Piyumi had been at her father's side in the immediate moments before his passing. She was a firsthand witness to the way the light behind his eyes had dimmed, the way his head had lolled back as he'd lost all strength, the way death had set into his skin, rendering him cold to the touch like he was bitten by frost. If she were any other person, perhaps she would have wondered if she'd go through the same motions and cycles as she crossed over, wondered if the slash to her throat would cause history to repeat itself, like father, like daughter. Perhaps she would have begged for her life or prayed for a miracle. Perhaps she would have accepted her death calmly, content with the life she had led. 

But Piyumi wasn’t just any other person. As the blade came hurtling towards her neck, there was nothing but an all-consuming rage. Her blood was boiling with such ferocity, she felt as if she would burn from the inside out, reduced to ash before the sabre would ever make contact. There was only one person on her mind, and it wasn’t the Orionese soldier about to take her life. 

“QUEEN PIYUMIIIIIIIIIIIII-” 

Pain exploded against Piyumi’s torso as she was suddenly flung out of the sabre’s purview with a kick to her side. She staggered a couple of steps before turning to see that a long, thin blade — a rapier — had cut off the Orionese soldier’s strike. Her focus, however, was largely drawn to the large black portal that had suddenly appeared beside her and the stylish middle-aged woman who had stepped out of it. The caped sleeves of her white jumpsuit gave the appearance of a cloak and her flaxen hair fell in soft curls against her chin. While it seemed like the expensive pair of sunglasses resting against the bridge of her angular nose were donned with a casual indifference to the torrential rainfall, Piyumi had no doubt the woman could make the clouds part with a single glance if she wanted to. She had no doubt because she knew exactly who this woman was.

“Ah, ah, ah,”  tutted Valentine Vortex, billionaire CEO to one and only Vortex Corporation. “Attacking someone unarmed? That doesn’t seem fair, does it?"

A series of complicated emotions flickered across the Orionese soldier’s face before it finally settled on frustration. “Again?” he muttered, grinding his teeth as tried to withstand the force of the rapier pushing against his sabre. The toll of the fight had evidently caught up with him as he was slowly driven back further and further. 

Vortex smirked, stealing a glance at Piyumi from the corner of her eyes. Piyumi could see that they were a piercing magenta from behind the shades, something she had once thought was due to contact lenses, but now… 

“Hey, brat. Watch this. You just might learn something.” 

With a speed belying her forty-seven years, Vortex threaded the blade of her rapier into the space between the Orionese soldier’s sword and the man himself. She pulled back her weapon to rip the sabre out of his grasp, an almost feral grin tugging at her lips as she held her rapier in one hand and her newly-acquired weapon in the other. 

The Orionese soldier stumbled back. In the split second his gaze shifted from the blades in Vortex’s grasp to Piyumi and back again, he appeared to have already decided his next move. 

"Why do they always run?” Vortex sighed, rolling her eyes as the Orionese soldier whirled around and broke into a hasty retreat. The stiletto of her heel clicked against the wet concrete as she took a step to follow, but then she suddenly paused and reached into her pocket. 

“Here.” 

Piyumi nearly jumped out of her skin when Vortex offered her a laminated black card between two well-manicured fingers. She grabbed it with a shaking hand. When she saw the name “Valentine Vortex” unmistakingly inscribed on the card in big, silver lettering above a phone number, she found she could deny it no longer. 

“What is- what are you-” her teeth chattered, but whether it was from the cold or shock she did not know. “What the hell is going-” 

“Shh,” Vortex held a finger to Piyumi’s lips. She used her other hand to lower her sunglasses and gave Piyumi a cheeky wink. “Let’s keep this little encounter between us, ‘kay?” 

Piyumi blinked dumbly, the sudden close proximity of a literal billionaire making her brain short-circuit completely. She watched soundlessly as Vortex drew away from her and turned around. The alleyway lit up as a fuschia-coloured glyph grew larger and larger from Vortex’s hands, until it spanned the entire width of the narrow path. There was another blinding flash as the glyph disappeared and a gaping void took its place. Before Piyumi could stop her, Vortex stepped into the inky blackness.

And then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the portal vanished and she was gone. 

Hisa spotted Piyumi slowly lugging Morrell along the sidewalk just as the sun was peeking over the horizon. Watching Hisa break into a sprint underneath half-lidded eyes, Piyumi wondered numbly whether the lieutenant had god-tier tracking skills or was just impossibly lucky to run into her. Even she didn’t know where the hell she was headed. 

Piyumi saw Hisa’s lips form words at a frenetic pace, but she could barely hear them. While the rain had long since parted, there was an ocean roaring in her ears. And she was sinking. Fast. Hard. There could've been light filtering in through the water above but what use would it be to reach for it? The world was shit. She felt like shit. She was shit. A piece of shit in a world of shit, who would never amount to anything, be anything- 

“-Highness…Your Highness!” 

Panicked hands grabbed her shoulders. Piyumi lost her grip. Morrell came crashing to the ground. It didn’t matter. 

“What were you thinking?!” 

What had she been thinking? 

“What happened?!”

Her? Queen? 

“Where have you been?!” 

That was….a laughable notion. A nobody…was a nobody, end of…story- 

“How could you be so incredibly stupid?!” 

“I’M NOT STUPID!” 

A car honked as it sped by, sweeping a wave of rainwater over their feet. Hisa blinked. Piyumi did too. 

“I’m…I’m not stupid,” she repeated after a long moment, averting her gaze. “I’m many things, but I’m not stupid.” 

Hisa recoiled as if she'd been slapped, releasing Piyumi’s shoulders as quickly as she had grabbed them. “I…” she began to say, before letting out a deep sigh, the tension grasping her frame subsiding. “No. No, you are not. I am so sorry, Your Highness. I just…when I realised you were gone….I thought….”

