Chapter 2

The moment I yielded, my parents' rigid expressions melted into smug satisfaction, as though they'd expected nothing else.

Aurelia reached for the Starbound Ward-Gown without hesitation.

"Touch it and you die." My voice cut through the room like a blade.

Her hand jerked back as if burned.

A wounded expression instantly replaced her greed. She clutched our mother's arm, her eyes filling with rehearsed tears. "Mama, see? She can't bear to give it up—"

Father's patience snapped. "Vespera, what kind of game are you playing now?"

I regarded Aurelia as coldly as a stranger.

"The warding runes are bound to my magical signature. They will recognize no one else. She has no magic whatsoever. The moment she puts it on, the ward matrix will mark her as an intruder and scorch her to the bone."

I let the words settle before adding, "If you want her to arrive at the Duke's estate wearing a charred ruin, be my guest."

Aurelia went white, her nails digging into Mother's sleeve. "Mama, I don't want to be burned!"

Mother's face turned to iron. She stepped forward, towering over me.

"You inscribed it with your magic. That means you can change it. Erase your signature by morning and attune the gown to Aurelia."

A bitter laugh escaped me.

"Forcibly overwriting a warding array—do you have any idea what that costs? I'd have to use my own blood as the reversal medium. The backlash would shatter my magic completely. I would never enchant again."

"So what?"

Father's voice struck like a hammer. No hesitation. No guilt.

"You're marrying that penniless knight. What use is enchantment when you're freezing on the border, mending his uniforms and keeping his hearth?" He looked at me like a tool he'd already wrung dry.

"Aurelia is going to be a Duchess. Her debut at the Duke's estate is worth more than your entire life."

I bit down on my lower lip until I tasted rust.

Of course. My gift, my health, my future—all of it weighed less than Aurelia's moment of vanity before people who would never know my name.

"Fine. I'll do it."

I met their eyes, and whatever warmth had once lived in mine went out.

"But this is the last time." My voice was barely a whisper, yet perfectly steady.

"Consider the blood on that gown payment in full. After tonight, I owe Solarien family nothing—not my gift, not my future, and not my name."

Father snorted. "Spare us the theatrics. Get it done by dawn—don't hold up what actually matters."

They left without closing the door.

The workshop fell silent. Only the low thrum of the mana lamps remained.

I walked to the loom and stared at the gown glowing with soft blue light. It was waiting for a bride who would never wear it.

I picked up the etching blade and drew it across my left palm without flinching.

Blood spilled onto the ice-blue silk and hissed like water on hot iron.

I swallowed the soul-deep agony and forced my blood through the warding runes, tearing my signature loose thread by thread.

Reverse overwrite. Initiated.

Every surge of magic felt like crushed glass grinding through my nerves. Cold sweat ran down my spine. My hands shook as darkness gathered at the edges of my vision.

But I kept going. I bled, redrew, and carved with the numb precision of someone who had decided pain no longer mattered.

Drop by drop, I dissolved the elegant warding array I had spent three years weaving into the celestial silk, twisting it into a gaudy gold pattern weak enough to accept someone with no magic at all.

Time stretched into an eternity of torment. More than once, darkness nearly took me.

Still, I continued—mechanical and relentless.

I wasn't just rewriting runes. I was cutting away the last soft, foolish part of myself that still believed these people might one day love me.

At dawn, the final gold sigil sealed shut.

The ice-blue Starbound Ward-Gown was gone. In its place hung a garish dark-gold gown—loud, tasteless, and perfectly suited to Aurelia's vanity.

The instant the link severed, my magic collapsed. I fell with the chair, striking the stone floor hard enough to drive the breath from my lungs.

My left hand was a ruin of split flesh and blackened blood.

Beneath my ribs, where power had once lived, there was only a dead, aching void. I couldn't have lifted a finger if my life depended on it.

The door slammed open. The head maid strode in with two servants at her heels.

None of them so much as glanced at me lying in a pool of my own blood. They went straight to the loom and lifted the dark-gold gown as though it were a crown jewel.

"Madam's orders—bring it upstairs at once. Lady Aurelia's fitting cannot be delayed."

That was all. They carried away the thing I'd paid for with half my life and never looked back.

The door shut, and the basement fell silent once more.

No one cared how much blood I'd lost. No one wondered whether I could still stand.

But I didn't cry.

With my cheek pressed against the freezing stone, I closed my eyes and felt—for the first time in twenty years—nothing but relief.

Enough.

Two decades of swallowed grievances and desperate devotion had been settled in a single night's worth of blood.

Starting today, Vespera of the Solarien family was dead.