❝ ᴡʜᴇɴ ᴡᴇ'ʀᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ᴏɴʟʏ ᴏɴᴇꜱ ʟᴇꜰᴛ ᴏɴ ᴛʜɪꜱ ɪꜱʟᴀɴᴅ, ᴡʜᴏ ᴡɪʟʟ ʏᴏᴜ ᴄʜᴏᴏꜱᴇ? ❞
Morana has mastered death, allowing her to become the most notoriously feared assassin on the island of Wyrith. She's able to control the remains of the dead whenever she pleases...
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To some, spending your birthday in a graveyard would be joyless and doleful, but there was nowhere else Princess Ilyana would rather be. With the sun nearly consumed by the horizon, darkness emerging and stars climbing out to take their posts, and the peaceful silence that whispered around her, it was the perfect place to spend some quality time with her family.
"Happy birthday, Vivi," Ilyana murmured as she crouched down beside her grave. She tucked the lilac flowers before the stone for her sister — her other half — taken from her too soon. With a delicate finger, she traced over the cursive font that was engraved into the slab.
Princess Viviana. Beloved daughter, sister, and twin.
Her sister should have been standing beside her now, watching the sunset across the island they would rule together on their twentieth birthdays. Instead, she had suffered to the cruel daggers of an assassin who had snuck into the castle to kill them when they were only six. While Ilyana and her father had managed to live, her mother and twin hadn't been so lucky.
She could still remember silently padding over to her mother's dressing room, curious of the screams and cries of sorrow that had echoed from inside. The sight of the blood that had been splattered across the wall and pooled below her family's warm bodies was a memory that would haunt her forever. The hole that had gaped in her mother's neck and the way her father clutched her tight. Vivi had laid so still, the blade she had been killed with still stuck in her chest.
"You deserved so much better." The princess stroked the rough stone, her lower lip wobbling, ignoring the futile attempts she made to stop it. If only she had focused on learning how to use her gift like the High Table had wanted. She might have been able to heal her family and turn that night into one of hope — not torment and agony.
Taking a deep breath, settling the tears that had stung her eyes, Ilyana rose to her feet with clenched fists. There wasn't long left until she needed to prepare for the banquet ball that was always held to celebrate her birthday. This year would be different to the rest. Not only was she turning of age to finally work on ascending the throne of Wyrith, but a potential suitor and ally for the island would be in attendance.
Ilyana had heard handfuls of different rumours circulating the castle from the maids' hushed conversations, all of which had proved to be good and bad. The Fireborns that populated the majority of the Kingdom of Vahan could produce wondrous flames and spark embers from their fingertips. According to some, their grand displays were a crime to miss. However, King Matthian was known to be cruel and harsh in his ways of ruling.
For her sake, she hoped that the gossip remained only that.
Blowing a kiss toward her sister and another for her mother, the princess started making her way down the hill and back to the castle. The graveyard was still on royal grounds, the whole plot of land encased in a wall that separated it from the rest of the island, but it was far enough away from the madness of hounding councillors and her overbearing father that she could get some peace.