She trailed off, but what remained unsaid hung heavy in the air. Piyumi squeezed her eyes shut, her failed attempts at summoning her affinity fresh in her mind. She had been close — so, so close — and yet, she still couldn’t do it. She had an affinity, she was sure of that now, but what use was having one if she couldn’t use it? If the threat of death couldn’t kickstart her powers, then what would?

“You haven’t said it, but I know,” she said quietly. “I know the fact that I can’t summon my affinity is a problem. Not being able to use it will bar me from the throne, won’t it? Don’t even try to deny it. Like I said, I’m not stupid.” 

Hisa didn’t respond, but her answer was loud and clear. “You were already under so much pressure,” she said after a while. “I knew that burdening you with any additional stipulations to your ascension would just prove detrimental. Even now I…” 

It seemed as if she wanted to say something further, but she swallowed back her words. “In any case," she continued, "if you happen to not possess an affinity, you will always have a place in the Royal Court. You are Queen Piyumi’s daughter. That is something that will not change.” 

She gave Piyumi a reassuring smile but the redhead found herself unable to meet it. Having a place in the Royal Court? That simply wasn’t good enough. 

“I think I do though- have an affinity, I mean,” Piyumi muttered. “I…well, something happened while I was out, and I felt it, but I couldn’t summon it. Even when I was about to die, I just couldn’t-” 

“So you were attacked!” Hisa looked just about ready to tear her hair out. She grabbed Piyumi’s face, turning it this way and that as her eyes frantically searched for any sign of injury. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?! Are you okay?!” 

Piyumi was taken aback for a second. She thought the news about her affinity would be the bigger shock, but apparently not. “I’m fine. Really,” she nearly laughed at how distraught Hisa was, but suspected the lieutenant wouldn't appreciate that very much. Her fingers curled around Hisa’s hand, gently removing it from her cheeks. “Well, I guess I very nearly wasn’t. But then…” 

The memory of Vortex’s finger to her lips flashed through her mind. 

“...But then I managed to escape. After all, I did learn from the best.” 

Hisa gave Piyumi a long once over, as if she couldn’t quite believe the Princess had emerged from her ordeal virtually unscathed. Honestly, Piyumi could hardly believe it either, her hand unconsciously drifting to the business card in her coat pocket. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Hisa enough to tell her about Vortex, but… 

“Anyhow, while I do have an affinity, I don’t think I can use it,” she sighed. “If I haven’t managed to do so for twenty-two years, I don’t think that’s changing anytime soon. If you want to leave, I won’t blame you.” 

Hisa’s face washed over with an unreadable expression. Piyumi’s stomach flipped. There it was. The heel-turn. It was only a matter of time. Now that she wasn’t deemed of significance anymore, she would be cast aside. Like clockwork, rinse and repeat. First by her mother, then by her father, and now- 

“When I first realised you had disappeared, I couldn’t quite figure out how,” Hisa said, tone eerily even. “The possibility of abduction did cross my mind. While I had stationed myself outside your door the entire night, it was not impossible for someone to sneak in through the window and drug you before quickly fleeing the scene. But then I investigated further, and your missing motor horse made it abundantly clear that you had left of your own volition. So, Your Highness, allow me to ask you this: where have you been, what have you been doing and why was it so important that I did not know?”

Piyumi flinched. She thought she’d managed to pull the wool over Hisa’s eyes as to the reasons behind her little late night escapade, but no dice. If her shortcomings with her affinity didn’t somehow prevent her from becoming Queen, then this very well might. 

But there was nowhere left to run, so Piyumi looked Hisa squarely in the eyes and steeled her nerves. 

“I need to tell you something.” 

The scent of death was suffocating. 

The girl huddled behind the rolls of fabric, a hand clasped over Abhipadma’s mouth to stifle his cries, although she herself was close to screaming. The smell of charred flesh wrangled itself up her nose and the metallic stench of blood stained the air as the army outside razed through bodies as if they were made out of paper. 

It was only a matter of time before they would meet the same fate. 

“Sister, I-” Abhipadma managed to whisper under her palm, before he was cut off by a loud crash against the closed door. The girl pulled in her brother closer as the furniture she had barricaded against the entrance was pushed back bit by bit by something hulking ramming into the door over and over again, until finally-

“See, there’s no-one else here,” a defiant voice cut through the noise of the massacre outside as the door was torn open. The girl had to bite her lower lip to stop herself from crying out as her mother gestured wildly around the room to the giant soldier looming over her. 

“Really,” the soldier said, her lavender eyes sweeping over the space, agonisingly slow. The girl was grateful for the shadows cloaking the room, not only for the cover they provided, but for the fact they were the only thing pinning her soul to her body as she tried not to jump out of her skin in fear. “Your husband was quite insistent that I not come in here — so much so, he was willing to die for it.” 

With her back turned, the girl couldn’t see her mother’s face, but the way she jolted at the soldier’s words said it all. 

“We…just have a lot of valuable fabrics in here,” her mother said with a shuddering breath. “He was being stupid.” 

“Clearly,” the soldier scoffed. The thin streaks of moonlight seeping through the small window cast a clear view of the stark, white hair lying in a long braid over her shoulder — evidence of who exactly was responsible for the attack on the girl’s village. “Although his actions weren’t completely idiotic-” 

There was a quick swipe of the soldier’s sword. The girl watched as her mother fell to the floor, her body in one place but her head in another. 

“-death was inevitable, anyway.” 

It was only when the heavy footfalls of the soldier had disappeared completely did the girl allow herself to weep at the sight of the dismembered corpse. Her mother’s eyes stared back at her, wide and terrified.