Unlike the rest of her family, Irrys had been the only one who ever made time for Fatima. In a palace filled with cold corridors and colder hearts, she was the one warm flame that refused to flicker out. Irrys wasn't just a sister—she was Fatima's entire world, her confidante, her playmate, the only soul who ever saw her not as a princess, but as a person.
When Irrys was occupied with her duties, silence reigned in Fatima's chambers. The laughter and chatter that once filled her days vanished, leaving only the faint hum of wind against tall windows and the soft echo of her own footsteps as she wandered from room to room. The scent of polished marble and old parchment accompanied her lonely explorations until her little legs ached, and her spirit wilted from the solitude.
"Hold my hand, Calliope!" The memory unfurled like a sunbeam through her gloom. She could still feel Irrys's hand—warm, firm, reassuring—pulling her along marble corridors lined with silken drapes and blooming lilies. Irrys had always smiled with her whole face, her raven hair glowing under the chandeliers as she turned back to make sure Fatima kept up. That memory carried a sweetness so vivid it almost hurt.
By contrast, her father's voice had always been sharp and cold enough to cut glass. "My king! Princess Calliope has requested an audience with you to—" "Escort the princess back to her quarters. I'm busy today." That curt dismissal had burned itself into her memory like salt pressed into an open wound. His tone had held no hesitation, no affection—just irritation, as if she were a nuisance. Her mother wasn't any better; her indifference was quieter, but more suffocating, like the still air in a sealed room.
Still, with Irrys beside her, Fatima had once believed she could live without their affection. Her sister's laughter had been enough. Her brother Matthias, too, had once brought color to her small world. He would sneak into her wing of the palace, his golden curls tousled, his eyes glinting with mischief. "Studying is so dull. I'd much rather play with you, my little Cali."
Fatima's eyes widened in delight—until she saw the dark silhouettes of his instructors darting across the terrace. "Run, Matthias!" she gasped, grabbing his hand as they dashed into the cool, echoing corridors. Their laughter rang against the marble walls, a melody of freedom and fleeting joy. "You were supposed to whisper that, Cali," Matthias laughed breathlessly, "not shout it!"
Those were the days of sunlit gardens, of barefoot races through the courtyards, and whispered secrets in the shade of lilac trees. Their summer days were drenched in golden warmth, each one a bubble of laughter and love that seemed it would never burst. But it did.
The news of Matthias's death struck like a thunderclap on a clear day. One moment, the palace brimmed with light; the next, all that remained was an echoing void. Fatima refused to believe it at first. For a whole year, she clung to the belief that it was a cruel joke—that he'd come back any moment, laughing as always. "Pull yourself together, Calliope! Our brother is gone forever! Do you hear me?!"
Irrys's voice had been raw that day, trembling between fury and anguish. Her grip on Fatima's frail arms was so tight it left pale bruises behind. Fatima remembered the scent of her sister's favorite perfume, mingled with the salt of her tears, as reality finally sank in. And when Irrys finally pulled her into her arms, her embrace felt like sunlight breaking through a storm—a desperate warmth that burned away confusion and left only aching clarity.
"Cali, I think it would be best if we keep silent about this power you possess. When the time comes, you and I will form a team and rule Syphus together. Stay close to me, and you will be safe in my shadow. I will always stand between you and harm. Listen to me, and I will raise you higher than any princess alive. What do you say?" Her words were like an oath and a promise, melodic and commanding. But Fatima, her heart still fragile, didn't care for crowns or power. She only wanted her sister's hand to never let go.
The afternoon sun filtered through the canopy of the palace gardens one day, dappling their faces in gold. The air smelled of blooming roses and fresh earth as the two sisters knelt on the grass, giggling softly. That laughter died when Fatima noticed a peculiar spider crawling nearby—its body smooth and glossy black, gleaming like obsidian. "Look, Rys! Isn't it beautiful?" Fatima whispered, her curiosity innocent, unaware. She lifted the creature gently between her fingers to show her sister. Irrys smiled faintly, leaning closer—then everything turned to horror. The spider's fangs sank into her palm, twin daggers glinting wetly before disappearing.
"Rys! Wake up! Rys!" Fatima's cries tore through the air, shrill and panicked. "Please, wake up! Don't die on me too." Her tiny hands fluttered helplessly over Irrys's still body, her heart thundering in her chest. The scent of crushed grass and iron filled her nose as the garden erupted in chaos—maids shrieking, knights shouting, boots pounding against the cobblestone. Then the world tilted, and darkness swallowed her whole.
When Fatima awoke, her world had changed. The palace that once felt alive was now a mausoleum of memories. The colors she loved—emerald gardens, sapphire skies, Irrys's black hair—had all faded into gray. Her days became a blur of discipline and duty: the acrid tang of sweat in the training yard, the rasp of steel against steel, the incense-thick air of temple halls. There was no more time for laughter, or for her sister's gentle hand. Where warmth once lived, now there was only distance—cold, silent, and complete.
**
The pain in her lower belly came back like a rope being snapped taut — sudden, bright, and bone-deep — dragging Fatima from the ghost-echoes of memory into the brutal present. She tasted iron; the coppery tang filled the back of her throat and mixed with the sour heat of sweat on her lips. Blood fountained from her midsection and the corner of her mouth, a hot, blurring ribbon of red that smeared her vision and made her words thin and uneven.
"Irrys, what are you—" Her voice broke on the question. She tried to force more to come out but the room spun, the marble floor tilting beneath her knees. Irrys's smile widened — impossibly bright in the moon-darkened room — all teeth and triumph. The moonlight bent off the edge of the dagger in her hand as if the blade were drinking the light. She gave a short, delighted giggle and, with a slow, obscene slowness, drew the steel free from Fatima. Warm, metallic spray kissed Fatima's cheek as she gasped in pain.
