Chapter 6
836 Words
I couldn't breathe.
Not because I was panicking.
Not because I'd just lived through a memory that couldn't possibly belong to me.
Because I could still feel her.
The woman on the battlefield.
The Queen.
Her grief.
Her rage.
Her certainty.
It lingered inside my chest like a second heartbeat.
Rain soaked through my clothes as I stared at the four men surrounding me.
They looked terrified.
Not concerned.
Not worried.
Terrified.
That scared me more than anything else.
"What was her name?" I asked.
No one answered.
I pushed myself to my feet.
"What was her name?"
Kael stepped forward.
"Aria."
"No." My voice sharpened. "The woman I saw. The queen."
His jaw tightened.
Lucien looked away.
Ronan stopped smiling.
Even Asher lowered his gaze.
The silence was answer enough.
"You know."
Asher closed his eyes.
"We know."
The rage came fast.
Good.
I understood rage.
It was familiar.
It was human.
"You've been standing here all night talking about me like I'm a bomb that's about to explode, and none of you thought to tell me who the hell I am?"
"Because we don't know," Lucien said quietly.
I laughed.
It sounded broken.
"That's a lie."
He met my gaze.
"No. It's the truth."
The rain intensified.
Thunder rolled overhead.
"I remember a battlefield," I said. "I remember four men."
My eyes found each of them.
A wolf.
A vampire.
An angel.
A demon.
I watched the recognition hit their faces.
"You were there."
No one denied it.
My stomach turned.
"How old are you?"
Ronan barked out a laugh.
"That's really the question you're asking?"
"Answer me."
He looked at Lucien.
Lucien looked at Kael.
Kael looked at Asher.
I was going to lose my mind.
"How. Old. Are. You?"
Lucien sighed.
"I stopped counting after the eighth century."
I blinked.
"What?"
Ronan rubbed the back of his neck.
"I'm somewhere around seven hundred."
I turned to Kael.
He didn't answer.
Which somehow was an answer.
Finally, I looked at Asher.
He held my gaze.
"I was there when Rome fell."
The world tilted.
No.
No.
No.
My brain refused to process it.
Because if I processed it, then I'd have to accept that four immortal men were standing in front of me.
And somehow they knew me.
Had known me.
For centuries.
"You knew her," I whispered.
The words barely existed.
Asher nodded.
The pain in his eyes almost destroyed me.
"We loved her."
The world went silent.
Not literally.
Cars still passed.
Rain still fell.
But inside me, everything stopped.
Loved.
Not admired.
Not served.
Loved.
The memory flashed again.
A hand in mine.
Laughter beneath moonlight.
Four shadows beside a throne.
Love.
So much love it hurt.
Then came something else.
A scream.
Not mine.
Theirs.
The memory vanished.
I stumbled backward.
"No."
Because if that was true—
If they had loved her—
Then what was I?
A replacement?
A ghost?
A reincarnation?
"Don't," Kael said.
I looked at him.
He was watching me carefully.
Like he knew exactly where my thoughts had gone.
"We don't see you as her."
The lie hurt more than the truth would have.
"Really?"
His face hardened.
"You are not a replacement."
"Then what am I?"
Nobody answered.
Again.
I wanted to scream.
Then I heard it.
A whisper.
Not from inside me.
From behind me.
Turn around.
Every muscle in my body locked.
The voice.
The same one from the memory.
The same one from the alley.
I turned.
The end of the street was empty.
Except it wasn't.
A figure stood there.
A woman.
Long black hair.
A crown of stars.
Eyes made of midnight.
She looked exactly like me.
No.
Not exactly.
Older.
Colder.
More powerful.
She smiled.
The world disappeared.
Suddenly, I was standing somewhere else.
A throne room.
Black stone.
Silver fire.
And she was sitting on the throne.
Me.
Not me.
The Queen.
She crossed one leg over the other and looked at me with amused familiarity.
"About time," she said.
I couldn't speak.
She laughed.
The sound was beautiful.
And terrifying.
"Oh, don't look so shocked." She leaned forward. "You've been hearing me for years."
My mouth finally worked.
"Who are you?"
She smiled wider.
That smile held centuries.
Wars.
Love.
Loss.
Power.
"I," she said softly, "am what happens when a queen dies before she's finished."
A chill ran through me.
"No."
"Oh, yes."
She stood.
The throne room trembled.
"You've spent twenty-seven years pretending to be Aria Nocturne."
She stepped closer.
"But sooner or later..."
Her hand touched my cheek.
It felt like touching ice and fire at the same time.
"...you have to remember who we really are."
Then she whispered a name.
One word.
One impossible word.
And when I heard it—
I screamed.
Back in the alley, all four men rushed toward me.
Because my eyes had turned completely black.
And for the first time in a thousand years, the Queen of Midnight had spoken through her own lips.
- Writer
