Seraphina's POV
"I'm going alone."
Kaelith's head snapped up from where he knelt, weakened by the eclipse. "Absolutely not."
"Look at you!" I gestured to him and the other dragons, all pale and struggling to breathe as the supernatural shadow consumed more of the sun. "You can barely stand, let alone fight. The Eclipse Stone is killing you all."
"Which is exactly why we need to stop Elena together—"
"You CAN'T!" My voice cracked with desperation. "Don't you understand? Every second that passes, you get weaker. If you come with me into that palace, you'll die before we even reach Elena."
Kaelith tried to stand, but his legs buckled. Darius caught him before he fell completely.
"She's right, my King," Darius said quietly, and he looked just as weak. "We're liabilities now, not assets."
"I won't let her go in there alone," Kaelith growled, but there was no strength behind it.
I knelt in front of him, taking his face in my hands. "You saved me from rogues. You protected me from your own people. You faced your worst nightmares for me." My voice softened. "Now let me save YOU. Let me be strong enough to do this."
His golden eyes searched mine, pain and fear warring with trust.
"If you die—" he started.
"I won't." I pressed my forehead to his. "I have too much to come back to."
Before he could argue more, I stood and turned to face the capital city in the distance. The palace rose above everything else, its towers piercing the darkening sky.
"Lyria, stay with them," I ordered. "Use whatever healing supplies we have. Keep them alive until I can stop this."
"Miss, please be careful," Lyria begged, tears in her eyes.
"Careful isn't going to work this time." I felt my Lunaris power thrumming through me, responding to my determination. "But smart might."
I started running toward the city.
"SERAPHINA!" Kaelith's roar followed me, but I didn't look back.
Looking back would break my resolve.
And I needed every bit of resolve I had for what came next.
I reached the city walls within minutes, my Lunaris speed carrying me faster than any horse. Guards stood at the gates, but they looked confused and frightened—staring up at the darkening sun.
"The gods are angry!" one guard shouted.
"It's the end times!" another wailed.
I slipped past them easily in the chaos. The streets were pandemonium—people screaming, running, praying. No one paid attention to one more person rushing through the crowds.
I made my way toward the palace, using back alleys and side streets. My mother's knowledge guided me, showing me paths I'd never walked but somehow knew.
The palace gates were heavily guarded, but I didn't need gates.
I scaled the outer wall using handholds that shouldn't have been possible to grip, my enhanced strength making the climb effortless. At the top, I dropped into the royal gardens and froze.
Someone was waiting for me.
Lord Damien.
He sat on a stone bench, looking defeated and broken. His fancy clothes were dirty, and he had bruises on his face.
"I knew you'd come," he said quietly, not even looking up. "Elena said you were too stubborn to die."
"Where is she?" I demanded, power crackling around my hands. "Where's Elena?"
"The throne room." He finally looked at me, and I was shocked to see genuine remorse in his eyes. "She's performing the final ritual. Once the sun is completely gone, the dragons will all die, and then..." He laughed bitterly. "Then she plans to kill me too."
"What?"
"I'm no longer useful." He touched the bruises on his face. "The moment she became queen, she showed her true colors. Morganna's been controlling her for years, but Elena? She LIKED being controlled. Liked the power it gave her." His voice broke. "She was going to kill you, then use your blood to free some ancient evil. But since you escaped, she's moving to plan B—kill all the dragons first, then hunt you down."
"Why are you telling me this?" I asked suspiciously.
"Because I'm a coward who chose the wrong side." He stood, swaying slightly. "Because watching Elena become a monster made me realize what I threw away." His eyes met mine. "I'm sorry, Seraphina. For everything. You deserved better than what I did to you."
It wasn't enough. An apology couldn't erase the pain, the humiliation, the betrayal.
But right now, I had bigger problems.
"How do I stop the Eclipse Stone?" I asked.
"You have to destroy it. But it's protected by dark magic—only Lunaris power can break through." He pulled out a key. "This opens the servant passages. They lead directly to the throne room. Elena won't expect you to come that way."
I snatched the key. "If you're lying—"
"I'm not." He turned away. "For what it's worth, I hope you win. The world doesn't deserve to burn just because I was stupid."
I ran, leaving him behind.
The servant passages were dark and narrow, but I navigated them quickly. My mother's memories showed me the way—she'd walked these halls once, long ago, when she'd been young and free.
I emerged behind a tapestry in the throne room and peered through a gap in the fabric.
Elena stood on a raised platform in the center of the room, her hands raised toward a floating black crystal the size of my head. The Eclipse Stone. Dark energy poured from it, spreading across the sky like ink in water.
She looked different—more powerful, more beautiful, and somehow less human. Morganna's magic had changed her.
"I know you're there, sister."
I froze.
