Zoraya (Darya)I stared at them.The room had fallen oddly quiet. Too quiet. The walls seemed to hold their breath just like I had.“Twins,” the healer said again, his voice soft and laced with a kind of reverence I didn’t understand.My mouth parted slightly, but no words came. My heart was pounding, thumping against my ribcage like a frightened creature desperate to escape. My gaze flicked down to my belly, then back up to the faces around me.Twins?I didn’t… I didn’t know what that meant. Not really.Two babies?Was that even possible?I looked to Queen Melody instinctively, my eyes wide with confusion and fear. She must have seen the blankness in my stare, the absence of understanding in my silence, because her expression softened immediately.She leaned closer and brushed a lock of my hair back from my face with a tender touch. “Darya,” she said gently, her voice as calming as the warm sunlight that spilled through the window beside us, “do you understand what they mean?”I s
MelodyThe warmth that flooded my chest when she said her name…..Darya was unlike anything I had ever felt before. It was as if a dam within me had finally broken, releasing a tide of grief, love, and hope that I had kept locked away for far too long.“Da… Da… ya,” she had said, her voice small, yet steady with purpose.A silent tear rolled down my face. The tears was not from sorrow, but from the overwhelming joy of watching my daughter claim herself again. Not Zoraya, the name forced upon her like chains. But Darya, her true name, the name I whispered through sobs the night Estrella took her from me.I held her face in my hands, unable to stop the tears from falling.“You’re doing so well, my sweet girl,” I whispered.Her eyes lit up, and she leaned into my embrace like a blossom finally reaching toward the sun after years buried in shade. At that moment, she didn’t have to say anything more. I could feel it…the tiny shift in her spirit, the way she was starting to believe.Beli
MelodyThe candlelight flickered softly in my chamber, throwing dancing shadows against the tall windows as I sat at my writing desk, a quill in hand but no ink spilled upon the page. The letter I had begun hours ago remained blank. Not a single word would come.My thoughts refused to still. They paced like caged wolves behind my eyes, relentless, and restlessly.Elena.Her name echoed in my head more times than I could count. Her image haunted me like a memory I had hoped to forget but could never truly bury. The moment I saw her step out of Zoraya’s room again, it was as if every warning bell in my soul had begun to scream. There was something twisted, something broken, lurking behind those silver eyes that looked so similar to Estrella’s…. it made my blood run cold.Estrella.Even now, I could barely whisper my sister’s name without rage clawing its way up my throat. She had taken my child. She had stolen a piece of my soul and twisted it into something unrecognizable. That
Elena’s POV“I didn’t do anything! I swear. Please, listen to me!”My voice echoed off the tall marble walls of the palace hall as the guards seized my arms and began dragging me forward. Their faces remained stony, unaffected by my pleas. One of them, taller and broader than the rest, tightened his grip when I tried to dig my heels into the floor.“You’ve got the wrong person!” I insisted, breath coming in shallow bursts as panic clawed at my throat. “I want to speak to Prince Giovanni! Please, let me speak to him!”No one listened. Not the courtiers who passed with startled glances, nor the servants who lowered their eyes, clearly instructed to stay silent. I was alone. Utterly, terrifyingly alone.The palace I had once seen as a symbol of opportunity now twisted before my eyes into a labyrinth of betrayal. The same corridors I’d wandered through with calculated ease had become the route to my punishment.How could this happen? How had they found out?I didn’t even have the time to
Giovanni’s POVI had always believed myself to be prepared for anything. Assassinations, betrayals, court treachery. But nothing could have prepared me for the truth my mother revealed.Zoraya was my sister.My long-lost sister. The infant ripped from our lives before she had a name, a presence, or a chance to feel the love of her family.I stood there frozen when Mother told us, my breath trapped in my throat as her words echoed again and again.“She is your sister.”It was almost impossible to believe. The fragile girl that was brought into our palace, the one who flinched at the sound of a voice too loud, who couldn’t speak, who had fainted upon seeing Elena—that was our blood. The girl my mother had mourned in silence for years. The reason our father, Dorian, left the palace to search the world only to vanish without a trace.And she had been here this whole time, right under our noses. A breathing, shaking shadow of who she was meant to be.That night, I couldn’t sleep. I paced
Giovanni’s POVThe silence in the room was suffocating, thick with rage and unspoken promises. My fists curled at my sides as the weight of the truth bore down on me.Aaron stood rigid beside me, his breathing heavy, his jaw clenched so tight I thought his teeth might crack.Zoraya was our sister.And Estrella had stolen her.Had tortured her.Had broken her.And Elena—her daughter—had played a role in it too.I exhaled sharply, trying to calm the storm raging inside me, but it was impossible. Every time I pictured the way Zoraya had collapsed the moment she saw Elena, the sheer terror in her eyes, something dark and violent stirred within me.“She was our sister,” Aaron finally said, his voice low and laced with fury. “And we left her there.”His words hit me like a punch to the gut.We hadn’t known. We couldn’t have known. We were still kids, But that didn’t matter now, did it? Because while we had been living our lives, Zoraya had been suffering at the hands of our own Aunt..Mothe