Lyssara's POV
The cellar lock clicks open.
I jerk awake, chains rattling. My whole body aches from lying on cold stone for hours. How long was I unconscious? The tiny window near the ceiling shows darkness outside—still night, but I don't know what time.
A figure slips through the door carrying a candle. For one wild second, I think it's Father coming to say he changed his mind, that he's sorry, that he can't actually murder his own daughter.
Then the candlelight hits her face, and I see it's Mirin.
"Quiet!" she whispers, pressing a finger to her lips. She's wearing a servant's dress—she must have snuck into the house pretending to be part of the party staff. Her dark hair is tied back, and her brown eyes are fierce with determination.
Mirin is my only real friend. She's a blacksmith's daughter from the Border villages—the poor towns on the edge of the kingdom that nobody cares about. We met three years ago when I was sneaking around the market, and she caught me stealing bread. Instead of turning me in, she gave me her own lunch and asked why a lord's daughter was starving.
I told her the truth: I'm not really a lord's daughter. I'm just the unwanted leftover.
We've been friends ever since.
"What are you doing here?" I hiss as she kneels beside me, pulling lock picks from her pocket. "If they catch you—"
"They won't." She works on my chains with practiced hands. Mirin knows how to pick locks because her father taught her—he said every girl should know how to free herself. "I was in town selling horseshoes when I heard the news. Everyone's talking about how Celestine ran away and you're taking her place."
The chains fall away. I rub my wrists where the metal cut into my skin.
"I have to get you out of here," Mirin says urgently. "We can run right now. I have a horse waiting two streets over. We'll go to the Border, hide you in my father's shop—"
"No." I stand up on shaky legs. "They'll hunt me down. And when they find me, they'll burn me like they burned my mother. Running just makes it worse."
"So you're just going to let them kill you?" Mirin's voice cracks. "Lyssara, please—"
"I need to think." My mind is racing, trying to find a way out of this nightmare. "How much time do I have?"
"Maybe three hours until dawn." Mirin grabs my hand. "Come on. We're leaving."
But I'm not moving. Because suddenly, I remember something.
"The boy," I say. "Thomas. From the Border. Is he—"
Mirin's face goes pale. "That's actually why I came to find you tonight, before I heard about... this. Thomas got worse. The fever came back, and now he's barely breathing. His mother is begging for help, but the royal doctors won't come to the Border for a poor kid."
My stomach drops. Two weeks ago, I snuck out at night to heal Thomas when he first got sick. I used my magic—the secret power I've hidden my whole life—to pull the fever out of his body. His mother cried and called me an angel sent by the gods.
I warned her never to tell anyone what I could do. If people found out I had magic like my mother, they'd burn me too.
I thought I'd cured him completely. But if the fever came back...
"Take me to him," I say.
"What? No!" Mirin blocks the door. "Lyssara, you have three hours before they drag you to the forest! You don't have time to—"
"A little boy is dying!" My voice comes out harder than I meant. "I have this power for a reason, Mirin. If I'm going to die at dawn anyway, I'm not going to waste my last few hours hiding in fear. Take me to Thomas. Now."
Mirin stares at me for a long moment. Then she nods. "You're either the bravest person I know or the craziest."
"Probably both."
We slip out of the cellar through a side entrance that the servants use. The house is finally quiet—the party guests must have left. Father and Lady Morganna are probably asleep, confident that I'm locked up and can't escape.
They're wrong.
The streets are empty at this hour. Mirin leads me through back alleys and shortcuts until we reach the Border—the part of town where the houses are small and broken, where people work hard and die young, where nobody important ever goes.
Thomas's house is a tiny shack that leans to one side. Mirin knocks three times, and Thomas's mother opens the door. She's younger than I expected—maybe twenty-five—with tired eyes and hands rough from work.
"You came," she breathes when she sees me. "Oh, thank the gods, you came."
Inside, the house is one room with a dirt floor. Thomas lies on a straw mattress in the corner, and my heart clenches when I see him.
He's maybe seven years old, small and skinny. His skin is gray. His breathing comes in short, painful gasps. The fever is worse than before—I can see it burning him up from the inside.
This isn't natural. Something about this feels wrong.
I kneel beside him and place my hands on his chest. "Thomas? Can you hear me?"
