Sophia, for a self proclaimed brainiac, had failed to account for one thing.
Killing Selene had been a relatively smooth process. She and James snuck into her bedroom while she was asleep, and while James stood watch, Sophia plunged a dagger into Selene's heart.
That was when Elliot had shown himself.
Sophia, in her eagerness to get rid of this world's Selene and hopefully get her one back, had forgotten to factor him into her plans.
He was no match for James one on one, but in that moment when they were both caught off guard by his sudden presence, he had managed to slice Sophia's right hand clean off.
Sophia stared in shock at where her hand used to be, too surprised to register the pain, too surprised to register the fact that Elliot had escaped, and definitely too surprised to realise James had ran out of the room to chase after him.
She stood there for lord knows how long, staring, and almost not believing what she was seeing.
The blood loss was slowly making her dizzy, however, and when she started to sway on her feet, she was finally snapped out of her daze.
She hissed at the sudden bout of pain that hit her, and quickly used her sorcery to stop the blood from flowing out the end of her arm. She technically could heal it, as it was a flesh wound and her sorcery was able to fix physical wounds fast enough, but she knew it wouldn't be able to get her hand back, and it would be suspicious if she was suddenly walking around with a handless arm that had already been healed over.
Putting the issue of her arm aside, she instead tried to focus on Selene, or more precisely, her dead body. She was hoping that by killing this Selene, it would somehow bring her original Selene back, but as she stood there waiting, Selene's eyes remained lifeless, and her skin began to cool.
Sophia laughed bitterly, forcing back tears. She took one deep breath, finally acknowledging that Selene was really gone, and let out a scream so loud, so anguished, that the whole house seemed to shake with the sound.
Unnoticed to Sophia, her sorcery had reacted to the release of those emotions, and sent out a smokey black pulse of magic, leaving her body and spreading through the area around her.
By the time James had gotten back, having been unsuccessful in his chase after Elliot, Sophia was passed out on the floor, tear tracks on her face, holding her handless right arm close to her chest.
The news of the tragedy that took place in the Boyd manor spread fast. It was told that while the residents of the manor were sleeping, Selene's personal knight had murdered Selene in her sleep. No one could figure out why, but some speculated that he had been secretly in love with her and couldn't stand how she spoke about Cassius, while others simply said he was mad. What was even worse, however, was that Sophia, Selene's older sister, had gone to her room after hearing a commotion, and had gotten her hand chopped off by the knight before he fled. There were wanted posters of him put around town, and most people were advised not to stay out by themselves at night, lest they come across him.
Henry and Lillian were beside themselves with grief, the fact that they lost their daughter to the one person they trusted to protect her was too horrible for them to bear.
Sophia, however, had already begun her grieving process, long before Selene had been pronounced dead. Now that this Selene was gone too, some of the light in Sophia's eyes seemed to have returned.
She wasn't better, and she was far from healed, but she was feeling something beside despair for the first time in a while. She was angry. Furious, in fact, and she planned to make this world pay for taking Selene from her.
She worked hard as she learned to write, and eat, and do everything with her left hand, and she didn't stop to cry, she didn't stop to mourn. She rethought her entire plan to getting herself on the throne. There was no need to be royalty if all she wanted to do was burn Astrum to the ground. Her engagement with Julius had already been broken anyway, she had no more ties to the throne.
Gossip amongst the noblewomen said that Julius thought Sophia was too damaged to marry, given what happened to her and her family, but Sophia knew that it was simply because he couldn't quite remember why he was engaged to her in the first place, and had probably cancelled the engagement once he realised he didn't feel anything for her anymore.
Julius would have to deal with a lot of confusion or the next few days, but Sophia did not care. She had more magic to discover, and she had to continue making plans.
In the mean time, there was something strange happening in the town. The woods surrounding the outskirts of Astrum were covered in a thick, black fog. No one could see inside, and anyone that they sent through the fog never returned. Luckily there was another way out of the town, or else Astrum would've been entirely cut off from the rest of the world.
No one was able to figure out how the fog had come to be, and where the people that walked through the fog went, but as far as Sophia was concerned, it didn't matter. She was busy worrying about other things, and while the mystery of the fog was intriguing, it wasn't an immediate concern. The fog never left the woods, so as long as you didn't walk into it, you were safe.
There were still idiots who went through, of course, thinking that they might somehow be the lucky one and make it back. Others went through to try and find their family members that were lost to them, only to get lost with them.
With the news of Elliot, a mad knight running around in the night, and the man eating fog in the woods, Astrum was thrown into a sudden atmosphere of darkness and fear.