Awakened
The overwhelming sorrow that had threatened to break me just moments ago fully condensed, hardening into an unyielding, razor-sharp resolve.
"I promise you, Mom," I whispered into the quiet, dust-filled room, my dark eyes burning with an absolute, deadly promise. "They took your life, they erased your name from these walls, and they tried to bury me in the dark so they could feast on what you built. But I will make every single one of them pay. I will take back everything that belongs to us, and I will tear their empire down piece by piece until there is nothing left of them but ashes."
I pushed the heavy steel door of the safe shut, locking it tight. I swung the portrait back into place unt