Chapter 336: Did They Win?
Trigger Warning: Contains depictions of child cruelty. Please read at your own discretion.
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[Music recommendation: CLANN - The Return]
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Eve felt had no grip on reality anymore. It felt as though someone had ripped her heart from her chest and crushed it, leaving it to bleed a river. Her body shook with tremors, and she had to bite down her lip hard to prevent even a single sob from escaping.
Everything she had known, everything she had lived until this moment, felt like a lie.
The two people she had loved more than anything, the two people she believed always had her back, had turned out to be the greatest enemies of her life.
Silent tears continued to stream down her face as she mourned the loss of her mother and her nanny all over again, struggling with the cruel irony that they were alive....yet more dead to her now than they had ever been before.
The more she broke, the more the erased memories began to flash in her mind.
Three-year-old Eve sat in the garden of the Palace of Light in Luminear, smiling as she stared at the white rose in her hand. It had been only a day since Prince Ivan had left with his parents. Somehow, Eve could not forget the young vampire prince with the fascinating molten red eyes and the fire dancing within them.
Selene, who sat beside her on the grass, noticed the child’s unusual attachment to the flower she carried everywhere she went.
"I see you are very attached to that white rose, Eve. Did you take it from the garden?" she asked in a honey-dripping voice.
"Uh-uh," little Eve shook her head. She beamed at her mother. "The prince gave it to me after he made me prohmise!"
Selene’s calm facade cracked the moment she heard those words. "Really? And what did the prince make you promise, my little Eve?" Her voice was much darker now, but the child did not notice.
Eve’s smile widened as she spun the rose in her tiny fingers. "He made me prohmise to be his bride so that I can be the luckiest girl in the world, Mother!"
Selene’s entire frame became rigid. She began to shake with rage and hatred so deep she was momentarily paralysed. Her eyes spat venom as she glared at the little girl, whose small form suddenly overlapped with the golden-haired image of Solaira.
"Is that so?" she murmured, her tight voice barely above a whisper. Suddenly standing, she asked, "My little Eve, why don’t you come with your mother? I would like to show you something."
Innocent and oblivious, little Eve stood at once and followed her mother without question. They walked into a chamber in a far, deserted section of the palace. Closing the door behind them, Selene turned toward the little girl. Eve looked around, asking in a cute, childish voice, "Mother, why are we here?"
"It is to teach you, my little Eve... what not to do. It is to teach you until you learn," she hissed. She moved toward Eve like a predator until she loomed over her.
Little Eve turned to look at her mother and suddenly staggered back. She was unable to comprehend why her mother would wear such a cold, terrifying, hate-filled expression.
"M-mother..." the child whimpered, her eyes wide as she took another step back.
"Mother needs to teach you, my little Eve..." Selene continued to pace toward the child. She reached out and snatched a heavy metal candle stand from a nearby console table.
Little Eve did not know what was happening or what had made her mother look so terrifying. Her lips trembled as she clutched the white rose tightly in her tiny hands. "M-mothe-"
Before she could finish the word, the metal candle holder struck her hard against her tiny arm.
Within moments, a cloth was forced into Eve’s mouth. The chamber filled with the woman’s furious grunts and the child’s muffled, agonised cries, until the small girl finally lay unmoving on the floor.
Blood seeped from ghastly wounds across her fragile frame. The white rose she had clutched so tightly against her chest was now streaked with red, stained by her own blood.
Selene hurled the candle holder aside, her breath coming in harsh, uneven gasps. She had struck the child mercilessly, leaving no part of her small body untouched save for her face.
Seeing Eve lying motionless, she slowly sank to her knees and placed her hands upon the child’s head.
Ancient words slipped from her lips in a low murmur before she began to whisper with chilling intent.
"Forget ever meeting Prince Ivan. Forget the rose. Forget that your mother ever punished you. Remember only that you are your mother’s sweet, obedient daughter. Your mother loves you most. Your mother loves you, even though you are a weak and useless princess with no power. You have no strength, so do not even try to use it. You are a stain on this family. You are a disgrace to the name of Lumen royalty.
But remember... Mother loves you most."
As little Eve drifted into total unconsciousness, she felt her wounds beginning to knit together, healed by the soft light radiating from her mother’s hands.
Eve’s heart shattered into a million pieces as more memories invaded her mind, one after another. She saw her small, broken form lying half-dead in the dark corners of the palace. Selene and Clair used to take turns, finding a sick, personal pleasure in torturing the child. Each time, they healed her wounds only after whispering cruel lies into her subconscious, ensuring she woke the next day as if nothing had ever happened.
It was as if that little girl had never experienced a moment of agony. Because no scars were ever left unhealed, the world saw only the beloved princess of the King and Queen. Until she became the princess accused of draining her mother’s life force and killing her.
The light was fading from Eve’s eyes, as if she were slowly dying from the inside out. Tears streamed down her face like blood shedding straight from her heart.
How does one recover from a truth like this? How can a person continue to exist after realising their life was a lie? These agonising questions invaded her mind as she stared lifelessly at the cold floor, questioning her very place in the world.
Celestial being or not, she was not prepared to be broken in this manner.
A darker thought invaded her mind. ’Did they win? Did they finally manage to break me beyond repair?’
Her breathing hitched as she questioned if there was any point in living or fighting. Though she had lived in the past as a being of immense power, she was still an eighteen-year-old woman who was wholly unprepared for this.
The betrayal cut so deep that her sense of reality seemed to slip through her fingers like sand. For a fleeting moment, she wondered if there was any purpose in continuing the struggle.
Just as she weakly shut her eyes, as if to surrender to her cruel and twisted fate, a soft, comforting tendril of an otherworldly voice entered her mind.
"Are you giving up?" the woman’s voice echoed.
Evelyn opened her eyes and scanned the dimly lit room, only to find it empty.
Before she could process the silence, the voice echoed again.
"I do not believe I birthed a weak soul."
Eve’s eyes widened as the ethereal voice resonated within her mind, yet she remained paralysed by silence.
"You are my child... my Solaira... my Evelyn. You will always be my child, and not of the one who belongs to this realm. So raise your head high, my dearest daughter. Show them what the daughter of a Goddess of Light is capable of. Think of everyone who is depending on you."
As the words took hold, the faces of those she had known began to flash through her mind.
She saw the innocent students of the academy, the professors, the humans she had met in Dartmouth, and the loyal knights who had bled to protect her.
"Think of all the people you love..."
Then, the people she had truly come to cherish appeared before her mind’s eye: Damien, Cece, Edward, Alex, Caleb, Iskara, Regulus, and Septimus.
"Think of him... the man you fought for, even against the gods."
Finally, a clear image of the man who was her very lifeline appeared before her.
He stood tall and proud before her. His kind, loving molten eyes looked straight into her soul. His beautiful features softened only for her.
The love of her life... her Ivan... her Malakai.
Her heartbeat that had slowed in defeat began to pound once more.
Simply conjuring his image seemed to breathe life back into her broken existence.
More tears spilled from her reddened eyes as she continued to stare ahead, the soothing, ethereal voice echoing in her mind.
"Yes... my child. My child is not weak. My child is strong. So fight for them. Fight for your love... fight for all the innocent beings who do not possess the powers you do. Pass this trial and make your mother proud. Make me proud, my beloved child... my beloved daughter, Solaira."
As she spoke those words, Evelyn closed her eyes, and an overflowing warmth gushed into her heart at the sound of her true mother’s voice.
The Goddess of Light was finally speaking to her. Her lips trembled before she whispered a single, breathy word.
"Mother..."
