While Lana was sleeping in Auther's bed and he slept on the rug beneath the bed, Viola barricaded her door in case someone would jump in and kill her. Viola did not dream.
She had not dreamed in years — not since the night after Aurelious died, when she woke up gasping, reaching for a sword that wasn't there, reaching for a man who would never be there again.
Tonight, she dreamed.
The training yard was the same. The same dirt under her boots. The same too-blue, too-bright sky. The same boy standing across from her, sword raised, jade eyes wide with terror.
She had lived this moment before.
She raised her rapier.
No, something inside her whispered. Not again.
But her body moved anyway. The blade sang through the air. It found his neck. It cut clean through. His head fell. His body crumpled to the ground with a wet thud.
The warm patch spread across the front of her training pants.
She stood there, breathing hard, waiting for the guilt that never came. Waiting for the horror that had always been absent.
Then she turned away.
Run, the whisper said. Run now. Before he gets up.
But she did not run. She walked toward the gates, toward the castle, toward the dawn breaking over the red brick roofs.
She needed to leave. Needed to escape. If she stayed — if she looked back —
She looked back.
The training yard was empty.
Nobody. No blood. No head.
Just dirt. Just shadows. Just that stupidly bright sun.
He is not dead, she thought. He was never dead. He is—
Suddenly, she was standing in front of the door to her quarters.
She did not remember walking here. Did not remember climbing the stairs. Did not remember anything after the training yard.
Her hands were shaking. She never shook.
She locked the door. Three bolts. Two chains. A chair was wedged firmly under the handle.
Safe, she told herself. You are safe.
A knock.
Soft. Deliberate. The same knock she had heard every morning for three years.
She froze.
"Enter," she whispered — then immediately clamped her hand over her mouth. Why had she said that? Why had she answered?
The door did not open.
The knock came again.
And then — a voice. Too familiar.
"I know you're in there, Vio."
She pressed her back against the door, rapier half-drawn, heart slamming against her ribs like a trapped animal.
"Go away," she said. Her voice cracked. She never cracked.
A pause. Then she could hear the smile in his voice.
"I will make you pay."
She stopped breathing.
"And the funniest part is… You cannot run."
Footsteps. Walking away. Slow. Deliberate. The same measured steps he always took when he knew he had already won.
She waited. One minute. Ten. An hour.
He did not come back.
She slid down the door until she was sitting on the cold stone floor, rapier still clutched in her hand, staring at the opposite wall.
He is dead, she told herself. I killed him. I watched his head fall.
But she had not watched. She had turned away. And when she looked back —
Nothing.
Nobody. No blood.
He was never there, she tried. It was a vision. A hallucination. The stress. The guilt.
She did not feel guilt.
She felt fear.
Days passed. Or maybe weeks. She could no longer tell.
She stopped sleeping. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the empty training yard. Saw the door. Heard the knock.
She stopped eating. Food tasted like ash in her mouth.
She stopped training. What was the point? He was dead. She had killed him. There was no one left to train.
But he was not dead.
She saw him sometimes — in the corner of her eye. Walking past a window. Standing at the end of a hallway. Always smiling. Always watching.
She would turn — and he would be gone.
I am losing my mind, she thought.
She was not wrong.
The crowd found her three weeks later.
Or maybe she found them. She could not remember.
She was in the square outside the cathedral — the same square where the Awakening Ceremony had been held. Where she had sat beside Elizabeth, tense and silent.
There were hundreds of them. Nobles. Commoners. Soldiers she had trained. Servants she had ignored.
They were screaming.
"Murderer!"
"Traitor!"
"You killed him! You killed Aurelious!"
She opened her mouth to deny it. She had not killed Aurelious. She had loved Aurelious. She would have died for him.
But the words would not come.
Because she had killed someone.
Not Aurelious.
His son.
The boy with his eyes.
They do not know that, she thought desperately. They cannot know that.
A rock struck her shoulder. Another struck her forehead. Blood ran into her eyes.
She fell to her knees.
"Please," she said. The word felt foreign on her tongue. She had never begged for anything in her life. "Please, I did not—"
"Liar!"
"Witch!"
"Kill her!"
She looked up at the sea of twisted, furious faces… and saw herself.
She had looked exactly like them.
Every time she raised her rapier. Every time she crushed his hands. Every time she called him worthless.
I deserve this, she thought. Not for Aurelious. But for him.
The crowd surged forward. Hands grabbed her. Lifted her. Carried her toward something she could not see.
She stopped struggling.
If they kill me, she thought, I will not have to dream anymore.
But they did not kill her.
They carried her to a wooden post driven into the ground — an inverted cross, the kind reserved for traitors.
They pinned her to it.
Nails through her wrists. Nails through her feet.
The pain was white-hot. Blinding. Almost beautiful.
This is what he felt, she thought. When I crushed his hands. When I broke his elbows. When I—
"Please," she whispered. "I am sorry."
The crowd did not hear her.
"Sorry," she said again. Louder.
No response.
"Sorry."
Three times. Like a prayer. Like a confession. Like the only words she had ever truly meant.
Then the dragon flame came.
A pillar of gold and white fire, so bright it burned her eyes even from a distance.
He sent them, she thought. The boy I killed. He took Johannes' offer. He is theirs now. And he is going to—
The flame hit her.
She did not scream. She had no breath left.
She had nothing left but the fire, the pain, and the echo of her own heart stopping.
Sorry, she thought one last time.
Sorry.
Sorry.
Viola woke up screaming.
She was in her room. Her real room. Stone walls. Sparse furniture. Her rapier rested on the nightstand.
She was drenched in sweat. Her wrists burned — no, not burned. Remembered.
She pressed her hands to her face. Her skin was intact. Unburned. Unbroken.
But she could still feel the flames.
"I'm sorry," she gasped. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
The words spilled out of her like blood from an open wound. She could not stop them.
She looked at the door.
Three bolts. Two chains. A chair wedged under the handle.
Just as she had left them.
He was here, she thought. He knocked. He spoke. He said—
"I will make you pay. And the funniest part is that you cannot run."
She stared at the door.
Waiting.
Listening.
But there was only silence.
Only her own ragged breathing.
Only the echo of flames that were no longer there.
She did not sleep again that night.
She sat with her back against the headboard, rapier across her lap, and stared at the door.
Wondering whether, when morning came, she would open it…
…or if he would open it for her.