“You” what?” My voice was barely above a whisper, and my throat tightened as I forced the words out. “Camille was” named Supreme Successor too?”

My mother’s jaw tightened, and for the first time in my life, I saw her look away. Saffron Le Torneau never looked away. Not unless it was something unbearable.

“Her selection ritual named her Supreme Successor, just like you. Gaia’s chosen to rule.” She was so bitter, and I could feel the venom in each word like a memory she couldn’t forget. “She bore that title privately, as Loreleia always decree, but it marked her for death the moment I named her. Just like the others.”

The room swayed, and my grip tightened on the edge of the bed as I fought to stay grounded to process what she had just said. She named Camille Supreme Successor too and felt miserable about it. How she must hurt having to name me too.

But it was her duty, after all. As Wridel’s Kingmaker, it was her divine responsibility to oversee the selection rituals and uphold Gaia’s will, no matter how cruel or unjust it seemed. That was the burden of her title, the mantle only the most powerful oriental witches could bear.

My voice cracked when I said, “you never told me.” My breath came in sharp, shallow pulls, and I couldn’t stop the ache spreading through my chest.

I couldn’t bear the truth about Camille’s selection. I’d always assumed she was Mother’s successor, poised to follow in her footsteps as Kingmaker. But thinking back now, I remembered how her expression dimmed, her laughter cracked whenever I talked about her future. You’ll be the next Kingmaker, Camille! I’d say, and she’d smile, but it never reached her eyes. Knowing now that she couldn’t tell me the truth, that she carried all of that alone” it made her loss more painful.

“All these years’” I paused as my voice cracked some more. “Even after I was named” you didn’t think I needed to know?”

“What good would it have done?” she asked me, and her voice was colder now, as if the burden of her own decisions had become too much to bear. “You were a child. Still are, in many ways. It is my duty to protect you.”

The words ignited a primal instinct in me, and a scream tore from my throat, raw and full of fury. My anger burned through the icy shock of her revelation, consuming every ounce of restraint I had left. How could she say that? Protect me? Protect me?

The betrayals, lies, and sheer audacity of everyone around me spiralled through my head. Did my father know? My brothers? Devon? Of course, Devon knew. The thought of his silence sent another jolt of rage through me. How many of them had smiled in my face, withholding this monumental truth? I was the moron who thought I was the first outlier, the anomaly chosen outside the great houses. The same moron who didn’t know my sister walked this same cursed path before me.

And suddenly, Loreleia’s attitude, her audacity, her contempt, it all made sense. She wasn’t just sneering at me; she was mocking my ignorance.

“Protect me?” My voice cracked, trembling with the force of my anger. “You lied to me! You let me believe her death was just” just some cursed tragedy! Not this. Not because she was’”

My breath hitched, the words lodging in my throat like broken glass. Tears burned at the edges of my eyes, but I refused to let them fall.

“She died because I couldn’t protect her!” my mother retorted. Her eyes bore into me, raw with pain and guilt. “Because I underestimated how far those animals would go to preserve their power. I made mistakes. And I will not make them again. Do you hear me?”

The ache in my chest twisted into a sharp, jagged pain, cutting into me with every breath. Gaia had already chosen a Le Torneau once, and Camille had paid the ultimate price. So why me? Why again?

The thought clawed at my mind and was almost choking me. I clutched my chest, trying to push the air back into my lungs, but it was no use. My voice was a rasp when I finally spoke. “So Loreleia’” I swallowed hard, forcing the words past the lump in my throat. “Loreleia was responsible for Camille’s death. And you did nothing!”

Her jaw tightened. “Don’t you dare assume I did nothing. Do you think I let them take her without a fight? I miscalculated and wasn’t vicious enough to protect her, and I paid the price. I have paid it every single day since she died. You have no idea what it cost me—what it’s still costing me—to keep you alive, Celeste. To see you standing here, ready to challenge Loreleia when no one else dared, you think that just happened?”

Oddly enough, my mother wasn’t trying to justify herself. There was no excuse, no defence. Just the raw, unvarnished truth of her failure.

“You don’t understand, do you?” she continued, her voice lowered and trembled with restrained emotion. “You’re strong, Celeste. Stronger than I ever was at your age. But strength isn’t enough. You need control. You need to think, to plan. To be better than me.”

The shift in her tone caught me off guard, and I blinked at her. “Better than you?”

The way she looked at me was harsh, but it wasn’t unkind. “If you’re not, you won’t survive what’s coming. And I won’t lose another daughter to this war.”

