Jasmine's POV
Five years have passed since that terrible night, yet the memories of the palace attack still course through my veins like poison. The metallic ring of blade against blade, the sickening crack of breaking bones, the screams that turned those sacred halls into a nightmare.
And her. My beloved Aunt Naia.
Her last words to me play on repeat in my mind, a mantra I cannot escape.
"You and your children will be protected. Nothing else matters now."
The image burns behind my eyelids. That brilliant flash of light as her magic erupted around us, the way her form glowed and trembled, how she collapsed with that blade piercing her chest. The ancient words she spoke through her agony, the tears streaming down her face as she sent me away forever.
There are mornings when I wake believing it was nothing more than a cruel dream. But reality always crashes back. She sacrificed everything for us.
She is gone, and I remain because she chose death over my capture.
