The morning light reveals a miracle—and a terrifying mystery.
Sorana woke with a start, her neck stiff from sleeping slumped in the chair by Aurelia's bed. The events of the previous night crashed back into her mind like a wave: Camilla's attack, the blood, the bruising, the impossible force that had thrown the princess across the room.
She leaned forward, blinking the sleep from her eyes, ready to assess the damage and change the soiled bandages.
What she saw stole the breath from her lungs.
The wounds were gone.
Not just healing. Gone.
Aurelia lay sleeping, her chest rising and falling in a deep, untroubled rhythm. Sorana's gaze, frantic and disbelieving, swept over her. The livid purple mask around her eye—vanished. The swollen, split lip—smooth and unbroken. The brutal scratches on her neck and shoulders—erased, as if they had never been. Even the bandage on her wrist, which last night was a soaked crimson rag, was now clean, white, and wrapped neatly over what was surely… unmarked skin beneath.
Sorana's hands trembled as she reached out, her fingers hovering just above Aurelia's cheek. She didn't dare touch, as if the vision might shatter.
How?
Her mind raced.
A healer? In the dead of night? No palace healer could work this completely, this swiftly.
No one else had entered; Sorana was a light sleeper, especially on guard.
Maybe... maybe I am still dreaming. Maybe the horrors of last night has broken my own mind.
But no. The light was real.
The quiet of the chamber was real. And the perfect, unmarred skin of the woman before her was devastatingly, impossibly real.
Then, a colder, more certain thought slithered into her mind, extinguishing all others.
If she didn't meet a healer.
A memory flashed: the shift in the air, Camilla flying backward, the crack of stone.
She did this herself.
Sorana stared at the sleeping face, so serene and beautiful.
The violet eyes were hidden behind closed lids, but Sorana felt she was looking at a stranger—or something far more ancient than a girl.
This wasn't healing. This was erasure. The power to undo violence done to her own flesh.
And if Aurelia could do this while dead asleep and utterly drained... what could she do awake?
Sorana slowly sat back in her chair, her blood running cold. The greatest threat to Aurelia was no longer Camilla's jealousy or Tenebrarum's cruelty.
It was this. This secret, sleeping in her very blood. And if she could discover it so easily, how long before someone far more dangerous did?
Aurelia's eyes slowly flew open, revealing the full, startling beauty of her violet irises, clear and bright as if she'd slept for a week. She stretched, a soft, effortless motion, and sat up. The blanket pooled around her waist. She felt… wonderful. Rested. Light.
She had completely forgotten she had injuries. No dull ache in her back, no throbbing in her hand, no tender pull on her cheek. Nothing at all.
Sorana was staring, her face a mask of pale shock.
"Why are you staring?" Aurelia asked, her voice clear and tinged with morning irritation. She yawned loudly, covering her mouth with a hand—the same hand that should have been mangled and wrapped.
Sorana didn't blink. "Did you meet a healer last night?"
The question was simple, but the tone was pure dread.
Aurelia frowned, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. "A healer? No, I…" Her words trailed off as her own gaze dropped to her arms. She turned her hands over, examining her palms, her wrists.
Last night, the bandage had been a soaked, crimson cage. A testament to pain, to violation, to her fragility. She had fallen asleep with its rough, blood-stiffened texture scratching her skin, a constant, throbbing reminder.
Now, it was pristine.
The linen was a spotless, almost blinding white, wrapped with a neat, clinical precision she knew she had not possessed. It was too clean. It was wrong. It looked like a fresh bandage applied to a wound that had never existed.
A silent, internal scream echoed in the hollow of her chest.
Slowly, as if moving through cold water, she raised her other hand. Her fingers—steady, but cold as marble—hooked under the edge of the linen. She didn't look at Sorana. She couldn't.
With a single, sharp tug, she pulled the bandage loose.
The fabric unwound, falling away in a soft coil into her lap.
Beneath it, her skin was perfect.
No ragged tear. No scab. Not even the faint, pink whisper of a new scar. Only the smooth, unbroken pale skin of her inner wrist, marred by nothing more than the faint blue tracery of a vein.
