Chapter Two - When the Dreams End

Seraphina Vellaro – POV 

"Can you feel the sun, falconcina?"

I nodded, smiling blindly as I turned my face upward. Warmth spread across my skin like velvet. Her hands were in my hair, weaving a braid the way she used to in the garden  when she wanted to calm my nerves. Her touch was gentle, rhythmic.

The scent of lilacs and sugar filled the air. My mother’s voice drifted like music.

"You’re so beautiful," she whispered. "Even the stars would envy you if they could see."

"I wish I could see you," I said softly.

Her hands paused for a moment. Then she leaned forward, her lips brushing my forehead. "But you do, tesoro. You see the truest parts of me. You always have."

She kissed my cheek, it felt like a flower petal had rested on my skin. I reached up to hold her—

SLAM.

The door crashed open, and I jolted awake, heart thundering in my chest.

My breath hitched. The dream shattered like stained glass.

I heard the familiar heavy boots strike the floorboards. Cold air flooded my room as the door remained open behind him. I curled inward instinctively, covering my ribs with my arms.

“Get up,” Danta barked. His voice was thunder dipped in venom.

I didn’t move fast enough.

The next thing I felt was his hand grabbing the collar of my dress and yanking me upright. My shoulder screamed in protest.

“You think I’m stupid?” he hissed. His breath was thick with tobacco and cruelty. “You think I don’t know what’s going on?”

I didn’t speak. I knew better.

He backhanded me hard across the mouth.

Pain bloomed. I tasted blood. My lip split.

“Where is she?”

I didn’t need to ask who he meant.

Gloria.

She’d been gone for days. No word. No trace. No body.

I spat blood onto the floor and gasped, “I don’t know.”

Wrong answer.

He slammed me into the wall so hard I could fell my blood sip through my skull. My skull cracked against plaster, and I slid down to the ground.

“that old hag took something that belongs to me,” he growled. 

I coughed, struggling to breathe. “I didn’t know…”

“Liar!” he roared.

A boot slammed into my ribs. Once. Twice. I folded in on myself, each blow knocking the wind from my lungs.

“Where did she go!? Who is she working with!?”

I couldn’t answer even if I wanted to. I knew nothing. Nothing but the pain clawing through my body and the terror twisting in my gut.

“I’ll cut it out of you if I have to,” he snarled.

He dragged me by the arm, across the floor. My knees scraped raw. He threw me into the center of the room like garbage, then stormed out.

For a few seconds, I thought it was over.

Then I heard it—the creak of old hinges. The toolbox.

The sound of leather. Metal. A belt buckle. Wire.

My mouth went dry.

“Since you can’t see,” he said mockingly, “you’ll learn to speak through pain.”

I backed away on my elbows, panic rising. “Please… I don’t know anything!”

“You’re lying!”

The whip lashed across my shoulder before I could cover myself.

Fire. That’s what it felt like. Fire under my skin.

I screamed. My voice echoed in the stone walls. But no one came.

No one ever came.

He hit me again. And again. My breath hitched. My ears rang. Tears streamed down my face, hot and useless.

“Where is she?” he shouted between strikes.

“I don’t know!”

Another blow.

"You knew she had been hiding that journal with her all this time. Where did she take the it?!”

“I swear—I don’t know!”

A pause. Heavy breathing. I collapsed onto the floor, face pressed against the wood, trembling.

I thought he might kill me then.

But he leaned over instead, grabbing my chin and lifting my face toward his.

I could tell because I could feel his disgusting breath on my face. 

“You think because your mother ruled for a few years, you’re untouchable? That shut is  dead. And so is your nanny, if I'm right she's probably dead right now. There's no way someone would see that book in her hand knowing it's content and not shoot a fucking bullet in her head then rip that books from are cold dead hands. You’re all alone now.”

His words sliced deeper than the whip.

Then his voice shifted—quieter, darker.

“I should’ve snapped your neck when you were born.”

And then the pain returned.

Fists. Feet. My broken leg screamed. My body curled in on itself, instinct trying to protect what little it could. I don’t know how long it lasted. Minutes? Hours? The world narrowed into pain and sound and the distant echo of my mother’s voice.

'Breathe, falconcina. Breathe through it.'

Eventually, my limbs stopped moving. My head lolled.

I felt warmth on the floor—blood, or maybe sweat, I didn’t know.

I welcomed the cold that crept into my fingers.

I couldn’t move. Couldn’t cry.

But I could think.

Gloria was still alive, she had to be, she needsto be.

And as the world tilted sideways, darkness rising like a tide, that thought became the only anchor I had left.

Because if she was alive…

Then maybe I could hold on a little longer.