The lump in my throat swelled, making it harder to speak. “I don’t plan to die.”

Her lips curved. “Neither did Camille, but here we are.” She gestured vaguely around my chambers.

“I don’t understand,” I whispered, my voice trembling as if the words might crack under the pressure of their meaning. They felt small, fragile, and I hated the vulnerability in them. “If you know Loreleia is responsible, why hasn’t she paid for her crimes yet?”

My mother’s lips tightened into a tight line, and I saw the anger return to her eyes. “Because power protects power,” she said. “Loreleia is the reigning sovereign. She has allies in every corner, hands in every great house of Wridel, not to mention her spies. Without undeniable proof, accusing her outright would be suicide.”

For the first time in my life, I looked at my mother and saw cracks in her normally flawless armour. The icy fire that had always defined her was crumbling, the thin, invisible lines of grief and guilt etched into the corners of her mouth and eyes.

“She won’t stop,” I said, the words slipping out before I could stop them. “Not until I’m gone, too. Just like Camille.”

Her jaw clenched tightly. “No, she won’t.” Her voice dropped again. “But you will survive. Even if it means being the villain in your story. Do you think I care what you think of me, as long as you live?”

I tried to look away, to escape the crushing force of her gaze, but her rhetoric held me in place.

“You’ve spent your life angry at me for being cold, for being strict,” she continued, stepping closer. The shadows from the enchanted sconces danced across her face, making her look both ethereal and terrifying. “But Camille’s gone. Do you want to know why? Because I thought I could shield her with love and affection instead of teaching her how to fight ruthlessly like those malicious monsters.”

“I’m not Camille,” I said. “If I have to die too, I will drag them with me to the underworld.”

Her eyes narrowed at me like a blade, as if she was snipping my vow to see if it would hold. “Then prove it,” she said after a beat. “Prove you’re strong enough to walk this path. Because if you think being chosen by Gaia will protect you, then you’re not ready for what’s coming.”

My eyes burned with tears again, but I blinked them back. The last thing I wanted to do was cry, especially when I was trying to talk a big game. “But you should have told me,” I said, as I drew a deep breath. “I deserved to know the truth, not bumbling around like a clueless fool.”

“And now you do,” she said simply. “So, Celeste, what are you going to do with it?”

Was she challenging me? No, that wasn’t it. Staring into her eyes, I saw the fear behind her anger. Raw, unspoken terror that she might lose me too. For all her coldness, for all the blunt fierceness she wielded, she cared. Deeply. Fiercely. And somehow, that realization made me stand up straighter.

“I’ll fight,” I said, and the words sounded stronger than I expected. “If Loreleia thinks I’ll be like the rest who came before me, she’ll get a shock of a lifetime. I have something to prove, and a sister to avenge.”

My mother’s eyes shone with approval, but her scrutiny didn’t let up. She took a step closer. Her smile was small and cold, more a baring of teeth than a display of joy.

“Good,” she said. “Now we’re on the same page.” Her tone hardened. “And you must understand, Celeste: I intend to burn House Joyjre and D—Quan until there’s nothing left. Not ash, not whispers—nothing.”

The magnitude of her words was staggering. Her unrestrained wrath filling the room like a tempest. I’d heard my mother angry before, but this was something else. This was vengeance distilled into its purest, most lethal form.

“You” intend?” I repeated myself.

“Yes,” she said with a nod. “They took Camille from me. They dared to take my firstborn, my delightful, happy child, from this world. And now they threaten my last born. Of course, they should have known I wouldn’t sit by while they plot your downfall. I will destroy them, one by one, if it’s the last thing I do, as Gaia is my witness.”

For all her flaws, for all the barriers she’d built around herself, my mother loved us. Fiercely. Completely. She would tear Wridel apart if it meant keeping me safe. That much I knew. Although, I was starting to suspect she’d been orchestrating something since Camille.

“Mother’” I began, unsure if I was about to protest or agree.

She raised a hand, silencing me with a gesture. “You focus on your path, Celeste. On what you must do to claim what is rightfully yours. Loreleia is your fight. I’ll handle the rest. The Joyjres, the D—Quans, every house that supports her. They’re mine. They’ll learn what it means to cross Saffron Le Torneau.”

The fire in her eyes burned brighter than ever, and for a fleeting moment, I saw my own reflection in her. A storm of vengeance ready to consume anything in its path.

Is this what I would become? I wondered. Is this what Gaia saw in me?