Astelion POV — Narrative Year: 2076
I know you're wondering what the actual fuck is going on. Let me break it down for you.
I wasn't born into a kingdom I was born into a prison. The history books call this the "Year of Prosperity," but if you get close enough to the gold-plated walls, all you can smell is rot.
In the original timeline the one you think you know Cion won. In 2030, the dragons tore the Void open like starving beasts, and the war didn't just return it came back screaming. My grandfather, Castel, tried to stop it. He did the only thing a King of blood could do he slit his own throat using all the blood in his body to stop the disaster from happen but fail.
I've seen the memory in the blood-records. I've seen his hands shaking, his breath stuttering as he shaped a seal from his dying will and bound it with my grandmother Arastella's blood. It should have been enough to save the world.
But Cion was faster. He drove a blade into Castel's chest before the seal could close. Only some of the dragons were swallowed back into the dark the rest were chained. They became slaves to Cion and the man who helped him the man I have to call Father.
History was rewritten overnight. Royal colors turned from the proud red of the dragons to a sickly crimson and green. Books were burned. Castel became a myth, and rebellion was rebranded as ignorance.
And my mother? She was never given a name in the new world. Only a title: The Palace Whore. She was their daughter the child of Castel and Arastella. Raised by the man who murdered her father, her blood was a freak of nature, stronger than Castel's ever was. One drop could neutralize any magical ability. She could freeze time, bend the weather, and walk through dreams. But she had a flaw: she could only use one gift at a time, and she needed five minutes of rest between them, or the strain would kill her.
Cion used her like a tool anyway. Every drought, every flood, every "act of god" used to punish a rebellious village was actually her, forced to break the world on her knees. At fifteen, she was forced to marry him. At sixteen, she gave birth to my brother, Tideon. At eighteen, Cion divorced her like spoiled property and handed her to my father, Tas.
Then came the miscarriages. The stillbirths. And finally, me.
My twin sister never took a breath but I did. And my mother never quite forgave the world for letting me survive while her other children crumbled.
I learned the first rule of the palace early: Power seen is power owned. So, I hid mine. The library near my mother's chambers became my sanctuary hick stone, dust heavy as memory, and books so old even Cion had forgotten they existed.
I didn't hear Tideon enter. I was too deep in the trance. Books were circling me in a slow, gravitational orbit, their pages fluttering like wings. Flame kissed the edges of the paper without burning them. Water lifted from a stone basin and spiraled around my ankles, while vines crept from the cracks in the floorboards.
Earth. Fire. Water. Air. Balanced. Controlled.
I was humming in my mother's forbidden tongue, the language of the dragons.
"Well," a voice cut through the silence.
I dropped. The books crashed to the floor. The water exploded across the stone, and the flames vanished.
"Ouch—"
Tideon was leaning against a bookshelf, watching me. He wasn't amused, he was interested. "You've been lying, little sister."
My heart slammed against my ribs. "Karapalo esie vlisi ccon iunque—karapalo." (Please. You can't tell anyone.)
Tideon's smile sharpened. "Still speaking the traitor's tongue? Anyone who speaks it dies. Did you forget Father's rules?"
He stepped closer, his shadow stretching across the room. My back hit the cold stone wall. "I'll give you whatever you want," I stammered. "Just don't tell them."
"You have nothing I want." His eyes dragged over me with a cold, clinical disgust. "Child of a whore."
Something inside me finally snapped. The fear didn't go away it just turned into glass. I stepped into his space, my chest nearly touching his.
"Don't call her that. She's our mother or did you forget that you're just as much of a useless excuse for a man as the ones who took her by force?"
The smile vanished. "What did you say?"
"Did I stutter, Tideon?"
"I suggest you beg." He leaned in, his voice a low, icy whisper.
I didn't beg. I bit into my palm, hard. Blood oozed out, and I flung the crimson spray across his face. My vision ignited, glowing my left eye turned silver and my right turned violet.
"Kneel."
The word wasn't loud. It was Law.
Tideon slammed to his knees as if a mountain had been dropped on his shoulders. The darkness surged in his eyes and then died.
"Be silent."
His lips sealed shut, fused by my will. I could have killed him right there. I almost did. But then, a sound tore through the palace.
My mother screamed.
The sound split me open. I ran, leaving Tideon paralyzed on the floor. Cion was standing in the hall, one hand wrapped around my mother's throat, the other tangled in her hair. She was barely upright, her feet dangling off the floor.
He smiled when he saw me. Guards flooded the corridor, seizing my arms before I could even draw breath. As they dragged me away, I looked back. Tideon was standing in the doorway, the seal on his lips finally breaking.
"You are free," I whispered to him.
I was locked in my room watched, always watched. You're probably wondering why I don't just kill Cion, I've tried. The problem is, he doesn't stay dead, he's a "jumper." He moves from body to body like a parasite. To end him, I have to find the original the host and no one knows where it is.
I paced my room until my nails bled. Then, I heard voices approaching Cion and my father.
I pressed myself against the wall beside the door. I didn't need to open it. Sound is vibration. Vibration is movement. And movement belongs to me. I brushed the air gently, tuning into the frequency of their voices.
"She will marry my son," Cion was saying. "She will give him a child." My stomach turned. "And later," he added softly, "she will give me one."
I swallowed bile, my knees shaking.
"I've gone along with everything," my father, Tas, said. His voice sounded weary. "But that's my child. I can't allow this."
A flicker of hope ignited in my chest. Then, Cion laughed.
"You didn't complain when I shared her mother with you, Tas."
Something shattered in my chest. Every memory of my father every time he had tried to be "kind" was a lie built on the desecration of my mother.
"We need the Castel bloodline pure," Cion continued. "That girl's blood is stronger than her brother's. She is the key."
Silence followed. Then, footsteps.
Tas looked toward my door. He knew I was listening. He shoved Cion aside and walked toward my room. I severed the vibration instantly, the air going dead. I dove onto my bed, closing my eyes and forcing my breath to slow.
The handle turned. The door creaked open.
And for the first time in my life, I wasn't afraid of the monsters in the dark. I was afraid of my own father.