( Aurelia was playing in the palace gardens. She couldn't say why.
Her legs, bare beneath a simple shift the color of dawn, kicked off from the cobbled path in a hop-skip motion, then broke into a run.
She spun, arms wide, her white hair—loose and unbound—flying around her like a silver banner.
The sun was warm on her cheeks, the scent of roses thick and cloying. Laughter bubbled in her throat, soundless but real.
She danced.
Not a courtly movement, but a wild, childlike whirl, her bare feet slapping the warm stone, then sinking into cool, damp grass. Each pivot sprayed dew from the blades.
She was like a leaf caught in a joyful eddy, until the air changed.
A wind, sharp as a winter blade, cut through the warmth. It didn't blow—it pulled.
It wrapped around her waist like a cold, invisible rope and yanked.
She stumbled, her dance broken. Digging her heels into the grass, she fought, but it was relentless. She dropped to her knees, a cry tearing from her.
Her fingers, frantic, clawed at the flagstones, nails scraping against the gritty surface, searching for a crack, a flaw, anything to hold onto. A pebble came loose, and she clutched it like a lifeline, but the wind only roared louder.
It lifted her. Her flowery dress ripped at the hem, flapping violently against her thighs. The ground fell away in a dizzying tilt.
The garden, the sun, the roses—all blurred into streaks of impossible color as she was hurled backward through a tunnel of swirling light and collapsing shadow.
She landed with a jolt that shuddered up her spine, not on stone, but on a floor of packed, damp earth. The air was stale and cold.
In the gloom, Calvus sat against a rough stone wall. He was waiting.
As the last gust of the wind shoved her forward, she stumbled, her knees buckling, and collided with his chest.
His arms came up to encircle her, but they felt wrong—unyielding and cool, like marble limbs wrapped in cloth.
"Let's escape," he said.
But his voice was different. It echoed, layered over itself—his own tone beneath a second, darker resonance that vibrated in her bones.
Before she could pull back, his hand—too firm, too certain—closed around hers. His skin was dry and smooth as river stone. He stood, pulling her up, and they were running. A heavy oak door, banded with iron (the gate she'd never seen), stood ajar.
BUMB...
They burst through it—
—into hell.
The sky was a deep, sickly purple, like a healing bruise.
The ground looked like it was not earth, but a churning mud of black soil and wet, gleaming crimson. The metallic stench of blood filled her nose, so potent she gagged.
And there, across the wasted field, hung from the gnarled, leafless branch of a dead tree, was Gaius's little face.
His face.
Pale as moon-cheese, his eyes open and clouded, staring at nothing. A single drop of dark fluid fell from his chin with a slow, eternal plink into a puddle below.
Aurelia's legs gave out. She crumpled to the ground, the wet, warm mire soaking through her shift.
A silent scream locked in her throat, a pressure so vast it felt like her ribs would crack.
Calvus. She whirled, mud slinging from her hair, scanning the horrific landscape. He was gone. The hand that had held hers was empty.
She was utterly, desolately alone in the crimson waste.
Then, slicing through the thick, nightmare silence, came a voice.
It was too clear, too present, a shard of reality wedging into the dream.
"Lady Flavia."
"Lady Flavia."
"Wake up, my lady."
Flavia. The name hit her like a slap. It was not hers. It was the name he had given her. The mask. The master.
To hear it here, in this place of her deepest, most secret blood-memory, was a violation that burned worse than the sight of Gaius.
Trembling, she looked up from the mud, past the hanged face, toward the bruised sky where the voice seemed to originate.
"Lady Flavia!" )
Aurelia's eyes snapped open.
Sorana's concerned face hovered above her in the light seeping through the window, a hand gently shaking her shoulder.
The phantom smell of blood and damp earth faded, replaced by the scent of stale rushes, cold stone and flowers.
Morning light cut through the narrow window, slicing the room into bars of pale gold and deep shadow. It was too clear, too real—a brutal contrast to the bruised purple sky still clinging to her mind.
Her own hand clutched her other wrist, fingers pressing hard into her skin as if to feel the truth of her own pulse.
"What do you mean?" she whispered into the sunlit dust motes, her voice a frayed thread.
Sorana heard the whisper but couldn't make out the words from the doorway, a basin of water in her hands.
"Did you have a nightmare?"she asked softly, her voice too gentle for the sharp light. "You've been trembling since twilight. Is everything all right?"
Aurelia's eyes remained fixed on the sunbeam glaring on the stone floor, seeing not the light but the crimson mud, the hanging face. She slowly released the grip on her own wrist, leaving pale, moon-shaped marks behind.
"It was just a dream,"she said, the lie smooth and hollow in the morning stillness. "The wind was loud."
She finally looked at Sorana, the nightmare still a chill behind her eyes, now exposed by the unforgiving day.
"Why did you wake me?"
Sorana set the basin down. Her expression shifted from concern to purposeful unease. She lowered her voice, as if the new sun might carry her words.
"You're needed.Lord Tenebrarum has ordered you to join the family breakfast."
Aurelia's violet eyes widened. Her white hair was a scattered halo from the night's torment, and in that moment, she looked more like the startled girl from the dream than the composed "Flavia" of the palace.
Family what?
The words felt foreign.In all her time trapped within these walls, she had always taken her meals in silence—in her room.
"Why the sudden change?" Her voice tightened, suspicion flattening the tone. "I do not want to eat with them. I'll manage here, in the dorm. I always have."
Sorana's gaze was pitying but firm. She smoothed the rough blanket, a useless, nervous gesture. "It isn't a request, my lady. It's an order. From him. And… the new princess will be there."
"Matrona is here?" Aurelia's eyes flew wider.
-------------------------------
To be continued...