BACK AT MILLER MANSION
"If she reaches sixteen, her power will awaken little by little… and once fully unleashed—"
He paused.
"—we are all doomed."
Hailey's fingers dug into her palms until they bled.
Why?! Why is that good-for-nothing strong?!
Just die already! Die in that stupid forest!
"Reiden," Draven commanded. "Take the kingdom guards. Find her. Bring her back alive."
----------------------
Olivia p.o.v
My body was too weak to fight as I plummeted into the darkness—
and crashed into the water below.
+ SPLASH +
Twelve feet under.
The cold seized me, dragging me deeper. My limbs wouldn't move. My lungs burned.
Is this it? Is this how my story ends?
I thought back on my life.
I had accomplished nothing.
I was insignificant.
A ghost in my own home.
Maybe if I disappeared, it wouldn't matter.
So I stopped fighting.
Stopped struggling.
And I let the water take me.
At least nature will be kinder to me than people ever were.
My eyes slowly closed.
Light fades.
The river did not quiet—
it shuddered.
A deep pulse rolled through the water like a heartbeat awakening after centuries of silence. Then, without warning, a violent surge of ancient purple light erupted upward, tearing the river in two. The sky above cracked with that same blinding brilliance, as if the world had been waiting for this moment… fearing it.
From the center of the glowing rupture, a figure emerged—
dark, tall, and wrapped in a pressure so immense that the air itself bent around him.
He didn't walk out of the light.
He commanded it.
With a single snap of his fingers, the waters split apart, suspended mid-air like two enormous curtains of liquid glass. The earth beneath him trembled—trees shivered, stones cracked, and the forest seemed to bow in instinctive submission.
His eyes opened slowly.
They were not merely violet—they were a swirling storm of shadow and starlight, a bottomless depth that hinted at ancient worlds, forgotten realms, and forbidden magic no mortal should ever witness.
And then—
Olivia's unconscious body rose from the river.
A thick, dark-purple mist—alive, breathing, aware—curled around her like a spectral serpent. It lifted her gently, reverently, as though cradling a goddess rediscovered after ages of loss.
The moment the mist touched her skin, a burst of divine light exploded outward.
The entire forest ignited in a haunting pale glow.
When the light dimmed, she was no longer the drowned, exhausted girl who had fallen beneath the waters.
Her caramel-brown skin shimmered as though washed in moonlit gold.
Her lips—full, soft, rosy—looked newly shaped by magic's kiss.
Her braids unraveled themselves, releasing long waves of natural curls cascading to her waist like untouched silk.
The old maid's dress that once clung to her was gone—
replaced by a flowing silk gown in deep royal purple, clinging to her small frame, revealing her smooth legs, her delicate shoulders, her gently rising chest.
She looked unreal…
enchanted…
reborn.
Slowly, she drifted downward, landing weightlessly into the dark figure's arms.
He caught her instantly, his hands sliding around her small waist with a possessive tenderness that contradicted the violent power crackling in the air. His fingers lingered on her skin as though he had been waiting lifetimes to hold her again.
He leaned close.
Slowly, she drifted into the dark figure's arms.
He caught her effortlessly, his fingers wrapping possessively around her small waist as though she were something precious—fragile, irreplaceable. He leaned close, his lips brushing her ear in a whisper that sent ripples through the air.
"My sweet…"
His voice was deep, magnetic, threaded with an obsession that felt both dangerous and tender.
A gentle thumb brushed her cheek as he continued, each word soaked in emotion he had been forced to bury for too long.
"I'm sorry I couldn't protect you."
His jaw tightened. Darkness rolled off him like smoke.
"Soon, my sweet… I'll make them pay. In blood."
His form began to dissolve into mist, but even as he faded, he lowered her gently to the soft ground, as if she were something sacred.
His final whisper lingered in the air long after he was gone:
"Wait for me, my love. Everyone who hurt you… I will destory''