For a single, agonizing heartbeat, Olivia found herself praying for the impossible. She craved the lie—wished with a desperate fervor that she truly was Roland's daughter, and that the blood pooling in Serene's mouth would simply remain there: cold, stagnant, and silent. In that hollow moment of doubt, she yearned for the magic to fail, for the nightmare to be a fabrication, so she wouldn't have to carry the crushing weight of what she had become.
A flicker of morbid euphoria flared within her, only to be drowned by a wave of absolute bitterness. She didn't want to lose her mother, yet she shuddered at the price of her return. Her mind was a jagged battlefield of contradictions until a primal instinct sent a jolt of pure terror through her soul.
The corpse had begun to drink.