His eyes flutter open—just for a second—and I see fear in them. Fear and pain.
"It's okay," I whisper. "I'm going to help you."
I close my eyes and let the magic flow.
It feels like warm honey moving through my veins, out through my palms, into his body. I can sense his life force—weak and flickering like a candle about to go out. I can feel the fever trying to eat him alive.
But I can also feel something else. Something dark and twisted wrapped around his heart.
This isn't a natural fever.
This is a curse.
My eyes snap open. "Who did this to him?"
Thomas's mother shakes her head, confused. "Did what? He just got sick—"
"This is curse magic." My hands are glowing now, gold light spilling between my fingers. "Someone put this inside him on purpose. Someone wanted him to die slowly."
"But why?" Her voice breaks. "He's just a child! We have nothing! Who would curse a poor boy from the Border?"
I don't know. But I'm going to find out.
I push more magic into Thomas, wrapping it around the dark curse like a rope. The curse fights back—it's strong, planted by someone powerful. My head starts to ache. Sweat drips down my face.
"Come on," I grit through my teeth. "Let go of him."
The curse resists. It wants to kill this boy. It was designed to kill him slowly, painfully, and—
Understanding hits me like a punch to the stomach.
This curse was designed to draw someone out. Someone with life magic. Someone desperate enough to try to heal him.
This curse was bait.
And I just took it.
"Lyssara, your hands—" Mirin gasps.
I look down. My hands aren't just glowing anymore. They're burning with golden fire, so bright it lights up the whole room. The magic is pouring out of me faster than I can control it. The curse around Thomas's heart is breaking apart, but my power is too strong now, too wild—
The door crashes open.
Guards flood into the tiny house—six of them in royal uniforms. And behind them, stepping through the doorway with a cold smile, is High Inquisitor Sariel.
"Well, well," she says softly. "A life-mage, just as I suspected. Your mother's cursed blood runs true."
I try to stop the magic, but it's too late. My hands are still glowing. Thomas is gasping but breathing easier—the curse is broken. The evidence of what I am is blazing for everyone to see.
"Arrest her," Sariel orders. "The witch reveals herself at last."
Guards grab my arms. Mirin tries to fight them off, but there are too many. Thomas's mother is crying, trying to shield her son.
Sariel walks over to me, so close I can smell her perfume—something sweet and horrible, like flowers rotting. She grabs my chin, forcing me to meet her eyes.
"I've been waiting for you to expose yourself," she says. "That curse was planted three months ago in fifty different children across the Border villages. I knew eventually, someone with your mother's forbidden power would try to save one of them. And here you are."
Fifty children. She cursed fifty innocent children just to find me.
"You're a monster," I whisper.
"No, child. I'm a protector of the natural order." She releases my chin. "Your mother tried to disrupt the Centennial Sacrifice with her life magic. She claimed there was another way to feed the forest without death. She was wrong, and she burned for her heresy." Sariel's smile widens. "Now you'll burn too. Right after you fulfill your duty in the Thornwood."
My blood turns to ice. "What?"
"Did you think we'd waste a life-mage?" Sariel laughs. "No, no. You're even more valuable than your sister would have been. The Thorn King will feast on your forbidden power. Your death will feed the forest for twice as long—maybe two hundred years instead of one hundred."
She gestures to the guards. "Take her to the preparation chamber. Dawn comes soon."
They drag me toward the door. I twist and fight, but it's useless.
"Mirin!" I scream. "Thomas—"
"The boy will be fine," Sariel says dismissively. "He served his purpose. As for your friend..." She looks at Mirin with cold calculation. "Lock her up too. We'll deal with her after the ritual."
"No!" I thrash against the guards. "Leave her alone! She didn't do anything!"
But they're already grabbing Mirin, chains clicking around her wrists.
As they haul us both out into the street, I see the sky starting to lighten in the east.
Dawn is coming.
And with it, my death.
But now I understand something terrible: this was never about Celestine. This was never about choosing the perfect, beautiful bride.
This was about me. It's always been about me.
They've been hunting me for years, waiting for me to reveal my power. And I walked right into their trap.
The last thing I see before they throw me into a prison cart is Sariel's satisfied smile and the first rays of sunlight breaking over the horizon.
My time is up.