After her visit to Lord Valus.
Queen Vantessa sat in silence, her violet robes pooling around her like a shadow. The flickering candle beside her cast long, ghostly reflections against the ancient tapestries that lined the chamber walls—each one a woven record of the Witches' lineage.
But Vantessa's eyes were far from the present. They were lost in time.
She saw herself not as the iron-willed queen she had become—but as a child, running barefoot through the jasmine gardens of the Moonspire Citadel. Laughter echoed in her mind. The voice was unmistakable.
Vienna.
Her elder sister. Her light, her rival, her guardian. Her tragedy.
They had grown up together under the careful watch of Lady Vanessa, their noble and formidable mother, and Lord Carellos, the bearer of their bloodline's darkest gift: the Black Magic of the Carello.
Though their father wielded a measure of it, the true depth of that magic was destined only for the daughters. That was the legacy—beautiful, terrible, and unchangeable. Only a Carello daughter could inherit the full force of that ancient power. And in Vienna, it had awakened.
Vantessa remembered how their father's face shifted when Vienna turned fourteen. The pride in his eyes was undeniable, but so too was the fear. That year, training intensified. Not for her—but for Vienna.
Every dawn, Vienna would rise to face the High Mages and Elders, her hands already warm with healing light. Her talent was unmatched, not just in elemental magic, but in spells of restoration, energy, and even resurrection. She had the gentle grace of a healer, and the terrifying fire of something darker. Something ancient.
She had become the promise and the threat.
At first, the Court celebrated her. Vienna, the prodigy. Vienna, the heir. But power frightens those who wish to control it—and Vienna's strength began to slip past even the Elders' understanding. The signs were small at first. A broken staff melting in her hand during a spar. A spell of healing turned into domination when she touched the dying. Her eyes, once a calm amber, would shimmer with obsidian veins whenever she summoned power beyond what the spellbooks taught.
"The Black Flame stirs in her," their father had whispered to the Elders during one of the councils.
That was when everything changed.
Vantessa remembered the coldness of that winter—the cold that had nothing to do with snow. The Court convened. Whispers slithered through the halls. Then came the decision.
Vienna would no longer be heir.
"They fear her," Lady Vanessa had said, her voice tight with fury. "They fear what she could become."
Instead, Vantessa was to be groomed as the next Queen of the Witches. Not because she was better. But because she was safer.
Vienna accepted it all with a strange serenity. Perhaps she'd always known. Perhaps she never truly wanted the throne. Her heart had always beat for another dream—medicine. The ancient texts, anatomy, healing arts that bridged magic and science. She had long yearned to be a doctor, not a queen.
"They'll never let you go," Vantessa had said bitterly. "They'll bind you to this place."
But Vienna only smiled. "Then I'll find my own path."
And she did.
She left the Citadel under the guise of royal permission, but Vantessa knew the truth. It was exile hidden in honor. They had pushed her away because they couldn't control her. To shift her attention but as the clan experiences loss of power as their father's death, the elders seek for Vienna to came back-the time she had her masterals in Franza
Years later,
Vienna came back with a child. A mortal one. That she had left magic behind and started assisting Vantessa. She had change in many ways when she cameback. But Vantessa had done what she always did: she protected what little remained of her sister's legacy. She silenced rumors. She buried truths.
And now…
Vantessa's hands clenched on the arms of her chair. Her nails dug into the velvet, but she barely felt it.
Maika. The name rang like an echo of the past. A soul reborn? no not reborn but awaken.
The signs were all there. The blood. The fire. The fractures in memory. She had felt it when she stood before her—Maika was not just Vienna's child. She was a Carello.
She was the storm the Elders once feared would come through Vienna.
But this time, no council decision could stop her. No throne, no suppression spell, no false legacy.
This time, the bloodline would not be hidden.
"I see you, Vienna," Vantessa whispered, her eyes wet now with something rare—grief. "You were not the monster they feared. You were the hope they didn't deserve."
She walked to the window and looked up at the moon, remembering their childhood promise.
"If we ever get separated," Vienna had said, "look to the moon. I'll always find my way back to you."
Now, that promise pulsed in Maika's soul. It beat with every awakening..she needed protection.
And Vantessa knew—the world wasn't ready for what came next.
But it was coming.