The Princess's Bloody Return from the Ironhold

After five years of being tortured as a human vessel for toxins in the enemy's ironhold, I finally made it back to Highcrest.

I stood at the gates, my body a map of jagged scars and fading bruises.

My husband, Kaelen Sterling, didn't offer a hug or even a kind word.

He merely spared me a cold, fleeting glance.

"After five years of misery, I hope you've finally learned some manners," he said.

"Maybe now you'll think twice before laying a hand on Seraphina."

I froze, staring at him in disbelief.

My own brother, Cillian Vance, the Crown Prince, furrowed his brow in annoyance.

"Why are you looking at us like that?" he snapped.

"You pushed Seraphina into the frozen lake five years ago. I only paid the guards to break your leg so you'd spend six months reflecting on your sins."

Silas, the shadow guard who once swore he'd die for me, stepped forward to shield Seraphina.

His eyes were like ice as he looked at me.

"I was the one who told the enemy to keep you for an extra four years," Silas added.

"Seraphina is fragile. If you hadn't suffered enough, she would never have been able to sleep at night."

They had no idea.

In those five years, I was branded dozens of times and bled daily like a pig for their experiments.

I had fought through hell just to see them again, only to realize they were the ones who sent me there.

Kaelen wrapped his arm around Seraphina's waist and tossed a sheet of paper at my feet.

"Seraphina is pregnant now and can't handle the sight of anything gruesome," he commanded.

"If you've truly repented, take these divorce papers and rot in the countryside. Go pray for your sins."

I stared at the thin paper on the ground, but my eyes were too dry for tears.

Suddenly, a crisp mechanical voice echoed in my mind after five long years of silence.

Alert: All targets have betrayed the Host. Do you wish to activate the Death-Escape Protocol?

"Yes," I whispered in my mind.

Death-Escape Protocol charging Estimated completion: three days.

"What are you waiting for? Doctor, proceed," Kaelen ordered.

He shielded Seraphina Thorne in his arms, refusing to give me even a sliver of his attention.

The royal physician stepped forward, carrying a tray covered with a white cloth.

When he lifted the fabric, a hollow silver needle as thick as a finger glinted under the light.

"Forgive me, Princess," the doctor muttered.

I stared at that needle.

In the prisoner camp, the enemy's witch-doctors used that exact type of needle.

They would plunge it into my chest to drain warm blood to feed their venomous insects.

My stomach churned, and my body reacted before my mind could.

I swung my arm, knocking the tray out of the doctor's hands.

"Get away! Don't touch me!"

My voice was a ragged, hollow scream.

I pressed my back against the cold doorframe, trembling violently.

Kaelen's face darkened with an intensity of disgust that seemed to overflow.

"Elara Vance, what kind of tantrum is this now?"

"Seraphina only needs a bowl of your heart-vein blood as a medicinal catalyst to stabilize her pregnancy."

"Is your life worth more than a few drops of blood?"

Cillian stepped forward and kicked me hard in the shoulder.

A sickening crack echoed as my right leg, which had never properly healed, buckled under the pressure.

"A princess of the realm, acting like a common street brawler," Cillian spat.

"If our mother knew what you'd become, she'd regret ever bringing you into this world!"

"Brother" I spat out a mouthful of blood.

"Do you have any idea how I survived those five years?"

"Stop trying to manipulate me with your pathetic stories!"

"If you had actually suffered, you wouldn't have the energy to fight the doctor."

"Kaelen, Cillian please, stop," Seraphina whimpered.

"Elara just got back My health doesn't matter. If if the child can't be saved, then so be it"

"No!"

Kaelen and Cillian shouted in unison.

Silas, who had been lurking in the shadows, moved like a blur.

This was the man who once knelt in the snow all night just to beg for a treat for me.

Now, he twisted my arms behind my back and slammed his knee into my spine.

"Forgive me, Mistress," he said without a trace of mercy.

"Silas you too?" I wheezed.

"Miss Seraphina is kind enough to let you live. If you resist and harm the child, I will have to break your limbs."

The doctor approached with a fresh needle.

Death-Escape Protocol charging: 30% Completion expected in two hours.

"Hold her down," Kaelen barked.

Silas increased the pressure until my shoulder blades groaned.

The doctor tore open the front of my ragged tunic.

No one noticed the dense, black brandings under my collarbone that went bone-deep.

"Elara, don't make me do this myself," Kaelen warned.

The needle pierced my skin.

