The storm came in silence.
Scarlet stood at the edge of the ruins with wind clawing through her hair, the photo still clenched in her fist. The child was real. Her daughter. A secret Annora had kept in the dark, hidden like a weapon waiting to be unsheathed.
She and Kaydence rode east before the sun rose, accompanied by Lune and Jareth. The Black Forest waited beyond the borderlands—uncharted, unruled. It was there, the informant claimed, that Varik kept his prisoners. It was there their daughter was last seen
They rode in silence for three days. On the fourth, they found the wreckage of a caravan. Blood on the grass. A single child’s shoe in the mud. Seina knelt, fingers trembling.
“She was here,” she whispered.
Jareth scanned the tree line. “And so was something else.”
They moved with caution now. Seina’s nightmares returned. This time, not of her brother or the throne—but of a little girl calling for her mother and no one answering.
On the sixth night, Kaydence touched her shoulder gently. “We’ll find her.”
Seina turned to him, eyes sharp. “Not if they find us first.”
The ambush came at dusk.
A dozen masked riders. No flags. No warnings. Just fire and steel. Lune took a blade through the arm. Jareth dropped two with a flintlock.
But they were outnumbered.
Seina fought like a queen of war—blade spinning, rage carved into every motion. She killed five before she bled.
Kaydence was back-to-back with her. “They want you alive,” he said.
“Then they’re not getting what they want.”
A horn blew. The enemy vanished like ghosts.
In the clearing, a figure stood on a black horse.
Annora.
Smiling.
“I told you,” she called. “You always chase ghosts and leave the living behind.”
Then she rode into the mist.
The next day, they found the banner nailed to a tree.
A child's drawing. Stick figures. A house. The word “Momma.”
Blood at the bottom.
Varik’s signature.
Seina didn’t cry. She only whispered: “He wants me to come alone.”
Kaydence stepped forward. “Then we go together.”
“No,” she said. “This time, I end it. Alone.”
Seina didn’t stop.
The others pleaded, threatened, even tried to block her path. But she had already crossed the line between survival and purpose. She wasn’t just a runaway heir anymore. She wasn’t just a mother. She was retribution.
She left them behind at the cliffs overlooking the Black Forest.
Kaydence followed her anyway.
“I told you not to come,” she said as the shadows of dusk deepened.
He stepped into the dying light, bruised but unyielding.
“You told me a lot of things, Seina. Most of them lies. I’m done listening to your orders.”
She didn’t argue. Didn’t even flinch. She only turned and walked into the forest. And Kaydence, the mafia king, the man whose heart she had unknowingly carved her name into, followed.
In the Belly of the Beast
The Black Forest wasn’t just wild. It was ancient.
They navigated through thorn-choked trails and rotting bridges, until they reached the edge of the old temple fortress where Varik was nesting with his followers. It was carved into the cliffside like a jagged scar. Lightless. Restless.
“Too quiet,” Kaydence said, his hand on his gun.
Seina drew her dagger. “He wants me inside.”
They entered together.
What they found chilled them to the bone.
Cells. Cages. Bones of failed heirs, buried with crowns carved from their own ribs. A mural painted in blood showed a woman on fire. Her eyes reminded Seina of her own.
Then came the laughter.
“Did you think this would be a rescue?” Varik asked as he stepped from the shadows. “This was always an execution.”
Varik was thinner, crueler, and madder than any memory could recall. But power still clung to him like mold.
“You carry two crowns, girl,” he hissed. “One from blood, one from betrayal. I’ll take both.”
Seina didn’t hesitate.
She lunged. Blade met bone.
Kaydence shot one of Varik’s guards and took a blade to the side for it. Blood soaked his jacket, but he didn’t fall.
“Go!” he yelled. “Find her!”
Seina ran.
Corridors twisted like intestines. Until she found it.
A door. A cry.
A child.
Her daughter.
Mother and Fire
She broke down the door with a scream. Inside, a tiny girl stood in chains. Black hair. Silver eyes. No tears—just fury.
“Momma?” the girl asked.
Seina fell to her knees. “Yes, baby. Yes.”
But before they could touch, a blade pierced Seina’s back.
She turned, gasping.
Annora.
“I always said you’d be the death of yourself,” Annora whispered, “but I wanted the honor.”
Seina collapsed.
Her daughter screamed.
Kaydence arrived seconds later. Gun blazing. Annora fled into the shadows like a ghost.
He dropped to Seina’s side.
“You’re not dying today,” he said through gritted teeth.
Seina smiled faintly. “Then get her out. Burn this place. Burn every memory of him.”