She lifted a hand to her face, her fingertips brushing her cheek, her lips, the skin around her eyes.
Smooth. Whole. Flawless.
A cold, static silence filled the room. The truth, vast and terrifying, descended upon her mind not with a crash, but with a sickening, silent drop.
She had felt no pain.
Not just this morning. She realized, with dawning horror, that the searing agony from Camilla's claws, the burning in her throat—it had all faded into a deep, black sleep. She had assumed it was exhaustion. She had been wrong.
Her body had not just endured the damage.
It had consumed it. Erased it. Made it as if it had never been.
Her eyes, wide with a fear deeper than any Tenebrarum had ever inspired, lifted to meet Sorana's.
"What," Aurelia whispered, the word trembling in the still air, "is happening to me?"
It was not a question for Sorana. It was a plea to the universe, to the strange blood singing silently in her own veins—a blood that was no longer just her own, but something ancient, powerful, and utterly, terrifyingly unknown.
"Do not say a word to anyone," Aurelia's voice was a low, steel-wire command, all traces of sleep and confusion burned away by a sudden, chilling clarity. "I will find out what is going on with me."
Sorana opened her mouth, the protest forming on her lips. "But my la—"
"No buts." The interruption was swift, absolute. Aurelia rose from the bed, the spotless bandage falling forgotten to the floor. She stood tall, the morning light carving her silhouette against the stone.
The vulnerability was gone, replaced by a regal authority Sorana had never seen in her before—an authority born not of title, but of terrifying self-possession. "You will keep this as our little secret. You will look at me and see only the girl from yesterday, bruised and broken. You will speak of it to no one. Not to the other maids. Not to anyone. Especially not to him."
The unspoken name—Tenebrarum—hung in the air, more potent for its absence.
Sorana saw it then: the fear in Aurelia's eyes had not vanished. It had been forged into a weapon. This was no longer just a plea for loyalty; it was a strategic order from a commander who understood the value of her one hidden asset.
The secret was no longer a burden to share—it was a weapon to be concealed until she learned how to wield it.
Aurelia took a step closer, her violet eyes holding Sorana's with an intensity that felt like a physical grip. "Do you understand? Our lives may depend on this silence."
In that moment, Sorana didn't see a victim or a stray. She saw the ghost of a queen, or a witch, awakening in the shattered girl. And she knew, with a cold certainty, that her oath was no longer just to a person, but to a power she did not understand.
She bowed her head, the gesture deeper than any she had offered before. "Yes, my lady," she whispered. "Our secret."
The pact was sealed.
Aurelia sat heavily on the edge of the bed, the weight of the morning crashing down upon her. The commanding presence she'd wielded moments before melted away, leaving only a hollow, trembling understanding.
A memory, long kept in a quiet, sacred chamber of her heart, surfaced with painful clarity. It was not a dream. It was the last clear picture of her mother's face, etched by the light of a failing hearth.
"You are my most precious gift," her mother had whispered, her voice thin but fierce, her hands cupping Aurelia's small face. "You have a great power within you. A legacy. I wish... I wish I had time to teach you." Her eyes, the same impossible violet, had shimmered with tears and a desperate love. Then, a firm push. "Go with your father now. Be brave. I will look for Gaius, and then I will find you. I promise."
It was a child's memory of exile and comfort. She had always held onto the warmth of being called a "precious gift," and the aching hope of "I will find you."
Now, sitting in a palace that was her prison, with skin that healed itself and a terror she could not name, she heard the words anew.
You have a great power within you.
A legacy.
This was no warning. It was truth that had been hiden since.
I wish I had time to teach you.
Because the power, untutored, was a threat.
It could draw the wrong kind of attention. It could manifest in ways she could not control. Like erasing wounds in her sleep.
Like throwing Camilla across a room without touch.
Tears, hot and silent, began to stream down Aurelia's cheeks. They were not tears of self-pity for her current pain. They were tears of profound, belated grief. She was finally mourning the true loss—not just of her mother, but of her inheritance. She had been sent away not just for safety, but to hide a secret so potent it required her hidden.
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To be continued...