"How very dutiful of you to come crawling back after that fateful day," Irrys purred, each word a polished stone thrown with intent. "No matter. You being here means I can finish what I started — uninterrupted."
"Are you…implying that the attack back then—was your doing? You expect me to believe such an outlandish lie?" Fatima shouted, oblivious to the pain that lanced each syllable. Her hands pressed against the pulsing wound, blood spurting through her fingers. "Quit spouting such nonsense, Rys! You would never do such a thing to me. Who are you covering for? Is it uncle? It's uncle Sebastian, isn't it? He put you up to this, didn't he?"
Irrys moved like a predator making a show of patience. She circled around Fatima, heel tapping on marble; the soft click of her shoes measured out her sister's dwindling heartbeats. When she stood behind her, the shadow she threw was tall and flat and suddenly enormous, swallowing the moonlight that pooled across the floor. She folded her arms, the lines of her silhouette carved severe against the night.
A frustrated sigh slipped out of Irrys. Her heel came down hard into Fatima's back; pain detonated up her spine and she went flat on the cold floor, breath sputtering out in a wet, helpless sound. She tried to wait for the familiar, blessed warmth of her healing — a bloom of light, a tightening, the mending that always came on its own— but nothing was happening. Panic thudded in her ribs, sharper than the pain itself.
When Irrys first discovered Fatima's gift, she'd called it a game — a testing of limits, a pleasure in watching her fast recovery. Small bruises turned to savage experiments, prodding that escalated until every visit felt like the countdown to the next horror. Fatima could still see Irrys's face then, curious and pleased, as if cataloguing which cut would close fastest.
"You think you know me, don't you, Calliope?" Irrys's voice slid through the dark like silk over stone as she dug the heel of her shoe deeper into Fatima's spine. Pain scrambled the edges of her mind. "Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Irrys Esmelda Cheshley Vicksburg D'Syphus. As the firstborn, my birthright makes me the true heir to the throne — a duty neither our brother nor you are fit for. And don't get me started on the king and queen. Not only were they terrible rulers, but also failures of parents." She said the last like a verdict, flicking the bloody knife carelessly so a spray of scarlet dotted the floorboards.
Fatima's breath came ragged and shallow. The room felt far away: the curtains were a smear against the night, the portraits on the wall mere dark faces watching with indifferent eyes. "W-what?" she rasped. Why is she referring to our parents in past tense? Irrys, what have you done? Fatima's mind reeled, the questions lumping in her throat but couldn't escape her lips for fear of the answers that would follow.
"That's utter nonsense, Irrys! You aren't in your right mind. Snap out of it before you regret this when you come to." Fatima managed, the words a defiant scrap amid the pain, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Irrys shrugged, amusement painted thin across her features. "I knew you were delusional, but I didn't think it was this bad. You poor, foolish thing…" She eased her foot off and the immediate absence of pressure turned Fatima's body to molten, trembling jelly. "I thought one last conversation with you would be entertaining, but you're boring me to slumber. Hold her up, Raul."
"Yes, your highness." Raul's voice was quick and professional. He crouched, heavy hands like cold iron under Fatima's arms, lifting her so she stood facing Irrys again. The motion made Fatima wince as her wound throbbed painfully.
Irrys's eyes caught the silvered edge of the moon and glittered with something like triumph as she lunged forward, plunging the blade into Fatima's abdomen with deliberate force. Fatima yelped. Pain shoved the breath from Fatima in a harsh, splintering gasp; for a second, sound was only the frantic thump of her own heart and the wet whisper of blood against silk.
Her lungs were starting to fold up on themselves, each inhale becoming a rasping battle. Blood pooled at the base of her throat and a thin stream trickled into her nose, hot and oddly faint against the cool night air drifting in through the balcony doors. "Does it hurt, Calliope?" Irrys asked, voice sweet as poison. "What have you done to our parents, Irrys?" Fatima croaked, the name turning her tongue clumsy, blood trickling past the corners of her mouth.
She could feel her life slipping — warmth bleeding into coolness, pulses thinning. Yet Irrys replied with the calm of a woman discussing weather. "I sent them to an early grave, as I did our brother. If you don't believe me, you'll just have to see for yourself."
Fatima's mind raced, snatches of childhood — braided hair, hands that smoothed her brow, the secret games — all overlaid now with this grotesque knowledge. "Irrys, I never wanted the throne. I only ever wanted you. Had you ever asked, I would have gladly yielded my position to you, because I loved you more than anything in this world." Her confession was a raw thing, torn open and offered like a white flag. Tears carved clean lines through the blood on her cheeks.
"For my big sister, there was no sacrifice too great," she said weakly, each phrase a small, brave hammer against the darkness. "I truly loved you, Rys — but…it's all gone now. You choked the last embers of that love out of me with your own hands. If… if by some miracle I survive this, there will be no place for you to hide from my wrath." The words fell heavy; they felt like stones she had to throw while the current pulled at her ankles.
Irrys's face pinched with a small, cruel displeasure as if the declaration bored her. She leaned in; the dagger's point hovered at Fatima's throat, cold as a promise. "Oh, don't you worry, my sweet sister. You will never survive this." She cackled as she raised the dagger.
Then the glass of the balcony door detonated — not with a polite crack but with the violent, impossible sound of a bell being shattered. The pane exploded inward in a spray of glittering missiles; fine dust and the tang of ozone and old mortar filled the air. A tall figure in black dropped through the breach, cloak unfurling in a whisper of fabric and broken light. He hit the marble with a soft thud that somehow swallowed the room's noise, and for a heartbeat the world narrowed to the silhouette on the floor: a shape carved from shadow, smelling of dust and something metallic, like a coin newly minted.