The Lost Queen

Chapter Sixteen

Daya's P.O.V.

Darkness surrounds me.

The wind howls through the trees, rustling the leaves like a whispered warning. The air is thick with something unspoken, something wrong. I can feel it clawing at my skin, settling deep into my bones.

A faint sound drifts through the silence—cries, desperate and heart-wrenching. Yells, urgent and panicked.

And like the fool I am, I follow them.

The ground is cold beneath my bare feet, twigs snapping and leaves crunching with each hesitant step. My heart pounds louder the closer I get, my breath shallow as I push forward through the suffocating night.

Then, I see it.

A castle looms before me, towering and foreboding. Firelight flickers against its stone walls, casting eerie shadows over the chaos unraveling in front of it. People rush in all directions, shouting orders, their voices laced with desperation. The air is thick with the scent of smoke, fear, and something else—something metallic.

Blood.

My stomach tightens as I step forward, expecting someone to notice me, to stop me. But no one does. They move past me as if I'm not even there, their bodies slipping through mine like ghosts.

I'm not really here.

This isn't real.

I walk further, my steps uncertain yet compelled by something I can't explain, until I reach the castle steps.

A man and a woman kneel there, locked in an embrace. The man clutches the woman tightly, his body trembling as he rocks her back and forth. She sobs uncontrollably, her pain so raw, so deep, that it slices through the air like a blade. Tears stream down the man's face, silent but just as devastating.

The weight of their grief is unbearable, suffocating.

I step closer, drawn to their pain, to the way it mirrors something inside me.

Then, I hear it.

Words, broken and choked, spilling from the woman's lips between ragged breaths.

"My baby... Allison."

My breath catches.

Allison.

My birth name.

The world around me tilts as the realization crashes down on me.

I am witnessing my own abduction.

A strangled gasp escapes my lips as I watch them mourn—for me. No one has ever cried for me before. No one has ever cared enough to.

Tears burn in my eyes, but I don't blink them away. I let them fall, let myself absorb this moment, let the faces of the two people who created me sear into my memory. Their features are so much like mine, the similarities undeniable.

But something doesn't make sense.

Where is Thomas?

My younger brother—only two years younger. He should be here. He should be in their arms, being held just as tightly, just as desperately.

A fresh wave of horror washes over me as my mother whispers his name along with mine.

"Thomas..."

He was taken too.

My legs move before my mind can catch up, carrying me past my grieving parents and through the castle doors.