Elena lowered her hands and turned to face the tapestry I hid behind. "Did you really think I wouldn't sense your Lunaris power? It's like a beacon to those of us touched by darkness."
I stepped out, no point in hiding now.
"Elena, stop this," I pleaded. "You're killing innocent creatures. This isn't you."
"Isn't it?" She smiled, and it was the same cruel smile from my engagement party. "You still want to believe I'm good deep down. That I'm just misguided. But the truth is, Seraphina, I've always hated you."
The words hit like physical blows.
"When Father looked at you with fondness, when people praised your healing gifts, when Damien showed you any attention—I hated every second of it." Her eyes burned with malice. "You were supposed to be nothing. A bastard. Beneath me. But people still liked you more."
"So you destroyed my life out of jealousy?"
"I destroyed your life because I COULD." She laughed. "And it felt wonderful. Watching you break, watching you cry, watching you lose everything—it was the best moment of my life."
Something in me cracked. Not with despair, but with clarity.
This wasn't my sister. Maybe she never had been.
"I came here hoping to save you," I said quietly. "Hoping the sister I grew up with was still in there somewhere."
"How touching."
"But I was wrong." I let my power flow freely, golden light surrounding me like armor. "There's nothing left to save. You're just a sad, jealous person who chose darkness because being kind was too hard."
Elena's smile vanished. "You think you can stop me? The Eclipse Stone is already activated! In ten minutes, every dragon will be dead, including your precious King!"
"Then I'll destroy it in nine."
I launched myself at the Eclipse Stone, power blazing from my hands.
Elena screamed and threw up a barrier of dark magic. We collided in an explosion of light and shadow that shook the entire palace.
"You can't win!" Elena shrieked, attacking with everything she had. "Morganna gave me power beyond anything you can imagine!"
"Morganna gave you borrowed power," I shot back, dodging her strikes. "Mine was BORN in me!"
We fought like forces of nature—her darkness against my light, her hatred against my determination. The throne room tore apart around us, walls cracking, windows shattering.
But Elena was strong. Morganna's training had made her a formidable opponent.
"You're weakening!" she taunted. "I can feel it! You used too much power saving Kaelith, breaking Morganna's curse, fighting your way here! You have nothing left!"
She was right. I was running on fumes.
But I had one advantage Elena didn't—I'd faced my deepest fears in the Heart Pool. I'd accepted my pain, my past, my truth.
I wasn't fighting for revenge anymore.
I was fighting for love.
"You're right," I said, dropping my defensive stance. "I am weak."
Elena's eyes lit with triumph. "Finally, you admit it!"
"Weak enough to forgive Father even though he abandoned me. Weak enough to love a Dragon King who threatened to kill me. Weak enough to believe people can change." I smiled. "And weak enough to give you one last chance, Elena. Stop this. Please."
For just a moment, something flickered in her eyes. Doubt? Regret?
Then it was gone, buried under years of jealousy and corruption.
"I don't want your mercy!" She thrust both hands toward me, dark magic forming into a spear aimed at my heart. "I want you DEAD!"
She threw the dark spear.
Time seemed to slow.
I could dodge it. I could probably survive.
But dodging meant the spear would hit the Eclipse Stone behind me—and destroying it with dark magic would cause an explosion that would kill everyone in the palace.
Hundreds of innocent people.
So I didn't dodge.
I caught the dark spear with my bare hands.
Pain exploded through my body as dark magic burned into my palms, but I held on, refusing to let it pass through me to hit the stone.
"What are you doing?!" Elena screamed.
"Protecting people," I gasped through the pain. "Even when it hurts. That's what makes me different from you."
I crushed the dark spear in my hands, absorbing all its dark energy into myself. It felt like poison, like acid, like everything wrong in the world flooding into me at once.
But it worked.
The dark magic was contained. Neutralized.
And now I had a clear shot at the Eclipse Stone.
With the last of my strength, I threw myself at the floating crystal and drove my glowing hands into its center.
"NO!" Elena lunged to stop me.
Too late.
My Lunaris power poured into the Eclipse Stone, light meeting darkness in an epic collision of opposing forces.
The stone cracked.
Then shattered.
The explosion threw us both backward. I hit a wall so hard I heard bones crack. Elena crashed into her throne, screaming in pain.
But it was done.
The Eclipse Stone was destroyed.
Through the shattered windows, I saw the shadow consuming the sun begin to retreat. Sunlight slowly returned, warming the world again.
Outside the city, dragons would be recovering. Getting their strength back.
Kaelith would survive.
I smiled through the pain and closed my eyes, letting darkness take me.
I'd done it.
I woke to someone shaking me roughly.
"Get up! GET UP!"
I forced my eyes open to find Elena standing over me, her face twisted with rage and desperation. She looked terrible—her fancy dress torn, blood running from a cut on her forehead, her eyes wild.