"ArghD"

I bit my lip so hard it bled, a guttural sound escaping my throat.

Hot blood flowed through the hollow needle and into a white jade bowl.

The doctor frowned and stepped back with the bowl.

Silas let go of me and returned to Seraphina's side.

He took out a clean silk handkerchief and meticulously wiped the fingers that had just touched me.

"If Mother were watching" I gasped, my eyes locked onto Cillian.

"Could she truly rest in peace knowing what you've done to me?"

Cillian's face turned ashen, and he swept his sleeve in fury.

"Shut up! You don't even deserve to mention her name!"

The doctor brought the bowl of blood to Seraphina.

She took one look and began to gag, covering her nose and mouth.

"Kaelen this blood it smells so foul"

Silas stepped forward, looking at me with pure revulsion.

"Who knows what filth she picked up out there over the last five years."

"Miss Seraphina's body is precious. She shouldn't touch something so tainted."

Kaelen's expression soured.

He threw the thin divorce papers directly into my face.

"The papers are signed on my end."

He looked down at me as if I were a cockroach.

"Seraphina can't stand the sight of dirty things. Sign it and get out of the city."

I struggled to open my eyes, my vision blurring as I looked at the floor.

Five years.

I was force-fed poisons and drained of blood every single day.

The enemy commanders used red-hot irons to mark me like cattle.

I endured it all because of one single thought.

I wanted to go home.

And now that I was home, I was being discarded like trash.

I used my scarred arms to push myself up from the floor.

I reached for the brush on the side table and dipped it into the blood still leaking from my chest.

I pressed a bloody thumbprint onto the paper.

"I'll sign."

Kaelen looked stunned, as if he hadn't expected me to give up so easily.

In the past, I would have fought tooth and nail for his attention.

"At least you've gained some common sense," Cillian huffed.

I ignored him. I pointed at the jade pendant hanging from Seraphina's waist.

"I signed the papers. Now give me back my pendant."

It was the only thing my mother left me before she died.

Five years ago, Seraphina had snatched it from me during the chaos.

That pendant was the only thing that kept me sane in the prison.

Seraphina instinctively clutched the jade and hid behind Kaelen.

She looked at me and mouthed four words I could clearly read:

"It belongs to me."

"Elara, don't push your luck!" Kaelen snapped.

He shielded Seraphina, his voice dripping with venom.

"I gave this pendant to Seraphina for her birthday. Now you're trying to steal from her?"

"Will your greed ever end?"

"That belonged to my mother!" I screamed back.

"Enough!" Cillian roared.

"You broke Mother's heirloom years ago in a fit of rage! You're lying just to bully Seraphina!"

"I didn't break it!"

"You dare lie to me!"

Cillian backhanded me across the face.

My head spun, and a ringing sound filled my ears as my lip split open.

"Tomorrow is the Great Ancestral Rite. You will wear the robes of a sinner to the temple."

"You will beg our ancestors to strike your name from the family records."

"You're disowning me?" I asked, breathless.

"Keeping you only stains the honor of the royal family."

He turned his back on me.

"Once your name is removed, give up your delusions. If you touch Seraphina's pendant again, I won't be so lenient."

I sat on the floor, watching the three of them dote on Seraphina as they led her away.

Not one of them looked back.

Death-Escape Protocol charging: 70% Completion expected in thirty minutes.

I looked down at my blood-stained hands.

Fine.

Disown me.

I was going to die anyway. Why would I need a name?

The Great Ancestral Temple.

I knelt on a hard cushion, dressed in the coarse white robes of a criminal.

The temple was packed with nobles and high-ranking officials.

Their whispers cut through the air like knives.

"I heard she spent five years with the enemy. Who knows how many men have touched her."

"The Crown Prince is right to cast her out. She's a disgrace."

"Poor General Sterling, being tied to a monster like her for so long."

I kept my back straight, staring at the ancestral tablets.

Cillian stood at the altar in his ceremonial robes, holding a golden scroll.

"Elara Vance, for the crimes of jealousy, harming her kin, and shaming the throne, is hereby stripped of her title."

"Her name shall be erased from the royal records, and she shall be cast out as a commoner!"

I lowered my head to accept the decree.

But then, Seraphina rushed to my side and knelt down.

"Cillian, please! Forgive Elara!" she begged.

She reached out to grab my arm.

"She suffered so much. She was just confused. I don't blame her!"

