Ravenna did not interrupt the King while he was surrounded by his lords and queens. She simply held his gaze for one long, silent moment, giving him the secret nod that told him the dark task was finished. Then, keeping her eyes down like a proper village healer, she pulled her cloak tight around her shoulders, excused herself from the courtyard, and retreated to the safety of her guest chambers.
The exhaustion hit her the second the heavy wooden door clicked shut.
Pulling the rusted nail from Malakor's cursed doll had drained every drop of her physical and magical energy. Her limbs felt as heavy as lead. She did not bother changing out of her green dress. She crossed the floor, collapsed onto the large bed, and surrendered instantly to the dark pull of sleep.
She did not drift into a peaceful dream.
Instead, the world around her turned into a freezing, bone-chilling mist. The warm hearth vanished, replaced by the twisted, barren trees of the wild woods where she had grown up as an orphan. The air smelled of rotten leaves and dried blood.
Suddenly, a violent blow struck the side of Ravenna's face.
The force of the slap sent her stumbling sideways across the misty ground. Pain exploded along her jaw, sharp and burning. Ravenna gasped, clutching her bruised cheek with a trembling hand as she scrambled to her feet.
Standing before her in the mist was a woman. She had wild, dark hair that whipped around her like angry snakes, and eyes that burned with a pale, ghostly flame. Her face was hollow, twisted with pure, unrelenting hatred.
It was her mother.
Ravenna's breath caught in her throat. Her heart hammered wildly against her ribs. In all her years growing up alone in the woods, building her kingdom from nothing, her mother had never once appeared to her. Not in dreams, not in visions, not in prayers. Ravenna had carried only the tragic story of her mother's death like a heavy shadow.
"Mother?" Ravenna whispered, her voice shaking.
"Do not address me with affection, fool!" her mother spat, her spectral voice piercing Ravenna’s mind like shards of glass. "Who permitted you to free the King of Valerius?"
Ravenna shrank back under the terrifying intensity of the ghost's rage. "Mother, the curse—"
"The curse was justice!" her mother shrieked, stepping forward. The cold air around her turned so bitter that frost formed on the ground beneath their feet. "The royal bloodline of Valerius deserved to rot! Their father cast me out into the snow to die! He watched me scream in agony while I gave birth to you in the dirt! And you... my own blood... you go into his stone castle and heal his son?"
"Draven is not his father," Ravenna argued, her voice tightening as she stood her ground. "He knew nothing of what was done to you! He is a good man, Mother. He is trying to protect his children—"
"He is a monarch of Valerius!" her mother roared, her ghost warping into a towering shadow of dark magic. "He carries the blood of the tyrant! You were born to be my vengeance, Ravenna. I gave my last breath so you could grow powerful enough to destroy that throne, not to lie in the bed of the man who sits upon it!"
The phantom reached out, her pale, spectral fingers wrapping around Ravenna's throat with an icy grip that cut off her air.
"Listen to me carefully, girl," her mother hissed, leaning in so close that Ravenna could see the black veins running through her ghostly skin. "I give you a command. You will take a blade and plunge it into King Draven’s heart while he sleeps. You will end his bloodline forever. Or you will strip your magic, abandon this castle, and return to the wild woods where you belong."
Ravenna choked, fighting against the phantom's hold. "No..."
"Kill him, or lose everything you have built," her mother commanded, her voice echoing into a deafening roar.
"You cannot have both. You cannot love the son of my murderer!"
Ravenna gasped for air, her vision turning black as the ghost tightened her grip.
"No!" Ravenna screamed.
She sat bolt upright in her bed, her heart pounding like a war drum against her ribs.
Fresh sweat soaked her clothes, and her breath came in fast, ragged gasps. The bright afternoon sunlight was streaming through her tall window, illuminating the safe, warm guest room. There was no frost. There was no dark mist.
Ravenna threw off the heavy blankets and scrambled off the bed, clutching her chest. She stumbled over to the full-length mirror near the wardrobe and looked at her reflection.
Her hazel eyes were wide with pure terror, her face pale as a sheet. But when she raised her hand to her face, her breath hitched.
On her left cheek was a bright red handprint, burning as if she had just been struck.
"No..." Ravenna whispered, backing away from the glass, her hands trembling violently. "No, I won't do it!"
She squeezed her eyes shut, hot tears spilling down her cheeks. She had spent her entire life carrying the grief of a mother she had never known, honoring a memory that had fueled her lonely rise to power. But now, after finally finding truth, after finding a man who looked at her with pure devotion and offered to fight the entire world for her, her mother's ghost had returned only to tear it all apart.
Ravenna sank to her knees on the cold stone floor, pulling her legs tight to her chest as a sob broke from her throat. She had broken the blood curse that bound the kingdom, but a far darker, more personal war had just begun.