Atlantis. The Heartland.

2792.

The End of the Reign of Emperor Beryl and Empress Opallyne.

Sapphyre.

Rage crashed over her like a wave.

If the Heart would not answer her, if it would not save her people – then perhaps it was never meant to. Perhaps it had only ever been a curse.

Sapphyre staggered to her feet, fury rising in her chest like a living thing.

"You did this," she spat, glaring up at the pulsing crystal. "You whispered to them – to my parents, to the Lords, to the Knights. You promised them power, and they tore each other apart for it."

Her magic flared, raw and untamed, crackling through her fingertips. The chamber trembled as she thrust her hands forward, her power surging toward the Heart.

The blast struck true – lightning and fire, stone and wind, her fury given form. The walls shook, cracks spiderwebbing through the marble, dust cascading from the ceiling.

But the Heart did not shatter.

The raw, burning energy of her magic dissipated against it, as if it were nothing. As if she were nothing.

Sapphyre let out a ragged breath, chest heaving.

No.

No, she would not be ignored. Would not be cast aside.

A wild, reckless thought, but it gripped her with unshakable certainty. If the Heart had corrupted Atlantis, if it had turned her own people against each other, then it could not remain there.

She would not let it control them any longer.

Snarling, she stepped forward, wrapping her hands around the glowing crystal. The moment her fingers met its surface, a jolt of energy shot through her, freezing her in place. The air around her warped, a thousand voices whispering, clawing at the edges of her mind.

Chosen.

Heir.

Blessed.

Sapphyre gritted her teeth and pulled.

Pain lanced through her arms, through her chest, as if the magic of the Heart itself was trying to hold her back. But she would not stop. She had come too far, lost too much.

With a final, shuddering breath, she ripped the Heart from its resting place.

The chamber screamed.

A wave of force exploded outward, sending cracks ripping through the floor, the ceiling, the very foundations of the palace. Dust and rubble rained down around her, the once-sacred space now crumbling into ruin.

And still, the Heart pulsed in her grasp.

Bright. Unyielding.

For the first time, the Heart of Atlantis had been torn from its place.

And Sapphyre, gripping it tightly, turned her back on the wreckage.

She did not look back.

Unknown.

2353.

50th Year of the Reign of King Caspian X.

Sapphyre.

The world around her was a haze, a fog so thick it clung to her mind like a damp cloth. Her body felt heavy, weighed down, as though she were sinking into the deepest parts of the sea. She tried to move, to lift her hand, but it wouldn't obey her.

Her breath came slow, shallow, and her mind screamed to wake – to fight – but it was futile.

She blinked, struggling against the pull of unconsciousness, but the weight of it was too strong. Her eyelids fluttered closed, and the world dissolved into darkness once more.

The sea roared around her, the crash of waves deafening. The sky above was blackened, heavy with the fury of a storm.

The sound of screams tore through the air, sharp and ragged. People, Atlanteans, her people, were running, fleeing. Their faces were twisted in terror as the earth beneath them shook, as if the very foundations of the world were unravelling. She tried to reach them, to help, but her feet were stuck in the sand, her legs frozen in place.

She could see the wreckage of Atlantis – its ivory towers crumbled to dust, the streets flooded with saltwater, the once-beautiful city now a ruin of twisted metal and stone. And then, the sky cracked open, the storm growing fiercer, and the waters began to rise higher, swallowing everything in its path.

She could see the Heart, glinting, pulsating.

Mocking.

Her heart had thundered in her chest, the terror of it gripping her throat, but she had been too weak to move, too trapped within the collapsing world to escape. The water surged, drowning everything. Atlantis – the home she had once loved, the world she had bled to protect – was no more, buried beneath the waves and the weight of their past.

But just as the sea had closed in, just as she thought she would be consumed by the depths, a bitter scent hit her senses – a sharp, sickly sweetness that stung her nose and burned her throat.

Nightrose.

She gasped, trying to pull away, but it was too late.

The powder had been blown directly into her face, the fine dust sinking into her skin, curling through her veins like a drug, like poison. Her body rebelled, muscles locking, her vision blurring, and her mind, already shattered by the chaos of her dreams, slipped further into oblivion.

Her limbs felt too heavy to move, too numb to respond. The dream, the screams, the crashing waves – they all blurred together as her consciousness faded away.

And then... nothing.

Underland. The Dark City.

Emerylda.

The walls, carved from stone as dark as obsidian, gleamed with soft firelight from floating braziers that never smoked. Shadows danced along every pillar like loyal wraiths, bowing as Emerylda passed.