Kaelen immediately stepped forward to pull her back.

Seraphina pulled away and leaned close to my ear, her voice a low hiss.

"Elara, your brother, your husband, and your guard they're all mine now."

"Even when you die, you'll be nothing but a lonely ghost."

She then lunged toward me, slamming her shoulder into mine.

I was so weak that I couldn't hold my balance.

I tumbled to the side, crashing into a heavy bronze sacrificial vessel.

The massive pot toppled over with a deafening boom.

The jade pendant at Seraphina's waist hit the floor and shattered into pieces.

Desecrating the temple vessels was a capital offense.

Seraphina covered her mouth in mock horror.

"Oh no! Elara why did you push me? Even if you hate me, you shouldn't have destroyed the sacred vessel!"

She fell to the floor, pointing at the shards.

"My pendant the gift Kaelen gave me"

Kaelen's eyes turned bloodshot with rage.

He scooped Seraphina into his arms and glared at me with murderous intent.

Cillian was shaking with fury.

He drew a sword from a nearby guard.

The cold steel was pointed directly at my throat.

"You witch! You dare desecrate the temple! You deserve to die!"

Silas stood by, watching coldly.

"She is possessed by evil. Kill her now to restore order," he suggested.

The three men who once promised to protect me for a lifetime were all here.

One wanted me dead, one was ready to kill me, and one was handing over the weapon.

I looked at the shattered jade on the floor.

It was the last piece of my mother. Now, even that was gone.

I didn't care about the sword at my neck. I just reached out to touch the broken pieces.

Before my fingers could reach the jade, Cillian stomped his boot onto the back of my hand.

"Don't you dare touch Seraphina's things!"

He ground his heel into my flesh. I convulsed with pain, but I refused to scream.

The blade pressed against my throat, drawing a thin line of red.

Warm blood trickled down the steel.

Cillian looked down at me from his height of power.

"Kneel and confess your sins before our ancestors!"

The surrounding nobles chanted, "Kill her! For the law!"

I looked up, meeting Cillian's murderous gaze, then Kaelen's mask of hatred.

Death-Escape Protocol: 99% Ten seconds to completion.

"Kaelen," I said softly.

He frowned, looking disgusted that I even spoke his name.

"When you were twelve, at the Summer Gala the firefly lantern you gave me"

I paused to swallow the metallic taste of blood.

"Did you really make that for me with your own hands?"

That was the last knot in my heart.

I used to be afraid of the dark. Kaelen had spent a whole night catching fireflies just to make a light for me.

That memory was the only thing that kept me going during the dark nights in the prison camp.

Kaelen blinked, taken aback.

He clearly didn't expect me to ask about a childhood toy while facing death.

But his confusion quickly turned into a cruel sneer.

"You still have the nerve to bring that up?"

He laughed, pulling Seraphina closer.

"I made that lantern for Seraphina. You were jealous and snatched it from her hands."

"You were always a thief. Did you really think I'd do something like that for you?"

The final string of my sanity snapped.

So that was it.

Everything was a lie.

I wasn't a beloved princess; I was a replacement, a thief in their eyes.

My five years of endurance, my desperate struggle to returnDit was all a joke.

"I see I see"

I started to laugh.

The laughter mixed with the blood on my face, making me look like a demon.

Cillian, enraged by my laughter, raised the sword.

"Go to hell!"

DingDProtocol 100%. Activation initiated.

"Cillian Vance. Kaelen Sterling. Silas."

I stopped laughing and looked at them with dead eyes.

"The brands on my body, the blood I owe you today, I return it all."

The moment the words left my lips, the air shifted.

My white robes billowed even though there was no wind.

Thick, black mist erupted from the brands beneath my collarbone.

It was the toxin-parasites from the enemy doctors, merging with the system's energy.

"What is happening!"

The sword in Cillian's hand began to dissolve like it was being eaten by acid.

He scrambled back in terror.

The black mist swallowed me whole.

A searing pain ripped through my cells, but I felt a strange sense of relief.

Finally, I was free.

"Elara!"

Kaelen finally realized something was wrong. He pushed Seraphina aside and lunged toward me.

"Don't touch her! It's poison!" Silas yelled, grabbing Kaelen's arm.

But it was too late.

The black mist vanished.

The cushion where I had knelt was empty.

There was no body. No blood.

Only a pile of grey ash that caught the draft in the temple, scattering across their boots.

In front of everyone, I had turned to dust.

I was gone.