LOGINJULIAN I was so ashamed I wanted to hide. Our shame was too great and our crimes even greater. Most importantly. I wondered if I even deserved my wife. Earning her forgiveness was something I felt I had no right to anymore. It pained me to see how she got hurt while I was away. But what broke me was the fact that my family destroyed hers. From her mother and now her. What we owed her; we wouldn’t be able to repay in this lifetime. The Queen Dowager stepped forward. She was not innocent in all of this but today, she stood in front like a spoke’s person for the innocent. Didn’t death exempt her from her crimes? The moment she stepped forward. Everyone moved away from her. She looked at Helena and then as me. “She is right.” The courtyard fell silent. The Queen Dowager looked toward the dead. “They are here because the kingdom must remember.” It sounded ironic coming from her. Did she remember what she did to her mother. To her. I looked at my wife. “What happens now?” Father asked a
KINGThe bells had stopped ringing. I stood at the palace entrance watching the guards running from one side of the courtyard to the other. Nobody knew what to do anymore. Orders were being shouted, but nobody seemed to know who to listen to. then the first scream came from outside. “They are here!”My heart stopped. I didn’t ask who, I didn’t need to, I knew the dead had reached the palace. father’s mess was not as great; mine was greater than anything in the history of this kingdom. My mess had brought the dead to my door.I stepped forward and the moment I saw them, my legs almost gave out.Hundreds of them with my mother leading. She just couldn’t stay dead, could she? They were walking through the palace gates. Not running, not attacking just walking. Somehow, that was even more terrifying. Their clothes were clean; they had not been buried. Their families had cleaned and dressed them
JULIANWhen Mark and I rushed to the gate, what we saw was not what I was expecting. I had expected to see the dead as the guard reported. That I saw but I never thought I would see my wife controlling them. The Queen Dowager said they were not her army, that she was not controlling them. But I heard seen them obey her word and stopped.The Dowager had said called them witnesses. But to what? I was curious to know but at the cost of my wife’s safety, I wanted to take her home. Currently, she was confused and needed safety more than the circus. “Witnesses to what?” Helena asked. “To what was done.”The words echoed through the darkness; I looked toward the palace. Helena’s fire grew around her, getting brighter. Suddenly an image appeared in the sky. Yan laughing as she was dragged by her air to the cold palace. The chains she had ordered. The empty bowl, the water she begged for only for it to be spilled on the ground. The cold concrete floor. Her body laying there, me carrying her
HELENA I could hear them, hundreds of voices calling my name. Some were crying, some were praying and others were simply standing in silence, staring at me as if I was something they had never seen before. I opened my eyes. There was no ground beneath my feet. No walls, no palace, only darkness.Then I looked ahead, they were there. the people who had died. Hundreds of them stood before me, staring back. I recognised some of their faces. Maids, guards, servants all people I had seen in the palace and people I had never met. There in front of them all stood the Queen Dowager.She looked exactly as she did before she was incapacitated. Except now she was looking at me. I tried to speak but no words came out. Then she stepped forward. “Helena.” My heart stopped. I knew that voice, I heard it in the palace, I heard it when she ordered people to hurt me. I heard it when she tried to destroy me.But there was something different about it now. She was afraid. The Queen Dowager was afraid of
MARK Julian and I stood side by side in silence, watching. I knew it had backfired the moment the first bell rang. I looked at Julian. He was already looking at me. neither of us said a word. The bell rang again. Then another one answered from the other side of the capital. My heart dropped. Those were not the bells used to announce the king.They were emergency bells. I looked at my brother, it hadn’t been long since I stood in front of the people telling them they were safe, now this. “Your Highness!” one of the guards came running toward us, nearly tripping over his own feet. He dropped to his knees breathing heavily. “What happened?” asked my brother, I just held my breath as if that would make it okay.“Something is wrong at the eastern gate.” Julian stepped in front of him. “What kind of wrong?” the guard looked between us. “I don’t know how to explain it.” my heart sank. If he couldn’t explain it, then it must be more terrifying than the deaths. By the gods, when will my si
JULIAN I watched my father walk away. For the first time in my life, I watched the king leave his throne behind without anyone forcing him to. he didn’t look back. I wanted to go after him as much as Mark wanted to. I wanted to call him back and tell him he had made a mistake. That he couldn’t simply hand the kingdom to Adam and walk away as if everything would be fine.I wanted him to abdicate but now that it was happening. I didn’t feel at ease at all, I felt like I had pushed him to it, that he only did it to satisfy me or out of guilt over what happened to my wife. I kept my eyes forward; thousands of people were still standing in front of us. They were looking at us. Waiting. Some were crying, others were holding onto their children.A few looked angry, while most looked terrified. They had just watched their king kneel before them. then they watched him give away his crown. Now they were looking at the three brothers who were supposed to tell them everything would be alright.
HELENA “Fire, everyone out! there is a fire.” Smoke choked me before I was fully awake. I coughed rushing out of the servants’ quarters. When I got outside it was chaos, maids and guards running around like headless chickens with buckets of water trying to put out the fire. I stood there in daze w
HELENA The forest felt different when I was alone in it. not emptier. Just honest. Every sound mattered now. every snap of a branch. Every shift in the wind. Every breath I tried to keep steady. There was no one left to decide what I was worth. No one left to watch. Only the path. Only me.I follo
HELENA The silence after his words felt heavier than anything he had said before. I didn’t speak again; there was nothing left to argue with. He had already decided I was something still unfinished and that was somehow worse than being worthless. I needed to leave, get the hell out of there. with
HELENA I thought I could go on after that. But I didn’t even take five steps before my body refused to cooperate. I looked back, I was already far from the palace, it wouldn’t hurt to rest. I spotted bushes not far from the road. I slowly walked there, dragging my throbbing foot. When I got to the







