Chapter 1 – The Last Day of Peace

  Elira

  They say you never know when your last day will be.But sometimes—I wonder if I did.

  The air that morning was too still. The sun rose, but the birds didn’t sing. And when I passed the mirror in the hall, my reflection didn’t move right. Just for a second. Just enough to freeze my breath.I told no one.

  My kingdom was small. Peaceful. A hidden place of green woods and quiet mornings. My mother called it a sanctuary. My father called it ours.

  I loved the palace most when it was hushed. When the wind ran soft fingers through the lavender in the gardens, and I could hear my mother humming through the walls.I used to believe peace was a permanent thing.

  Elias didn’t.He believed in running, in games, in throwing grapes at my head across the dining table. He believed in climbing anything that stood still long enough.And I believed in him.We were always together. Until we weren’t.

  That night, the stars didn’t come out.

  We were at dinner. The room was full of warmth and candlelight. My father was telling a story that made Elias snort water through his nose, and we were all laughing—loudly, freely.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Then came the sound.Like thunder cracking inside the walls. The chandeliers shook. The table jumped.

  And in the next instant—flames. Roaring, alive, as if they’d burst from the bones of the castle itself.

  Guards rushed in. One was already burning.

  My father leapt to his feet. “Take them!” he roared. “Take the children!”

  Someone grabbed me. I twisted, trying to get back to my mother, to Elias.

  But the heat surged through the room like a beast, tearing it apart.

  The tapestries curled into ash. The floor split. Screams filled the corridors—servants, guards, someone crying for help until their voice turned to wet choking.

  My mother found me in the chaos, hands streaked with blood, eyes glowing in the firelight.

  “Elira,” she gasped. “You have to run. You have to—”

  And then the ceiling collapsed behind her.

  It hit my father first. He disappeared beneath stone and smoke. My mother screamed—raw and animal—and turned back toward him.

  But the fire took her. A wave of it. It swallowed her.

  I saw her silhouette in the flames, arms outstretched toward me—And then nothing.Only fire.Only heat and the sound of Elias screaming my name as someone dragged me, kicking, out through the servants’ wing.

  The sound of my scream echoed inside the walls of my mind, while the smell of charred flesh lingered inside my nose.

  I woke gasping. Soaked in sweat. My arms flailing against thin sheets.

  The room was wrong. Gray. Narrow. Smelling of damp stone.

  My fingers burned. My body ached like it had been crushed.I was alone.

  No Elias.No mother. No father.Only strangers asleep in iron beds, and a silence too heavy to be peace.

  And in that silence, I knew—I was never going home again.