The Bride they burned

"They buried her truth under concrete lies.

But dead things don't stay quiet."

---

NYRA – MEDICAL ROOM, SAFE ZONE

The pain in my leg numbed after Kai injected me.

But the ache in my chest?

It hit different.

The medic placed something cold in my hand.

> "This fell from your coat pocket."

A slim white stick. A single red line turning into two.

I stared.

> "This can't be real."

The medic stepped back.

> "You're not just bleeding, ma'am. You're growing life."

---

SAHIR – OUTSIDE THE DOOR

He heard it.

Saw her fall to the floor with the test in her hand.

But he didn't move.

Because Leo stood beside him now. Arms crossed.

> "Don't. You've hurt her enough," Leo growled.

> "We're both poison," Sahir said quietly. "She just hasn't chosen which one she wants to drink from yet."

---

KRAY – IN THE SHADOWS WITH AARAV

The boy stared at the man.

> "You're lying."

> "I don't lie to blood."

Kray leaned in, voice low.

> "Ravian bought you. Meher delivered you. But you? You're my blood. My heir. My curse."

> "You're not my dad," Aarav whispered.

> "No," Kray said, standing. "But I'm the only monster who'll teach you how to kill the ones who made your mother scream."

---

CELESTE – SOMEWHERE FAR

Her face was on the news now.

Wanted. Armed. Mentally unstable.

They called her a threat.

She called it love.

Her final letter to Nyra arrived in a black envelope.

Scrawled in lipstick. Written in blood.

> "If I can't live in your heart, I'll haunt it."

"Burn me. Bury me. I'll still wear your name in hell."

—C"

Attached was a photo:

Kai. Unconscious. Bruised. Alive.

Tied to a bed of roses.

> "See you on Valentine's Day," she'd written.

---

NYRA – NIGHT, ON THE ROOFTOP

I couldn't breathe.

The wind whipped my face. The city burned below.

I was pregnant.

With… whose child?

> "I wanted revenge," I whispered. "Not this. Not life."

A shadow stepped beside me.

> "Maybe it's not a curse," Sahir said. "Maybe it's the one part of you Ravian never broke."

> "You think I want a child in a world where people like you and him exist?"

> "Maybe that child will destroy us both," he said. "And wouldn't that be justice?"

I laughed once. Bitterly.

> "You're not forgiven."

> "I'm not asking," he replied.

---

LEO – BASEMENT CORRIDOR

He found the photo of Nyra.

Burned around the edges. With a knife stuck through the heart.

> "She still loves you," Kai croaked from where he was tied.

> "Who?" Leo asked.

> "Celeste. But it's not love. It's madness."

Leo didn't blink.

> "I don't care what it is.

Anyone who touches her again… dies."

---

TO BE CONTINUED…