Severence

Atlas’s declaration—"I will take the second"—hit me harder than any blast of dark energy. The air was sucked from my lungs, not by the ward's pressure, but by the cold, calculated cruelty of his plan. The Elder God of Succession didn't just want power; he wanted to destroy the entire lineage, replacing my rule with a perfect, double sacrifice.
I didn't have time for fear. Atlas lunged, not with a ceremonial weapon, but with his bare hands, his fingers tipped with claw-like energy. He wasn't aiming to wound; he was aiming to capture.
I twisted aside, the movement wrenching a gasp of pain from my throat. My power was anemic, a flickering candle against his roaring bonfire. I didn't try to conjure shields; I used the last of my Golden Line quickness to evade, dodging his grasp. His palm scraped my shoulder, and the touch felt like a freezing burn, sapping my remaining strength.
"Run all you like, sister," Atlas hissed, his eyes blazing with victory. "Your life-force is a drain, a sieve. The child's power is already straining to break free. Why fight? Give me the nexus, and I’ll spare the first brat."
He's lying. He would sacrifice them both.
I scrambled backward, searching for the dagger I’d dropped. I needed a distraction, anything to give Sophie the opening she needed.
"You're a fool, Atlas!" I spat, scrambling to my knees. "You serve a parasite! It will not make you a King—it will make you a slave!"
The insult worked. His face contorted with rage, and he channeled a massive surge of purple energy, preparing a concussive blast. This was my chance. I wouldn't survive the hit, but it would buy Sophie precious seconds.

The Price of Revelation

Sophie was frozen. The world had just fractured into a series of impossible, unbearable truths: Her younger brother, Adrian, was bleeding out. Her powerful mother was compromised. And the reason for all of it—the ultimate source of the enemy's desire—was the secret sibling growing inside her mother.
A second heir. The ultimate nexus.
Her mother’s cry, "Sophie!" was the alarm bell that finally cut through the emotional paralysis. She saw Atlas turn his full fury on her mother, his entire body glowing with destructive intent, his focus locked on the Queen and the hidden life she carried.
Sophie didn't hesitate. She didn't have time to process the lie, the risk, the sacrifice. She only saw the target.
The Sacred Nexus. The ring of glowing, black-etched runes where the power was gathering.
She darted along the perimeter of the clearing, keeping low, moving with the preternatural silence of her royal training. She gripped the knife—the small, wickedly sharp one she'd pulled from her boot. Her mind was a singular, focused point: Sever the circle. Stop the ritual.
The ward separating the circle from the outside was still weak near the boundary where I'd broken through. Sophie burst into the magic-choked air, a scream muffled in her throat. The pressure was suffocating, attempting to push her back, but she pushed through a wave of sheer, adrenaline-fueled will.
She didn’t run toward the altar, which was too far. She ran to the nearest place where the ritual’s power flowed into the circle, a point marked by a nexus of three glowing runes.
She slammed the heel of her hand onto the dirt, stabilizing herself against the ritual’s oppressive force. Without a moment of hesitation, she plunged the small knife deep into the flesh of her own forearm.
A gasp tore from her lips. It felt like her entire arm was being dunked in fire, but she held steady.
Her pure Golden Blood, untainted by the drain of a powerful surge, bright and shimmering, cascaded down her arm and onto the glowing, black earth.

Severance

The effect was instantaneous and catastrophic.
The purple glow that enveloped the Grove shrieked. Atlas’s focused blast of energy, ready to strike me, veered violently away, slamming into an innocent oak and vaporizing it instantly.
The ritual circle didn't just stop; it imploded.
The black runes cracked, sizzling violently as the pure, uncorrupted Golden Blood—the life-force of a Crown Princess—hit the corrupted Nexus. A brilliant, white-gold energy erupted where Sophie stood, directly contesting the Elder God’s purple power.
Atlas roared in disbelief and pain, clutching his temples. The sheer force of the energy disruption was a physical blow to him, a metaphysical contradiction that tore at the corrupted power binding his mind.
"NO! THE SECOND BLOODLINE!" he screamed, abandoning his attack on me.
He whirled toward Sophie, fury overriding the pain. He knew the ritual was fatally compromised, and he knew who had done it.
"You've chosen a short life, niece!"
He launched himself across the shattered circle toward her.
I was on my feet instantly, fueled by a new, frantic surge of mother-power. I saw my abandoned dagger gleaming on the ground between us. I dove, my weak body protesting every inch, and snatched it up.
Atlas was committed to killing Sophie, his eyes fixed on the young woman whose blood was dissolving his moment of ascension.
I closed the distance, the pain in my abdomen a distant hum beneath the adrenaline. I didn't have the power for a fight. I only had the power for a choice.
As Atlas reached Sophie, ready to strike her down, I plunged the small, consecrated blade not into his chest, but into the single, most vulnerable spot on the entire ritual ground—the altar itself.
The tip of the dagger found a seam in the rough-hewn stone, a tiny fissure directly beneath Adrian’s still, unconscious body.
The sound that followed was not a scream or a blast, but a terrifying, grinding tear. The Heartwood Grove, the ancient Nexus of my bond with Marcus, began to unravel. The magic holding the place together—the very foundation of our reign—was being ripped apart.
The air collapsed inward. A deafening, localized sonic boom erupted, throwing me, Sophie, and Atlas violently into the air. Adrian, suddenly free of the bond that held him, slid off the splintered altar.
As my world tumbled into a vortex of pain, blinding white light, and deafening noise, I felt something else—a familiar, world-shaking vibration.
A sound that was miles away, but closing fast.
The enraged, earth-shattering roar of a Dragon King.