Chapter 195: Twins of The Same Feather

Dina’s POV

I float through the trees, my feet barely brushing the leaf litter, anger coursing through my throat threatening to burst out into a scream.

The forest breathes slowly around me, but everything inside is loud…raw and dangerous. Shina’s face won’t leave me…her eyes cut through me like a persistent blade.

Why won’t she just die…or give up?!

By the time I reached the cave mouth, the moment had already hardened into something I could use. I stepped into the dark and the forest closed behind me.

The cave smelled of damp stone and old secrets. I pressed my palm to the wall and let the cold bite into my skin until it steadied my shaking fingers.

I had no time to waste on what that useless brat has failed to do. Not after Shina. Not after seeing her stand there with that small, dangerous smile, like she’d always known how to take what I wanted.

I should have killed her when we were younger. Now I’m paying for that mistake.

Lila’s stubbornness reminded me of myself. Everyone used to call me “the useless twin” or “the wrong twin,” so I saw myself in her. That’s why I trusted her again…I thought she’d be different this time.

She should have finished the job. She should have done what I told her. If she’d killed her sister when she had the chance, none of this would have spread like rot. Instead she crawled out, alive and useless and full of excuses.

Incompetent. Stupid. Worthless. I promised myself I would not let her ruin me again.

I sat on the cold floor, drew my knees up, and began the chant. The syllables were old and flat on my tongue, the kind that made the air around me turn heavier. I felt the pull of it…the way power always reached toward me like vultures to carrion…but this time it came with a sting at the base of my ribs.

Halfway through the second line my lungs betrayed me. A cough seized me so hard I hunched double. Hot iron filled my mouth and I spat it out…blood spattered the stone. The sound of it landed between my teeth and made the spell twist.

This was getting worse. What used to come with a single breath now took the last of me. My magic had always fed on fear…dreams, nightmares, the small delicious terror of wandering humans who stumbled into the dark for the thrill. People who loved to explore caves and call it adventure were perfect meals…curious, careless, full of tiny sparks of terror I could draw and drink. But those days were luxuries, I can’t afford them now.

My body was wearing thin. Bones that used to hold the dark steady were brittle…skin that used to carry sigils and strength was paper against the wind. Every charm I drew peeled a little more of me away.

I needed a new vessel. I needed time to feed and mend and renew my magic. But time didn’t sit around like a friend. Time moved for other people…Shina, Nyxara, Leo Ashton…while I bled.

I forced the chant back together, slow and careful. Each word was measured, like stepping across a broken bridge. My shadows answered in the corners, reluctant at first, then curious. The edges of the cave turned blacker, as if listening.

I thought of the king…my king, the one who had promised me crown and place and pride. He had said I would be his Luna. He had touched my hand and sworn it. I had believed him. I had given him my loyalty, my nights, the thin bright parts of myself that I once trusted. He had used me until there was nothing left he wanted. Then he turned and gave his vows to another woman and tossed me outside his walls like trash.

Well, he didn’t promise me anything actually…but his eyes did. The tone of his voice promised me a place by his side whenever he called out for me.

The memory of his face was a cut that never healed. I saw his smile again, the way he feigned pity as if he didn’t know the work he’d ordered. He had the gall to call me exile and walk away. He had the nerve to think I would bow and whisper thanks.

“They’ll pay,” I told the cave. My voice was small at first, then harder. “Leo Ashton and everyone he loves…no one will have the comfort of a life I was denied.”

I spoke the truth out loud because speaking it made it real. I didn’t flinch from saying it. If my power was a poison that drank its holder, then I would make sure those I hated were poisoned first.

The laugh that followed was short and raw, the kind of sound a person makes when they are surprised by their own cruelty. No one understood how far a betrayed woman could go. No one knew what hunger grew in the space where honor had been ripped away.

I raised my hands again, slower this time, and shaped the sigil small with my fingers. The darkness in the cave shifted toward me, curious and hungry, but not trusting. I imagined an army…not the king’s pale, obedient soldiers, but people like me…bent, broken, full of the same hard hatred.

“Now it’s time I build an army,” I murmured, tasting the plan. “Ones who share the same hatred for Leo Ashton. Ones who will burn with me.”

My body began to thin like smoke, edges fraying. A thread of darkness curled around my ankles and climbed my legs. The chanting blurred into a single, steady note and with it I faded.

I have to strike first…before the so-called Queen grew into what she could be. Into what was rumored to be my destruction.

If I waited, if I let them build their small safe lives, I would lose whatever chance to be more than the lonely ruin I had become.

The last thing I felt was a cold kiss against my skin as the cave swallowed me. Then there was only the echo of my own voice, promising that this time…this time…I would not miss.