The rain didn't stop that night.
It drummed against the windows of the old estate like fingers tapping from the other side of a coffin—unrelenting, cold, and rhythmic.
Elira stood by the window in her makeshift war room. No lights were on except for a faint candle flickering near an open book—her old journal. Pages worn, stained, scarred. The memories inside were more dangerous than any weapon.
She traced a name written in her own handwriting.
Lena.
And next to it, almost lovingly etched, another.
Damon.
They had once been everything.
Her family. Her empire. Her ruin.
Now, they were obstacles.
Beautiful ones. Painful ones. But obstacles nonetheless.
Behind her, the silver-haired girl approached.
"They've increased their security. Lena called in elite guards from the North Circle."
Elira nodded. "Good. She's afraid."
The girl tilted her head. "Are you going to kill her?"
Elira's answer came slow. Thoughtful. Almost sad.
"No. I want her to understand. I want her to remember how it feels when someone she loved walks away with her heart still beating in their hand."
She turned to face the girl fully.
"Pain doesn't break people," Elira whispered. "It shapes them. But what breaks them… is seeing themselves in the eyes of someone they destroyed."
The girl lowered her gaze. "Like you did."
Elira reached out, touching the girl's chin.
"No. Worse. Like I let them do to me."
---
Elsewhere in Emerald City, deep beneath the royal quarter, Damon was spiraling.
He stood shirtless in front of a mirror, his torso covered in old scars. Some from bullets. Others from blades. But one scar ran across his side—a curved wound. Jagged. Unhealed.
The mark Elira had left the night she vanished.
He could still remember her hands—bloody, trembling—pressing against his skin as he bled. Her lips near his ear. "Don't follow me."
He had. For weeks. Months. Then the trail had gone cold.
Victor entered the room without knocking.
"We found where she's hiding."
Damon's jaw tensed. "Where?"
"A forgotten mansion near the outer cliffs. No patrols go there. It was abandoned twenty years ago."
"Then she chose it for a reason."
Victor tossed a file on the table. "There's more. She has people. Trained. Conditioned. Three so far. Maybe more. And one of them—" he flipped a photo—"was a child from the Sable Experiments."
Damon's head snapped up.
"No one survived those."
"She did."
"And she's with Elira?"
Victor's eyes were grim. "She's building a kingdom of ghosts, Damon. Ones we failed. Ones Lena buried."
Damon took a slow breath.
And in his mind, the words echoed:
She never left.
She waited.
---
Across the city, Lena prepared her retaliation.
She stood before a massive round table, advisors flanking her sides. Every face was tense. But Lena was ice.
"Activate Protocol Red. I want every camera, every drone, every shadow tracked. No more second chances. No more mercy."
One of her guards hesitated. "Even if she… comes peacefully?"
Lena's smile was tragic. "She won't."
The guard swallowed hard.
Lena dismissed the room. Only Felix remained.
He stared at her for a long time before speaking.
"Do you want her dead?" he asked softly.
"No."
"Then what do you want?"
She turned to the window where the rain still fell. She didn't answer right away.
"I want to look her in the eye," Lena said finally, "and ask her why."
"Why what?"
"Why she didn't kill me when she had the chance."
Felix took a cautious step closer. "Because she loved you. Still might."
Lena shook her head, something distant clouding her eyes. "Love doesn't come back. Not when you've turned it into ashes. She might've once. But not anymore."
There was silence between them until Lena finally added, "I burned our past so thoroughly, even the ghosts don't recognize it anymore."
---
At the mansion, the girl with silver hair—Saphira—stood with the boy called Ash.
Both were Elira's chosen.
Saphira had once lived in a cell, trained to kill, starved of love.
Ash had grown up in the gutters, discarded by politicians and raised by fire.
Elira hadn't saved them.
She had found them.
Now, they were more than loyal.
They were hers.
Ash lit a flame with his bare hand. The fire danced between his fingers.
"She's going to die, isn't she?"
Saphira didn't look away from the window. "They both are."
"Which one do you want dead more?"
She smiled slightly. "I want them to fight each other until they forget what side they were ever on."
Ash nodded slowly. "Like puppets."
"No." Saphira's voice darkened. "Like lovers who forgot what they were before war made them enemies."
She stepped away from the window and whispered, "And when they break, we take what's left."
Ash blinked. "You think she'll let them live?"
"She doesn't even know yet what she wants. That's what scares me."
---
Back in her room, Elira stared at the mirror.
For the first time in years, she took off the red dress.
Her skin bore stories. Her back was laced with old whip scars. Her ribs had a faint mark from an explosion. A cut near her heart—stitched unevenly—told of the day she'd crawled from her own grave.
She wasn't the same woman.
And that was the point.
She slipped into a black outfit, nothing flashy. Just tight, tactical, silent.
War was a language she spoke fluently.
But tonight—she would speak it with elegance.
She opened her drawer and took out an old locket. Inside was a photo. Three of them. Damon. Lena. Herself.
She snapped it shut and whispered:
"Let's end this beautifully."
She lit a match and touched it to a letter marked with their old emblem—a symbol that once meant unity. Now, only ashes remained.
---
At midnight, Elira sent the message.
A red feather.
Dropped on Lena's throne.
And another…
…placed in Damon's old apartment.
She wanted them to remember.
She wanted them to come.
And when they did—
She'd be waiting.
Not as a queen.
But as the truth they buried.
The storm would rise.
And with it—so would everything they tried to forget.
And just as the wind howled over the cliffs of the forgotten mansion, three shadows met in silence on the rooftop. Saphira, Ash, and a third—hooded, masked, eyes gleaming with something unspoken.
Elira had called in one last ghost.
The one even she feared.
And this time, not even the past would survive.
---