Persephone's Point of View
♕︎ ♕︎ ♕︎
I love my youngest siblings—don't get me wrong. They mean everything to me. They are the pieces of my world that still make it feel whole, even when everything else feels like it's falling apart. I would do anything for them. I would protect them with every ounce of strength in my body, shield them from any harm that dared to come their way. They are my light in a world that so often feels consumed by darkness. But no matter how deeply I care for them, no matter how fiercely I want to keep them safe, there are things they just can't understand.
How could they? They've never seen death. Not like I have. They haven't stood frozen, paralyzed by fear, as the life drained from someone they loved right in front of their eyes. They've never heard the choked, broken gasps of someone's last breaths, those sounds that echo in your mind forever, clawing at your sanity. They've never felt the helplessness of watching someone fight for a life they'll never reclaim.
They weren't there when Wrath-Grey attacked. They didn't see the fury in his eyes, the unrelenting storm of rage that burned so brightly it threatened to consume everything in its path. They didn't see him come for Dad, every movement charged with the intent to end his life. They weren't there to witness Mom step in, throwing herself between Wrath-Grey and Dad, to fight with everything she had to protect the man she loved—the father of her children. And they didn't see how it ended. They didn't see her kill him.
She didn't want to. But she had no choice. She did it to save Dad, to save us all. And I was there. I saw it happen. I stood there, powerless, as it unfolded in front of me.
And they didn't see Lust-Rhae. They didn't see her arrive with vengeance burning in her eyes, the kind of hatred that cuts through everything in its path. They didn't see her blade pierce Mom's heart, didn't see the way her body crumpled to the ground, lifeless. They didn't see the blood. They didn't see the cold, unrelenting cruelty in Lust-Rhae's expression as she carried out her mission. They didn't see how, in a single moment, she tore our family apart.
But I did.
They were far away, traveling with Dad. Five months. Five entire months of training, secluded from the kingdom, far removed from the horrors that unfolded in their absence. They left the academy two months earlier than originally planned to prepare for that journey—a journey that kept them safe. While they trained, I stayed behind with Mom. I stayed, blissfully unaware of the storm that was about to rip through our lives. I stayed, never realizing how quickly everything could shatter into pieces.
And there's something they don't know. Something they can't know. Something I can't bring myself to tell them because it would break them. It would ruin them in ways they could never recover from.
Mom…she was pregnant.
Two months after Dad and my brothers left, she discovered it. I remember the moment she told me. Her voice was barely above a whisper, trembling with a mixture of fear and hope. She smiled—a soft, hesitant smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. Her hand rested on her stomach, protective, as if shielding the fragile new lives growing within her. She was three months along then.
By the time Lust-Rhae came for her, by the time that blade drove through her chest and silenced her forever, Mom was six months pregnant.
Pregnant with twins.
Lust-Rhae didn't just kill my mother that day. She didn't stop there. She killed my baby siblings, too.
I was the one who had to take care of her body. I was the one who found her, lifeless and still, her hand resting on her swollen belly as if she had been trying to protect them even in her final moments. I saw it. I saw the promise of two lives that would never open their eyes, never take their first breaths, never even have a chance. I buried her. I buried them. I buried the woman who was our everything and the dreams she carried with her—the dreams of two innocent souls who never got to exist.
But it wasn't just her.
Twenty guards died that day. Twenty brave souls who stood between Lust-Rhae and my mother, who gave their lives trying to protect her. I had to take care of them, too. I had no choice.
Father doesn't know. My siblings don't know. They mourn for one life, for one loss. They have no idea about the twins. They don't know that Lust-Rhae's cruelty went far beyond anything they can imagine. They don't know how deep her destruction truly cut.
The only people who know are me, Lust-Rhae herself, and the headmasters of the academy—Samuel, the God of Time, and Diana, the Goddess of Space.
But that's not the only secret the four of us share.
Lust-Rhae wasn't satisfied with killing my mother and the twins. She wasn't content with taking them from me. She wanted more. She wanted to destroy me completely. And she came damn close.
She sent Aivar Kangur, her right-hand knight, to finish the job.
He came for me when I was at my weakest—during the climb.
The Draki Mountain is the tallest, most dangerous peak in the supernatural world. Climbing it is a rite of passage, a brutal test for the heir of the Dragons. No weapons. No magic. No shifting. You face the mountain alone, armed only with your will to survive. It takes fifteen days to climb to the top and another fifteen to descend.
And that's when he came for me.
Aivar didn't just try to kill me. Death would have been a mercy compared to what he did.
He wanted to destroy me. And he did.
What he did to me…I can barely think about it without wanting to tear myself apart. The memories claw at me, raw and unrelenting. I remember the cold, jagged rocks beneath me. I remember his weight pressing down on me, suffocating, crushing. I remember the sound of his laughter, sharp and cruel, ringing in my ears like a twisted symphony of my humiliation. His words—venomous, degrading—are etched into my mind, haunting me every time I close my eyes.
When I finally found a rock within reach and struck him hard enough to make him stumble, it was already too late.
The damage was done.
He broke me. In ways I didn't even know were possible, in ways I'm not sure I'll ever recover from.
But I survived. Somehow, I survived. I don't know how I made it down that mountain, how I managed to put one foot in front of the other when every part of me was screaming to give up. But I did. I made it down.
I'm still here.
But the scars—the ones carved into my skin and the ones buried deep inside me—they'll never fully heal.
I carry it all with me. The weight of what was stolen from me. The loss. The pain. The secrets. And I carry it alone.
Because no one—no one—can ever know. Not my father. Not my brothers. Not anyone.
Because if they did, it would destroy them, too.