Ryophlira POV

Finding out the truth about my brother and Ari didn’t fracture our dynamic it entirely rewrote it.

Ever since that night in Riegthar’s room, Ari had changed. The woman who used to share my bed to chase away the nightmares had vanished, replaced by a ghost wrapped in a maid’s uniform.

She kept constantly apologizing, her voice a distant whisper. She completely stopped looking me in the eye. There was a devastating distance in her every movemen.

As the wedding drew closer, Mother officially canceled my etiquette classes. She claimed it was because she wanted us to spend more time together as a family before I left for the north. But at the dinner table, the tension was thick.

We faked our laughter and manufactured wide, plastic smiles, while our daily combat training grew so terrifyingly intense that Aiyolistra and I would come within inches of actually killing each other, forcing Riegthar to throw himself between us and father yelling at us in disappointment. In the hallways, we didn’t interact at all we were strangers.

But by the second night of watching my sister return to the palace in the dead of night, I refused to play the silent observer anymore.

Standing on my balcony, I watched Aiyolistra’s cloaked figure slip through the garden.

Fueled by a sudden surge of adrenaline, I vaulted over the stone railing. I leaped off my balcony, descending through the midnight air, and landed perfectly on the grass below without making a sound.

Stepping into the shadows, I walked past the royal guards slumped against the pillars. They were deeply asleep, Aiyolistra had clearly used an enchanted plant to put them under.

The moment she crossed the threshold of the garden, I didn’t hesitate. I charged straight at my sister, tackling her to the ground with full force.

Oof!

We hit the grass hard, the momentum pinning her down with me firmly on top of her, trapping her wrists.

"What are you doing to yourself, Ail?!" I demanded, my voice ragged.

I aggressively grabbed her own hand, pulling it up into the moonlight right in front of her face, forcing her to look at her own hand. "Look at yourself!"

Aiyolistra didn’t panic. She simply glared up at me, her eyes flashing with a cold and unhinged.

"Why do you care about what I do with my own body?" With a sudden, surge of strength, she yanked her hand away and forcefully pushed me off of her.

I stumbled back onto the grass as she stood up, brushing the dirt off herself.

"We may not like each other," I said, standing up to face her.

"But at the end of the day, you are my sister. Of course I would care."

"I don’t care about you, so you should stop caring," she snapped, her voice dead and flat.

"Trust me, I have tried."

"Don’t try. Just do."

I stepped closer, my eyes locking onto the dark, weeping lacerations wrapping around her throat and arms. "What is he doing to you, Ail? What is the Prince of the South doing to you?"

Aiyolistra let out a sharp, mocking laugh that cut through the midnight air. "Other than fucking me? Nothing."

I froze, it was ever unlike her to be so vulgar, her words catching me entirely off guard. "What did you just say?"

"I said we fuck," she repeated slowly, tilting her head with a psychotic, triumphant smirk. "Did I stutter, or are you just playing dumb?"

"You are losing your mind," disgust rolling through my veins.

"I don’t care if you choose to sleep with the Prince of the South. It is your body. But for him to leave you in this mutilated state is completely unacceptable! And how the hell are you even traveling to him every night?"

Aiyolistra’s smirk widened. "The Prince of the South is a way better man than the King of the North will ever be. Stay out of my business, and stay out of my way."

The realization clicked in my mind. She was using the South’s teleportation crystals to cross the borders in seconds but where was she getting it from was the real question. But it still didn’t make sense.

She possessed advanced biological healing. Even if they were reckless, her body should have knit the skin back together within seconds. These wounds were not healing at all.

Determined to get answers, I lunged forward, grabbed her wrist, and spun her back around to face me showing her the scars that were not fading. "You are literally not healing, Ail! That is concerning!"

Aiyolistra’s expression completely morphed. The smugness vanished, replaced by a hollow, terrifying darkness. She violently pulled her hand out of my grip.

Instinctively, she opened her mouth, and the harsh, guttural syllables of Varak our mother’s native dragon tongue sliced through the dark. Our family only spoke Varak at dinner or when we desperately wanted to hide our conversation from the ears of others.

"Ota vem kan la Zotevirah," Aiyolistra whispered coldly. (I used the Zotevirah.)

My heart violently stopped. Zotevirah.

It was an ancient, poison specifically designed to break down dragons. In small doses, it halted natural healing. In large amounts, it was agonizingly deadly.

"Esie rolse?" I gasped, my voice trembling in our native tongue. (Are you crazy?) "Hwi ath esie kan ces?" (Why would you do that?)

Aiyolistra leaned in close, the scent of rot and rose petals washing over me. "Es durf skoto esie." (So I can kill you.) A heavy wave of sadness hit me, instantly followed by hot fury.

"Elos eche kan esie rolse." (Jealousy has made you mad.)

"Ota vano imi rolse," she whispered, a chilling, breathless chuckle escaping her lips. (I enjoy being mad.) She stepped back, her curls shifting as she looked at me.

"Kah reeah anki val-agio. Avo iha kah reeah, ota imi la val-agio veim." (Every story needs a villain. And in this story, I am your villain.)

I narrowed my eyes, "Avo kah reeah, la val-agio morva." (And in every story, the villain dies.)

"Icht iha reeah," she countered, her voice dropping into a lethal, mocking tone. (Not in this story.) She paused at the palace doors, turning her head slightly.

"Vouli htah." (A word of advice.) "Ota ccon Itera ces Idiem imi sie dravos." (As I told Mother, the South is your enemy.)

As she spoke the final words, Aiyolistra slowly tilted her head toward the tree line of the dark, whispering forest bordering the palace grounds.

A sudden, twist of nausea seized my stomach. The air pressure shifted, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood dead on end. I realized it instantly. Someone was watching us. Someone was hiding in the canopy of those black trees, tracking our movements in the dark.

Aiyolistra chuckled at my sudden tension, turning on her heel and disappearing back into the halls of the palace, leaving the sleeping guards behind.

I stood entirely alone on the grass, my eyes locked onto the pitch-black silhouette of the forest. The countdown had run out. The South had already laid their traps, Aiyolistra was slowly poisoning her own blood to tear me down.

But as I stared into the dark woods, the gold aura around my fingers pulsed with a cold, absolute certainty.

"This is a war where the true winner will actually be crowned," I whispered into the freezing night air, a slow, smile creeping onto my lips. I adjusted the ring on my finger. "It’s time for the East to come out of hiding."

Tomorrow, the curtain rises. And I will make sure this kingdom burns exactly the way I want it to.