of the Blood Council. Even names who once dined at our family table. I knew I wasn’t strong enough — not yet. So I disappeared completely. Changed my identity. Burned my passport. And eventually made my way to Lyon, France. There, I began a new life — not to run, but to prepare. For six years, I lived in the shadows. I learned from the outcasts — rogue sorcerers, hunted mercenaries, forgers of magic contracts, even beings from the other world trapped in human skin. I mastered blood magic. Learned ancient arcane tongues. I made pacts with things that slithered beneath the veil — not for power, but for access. I conditioned my body to know no fear, and trained my soul to forget mercy. And on the seventh anniversary of the night they burned my life to ash… I returned to Milan. Not as Fathya, But as La Reyna. The name they buried. The face they thought died with the El’Raez estate. But I lived. And I did not come to start a war. I came to end it. One name at a time. This isn’t the beginning of my story. It’s the beginning of their sentence.