"You ruined everything!" she screamed, grabbing my hair and yanking me up. "EVERYTHING!"
I tried to summon my power, but nothing came. I was completely drained.
"The Stone is destroyed, the dragons are recovering, and Morganna's power is broken!" Elena dragged me toward the balcony. "But you know what? If I can't have my victory, I'll take revenge instead!"
She pulled a dagger from her belt and pressed it to my throat.
"Your precious Dragon King should be strong enough to fly again soon," she hissed. "He'll come here to find you. And when he does, he'll see me throw you from this balcony. He'll watch you die just like he watched his family die."
The blade bit into my skin, drawing blood.
"Elena, don't—"
"You took EVERYTHING from me!" Tears streamed down her face, but they were tears of rage, not regret. "You were supposed to be nothing! Instead, you became a hero, found love, became POWERFUL! While I'm left with nothing but ashes and hate!"
She dragged me onto the balcony, five stories above the courtyard below.
"Elena, please," I begged, but I was too weak to fight her off. "It doesn't have to end like this."
"Yes," she said coldly. "It does."
She raised the dagger to plunge it into my heart—
And someone grabbed her wrist from behind.
The Duchess.
Elena's mother, battered and bleeding but alive, had appeared from the shadows of the throne room.
"Mother?" Elena's voice filled with confusion.
"I'm sorry, my daughter." The Duchess's face was wet with tears. "I'm so, so sorry I failed you."
"What are you—"
The Duchess pulled Elena backward, away from me, away from the balcony edge.
Elena struggled, the dagger slipping from her grip and clattering across the stone floor.
"Let me GO!" Elena shrieked.
"I love you," the Duchess said, holding her daughter tight even as Elena fought like a wild animal. "But I can't let you become a murderer. I can't let you fall any further into darkness."
Guards poured onto the balcony—loyal soldiers who'd been searching for their captured Duchess and had finally found her.
"Restrain the Queen," the Duchess ordered, her voice breaking. "By my authority as Dowager Duchess and her mother, I declare Queen Elena unfit to rule due to dark magic corruption."
"NO!" Elena's scream was inhuman as guards pulled her away. "You can't do this! I'm QUEEN! I'm—"
"You're my daughter," the Duchess said softly. "And I will spend the rest of my life trying to save you from yourself."
As they dragged Elena away, still screaming threats and curses, the Duchess turned to me.
"Thank you," she said simply. "For giving me the chance to save her. For not killing her when you could have."
"She's still your daughter," I said, leaning against the balcony rail for support. "Somewhere under all that darkness, maybe the real Elena is still there."
"Maybe." The Duchess didn't sound convinced. "But that's my burden to carry now, not yours."
She helped me stand, and together we watched the sun fully return to the sky, bright and warm.
I'd won.
Elena was captured, the Eclipse Stone destroyed, the dragons saved.
It was over.
"SERAPHINA!"
Kaelith's roar echoed across the city. I looked up to see him flying toward the palace, fully recovered, his dragon form magnificent against the clear blue sky.
He landed on the balcony, immediately shifting to human form and pulling me into his arms so tightly I couldn't breathe.
"You did it," he said, his voice rough with emotion. "You saved us all."
"We're survivors," I said, repeating my words from what felt like a lifetime ago. "Both of us."
"No." He pulled back to look at my face, his golden eyes intense. "You're more than a survivor, Seraphina. You're a warrior. A hero. My queen."
Before I could respond, he kissed me—deep and desperate and full of everything we'd been through together.
When we finally broke apart, both breathless, I noticed dragons landing all around the palace. Darius, the warriors, even Lyria on someone's back, all recovered and whole.
"Is it really over?" Lyria asked, running to hug me.
I opened my mouth to say yes—
And felt a surge of dark magic so powerful it made everyone freeze.
We all turned to look at the palace dungeons below, where Elena was being held.
The stones around the dungeon began to crack.
Dark energy poured out like smoke.
And through the rising darkness, I heard a voice that made my blood run cold.
Not Elena's voice.
Something older. Deeper. More terrifying.
"FINALLY... THE SEAL IS BROKEN... I AM FREE..."
The Shadow King.
Elena's imprisonment, her rage, her concentration of dark magic in one place—it had been enough.
Enough to crack the final seal.
Enough to let him through.
The courtyard split open, and from the darkness below, something massive began to rise.
"No," I whispered. "No, no, no—"
A clawed hand the size of a house emerged from the crack, followed by a head covered in black scales that seemed to absorb light itself. Eyes like burning coals focused on us.
The Shadow King pulled himself free from his five-hundred-year prison.
And when he spoke, the very air trembled:
"THANK YOU, LITTLE LUNARIS, FOR BRINGING ME EXACTLY WHERE I NEEDED TO BE."
He smiled, revealing teeth like swords.
"NOW THE REAL FUN BEGINS."