She stood at the far end, in the curve of her crescent throne, a goblet of nightrose wine cradled in her palm.

"Progress?" she asked, without turning.

Rois stepped forward from the gloom near the pillars, ever silent in his approach. The herbalist moved like a whisper, his tunic blacker than the walls themselves, his expression smug in that infuriating way he had.

"The nightrose is working." His voice was smooth, oily. "The nobles of Cair Paravel sip it at their midnight banquets and toast to dreams they can't remember come morning. Their minds are softening. Slipping."

Emerylda allowed a small smile to curve her lips.

"And the shipments?"

"Increasing," Rois replied. "Your merchant puppets distribute it as an exotic tonic. A delicacy. They don't even ask what it's made of." He chuckled. "The Den was the perfect test."

Emerylda laughed softly – cold, sharp.

"Let them drink their doom in crystal goblets," she murmured, swirling the wine. "Let their tongues praise what poisons them. When the time comes, there will be no strength left in them to resist."

The wine gleamed like garnet in her cup. She looked down into its depths, and her smile slowly faded.

"Continue the distribution," she said. "Double it if needed. And make sure the noble houses keep their cellars stocked."

"And if any grow suspicious?" Rois asked.

"Then they can drink the stronger batch." She didn't look at him as she spoke, her gaze fixed on the goblet. "The one that doesn't allow for questions."

Rois bowed.

"As you command, my Queen."

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

She reclined on her throne, fingers drumming against the carved armrest in a rhythm known only to her. The throne room around her hummed with activity – advisors murmuring over scrolls, courtiers trailing silk and secrets, Rois bowing low with another report of shipments and seductions. And yet, her thoughts drifted elsewhere.

Where was she?

Sapphyre. Her sister. Her shadow. Her blade.

Emerylda's jaw tensed, though she allowed no sign of it to reach her face. Sapphyre had not yet returned.

She was taking too long.

Was she doubting?

The thought bit deeper than it should. Emerylda brushed a stray strand of auburn hair behind her ear and rose, letting her wineglass fall into the waiting hand of a servant without so much as a glance.

Across the hall, he stood.

Her Dark Knight.

Rilian.

The man who had once borne sunlight in his gaze now stood cloaked in shadow. The magic of the chair had worked well, shaping him into something powerful, silent, beautiful. He was her sword, forged in pain and bound in loyalty. She had made him so.

He turned slightly, sensing her attention.

She smiled.

Yes. He was hers.

So why – why did the memory of Sapphyre's narrowed eyes haunt her like an echo of judgment? Why did she imagine her sister's voice rising above the whispering court, accusing, demanding, burning through every well-laid lie?

She clenched her hand until her nails bit into her palm.

Rois was speaking again, something about the next phase of the wine's distribution, about planting their vials in the palace kitchens.

Emerylda only half listened. Her eyes stayed fixed on Rilian, tall and beautiful in his silence, and she wondered—

No.

She could not.

She would not.

He was hers.

And she would not waver.

Not when every decision she had made since entering Narnia had led to that moment.

Cair Paravel.

Diamande.

Neve was trapped in a haze of withdrawal.

For over a week, she drifted between restless sleep and fevered wakefulness, her body shaking, slick with cold sweat as it rid itself of the poison. She begged for nightrose. She begged for ambrosia. She pleaded in whispers, in desperate cries, her usually musical voice raw with suffering.

Diamande stayed.

There was little he could do but endure it with her. He could not give her what she wanted – what she thought she needed – but he could keep her from hurting herself. He could be present when the worst of the tremors took hold, when she curled in on herself and whimpered like a wounded thing.

And he played for her.

The small, wooden lyre had been borrowed from the castle's musicians. He plucked the strings gently, letting the soft melody weave through the chamber, filling the silence that stretched between them. It was a tune from home, something ancient, something steady. She never spoke while he played.

But afterward, when the notes faded into the dim candlelight, she talked.

She spoke of Sapphyre and of Rilian, of a friendship forged in the depths of Underland, in the shifting tunnels of a world beneath a world. She told him of the battle that had nearly taken Sapphyre's life, how she had bled for Neve, how she had protected her even when there was nothing left of herself to give.

But she would not tell him where the entrances to Underland were.

It was the one thing she would not break on.

She trusted Sapphyre. She trusted Eirwyn. And Diamande could see it in her frost-touched eyes—that quiet, unshakable loyalty. She would not put them in danger, not even now, not even for him.

So, he did not press her.

He simply kept playing, watching as the worst of the nightrose bled from her system, waiting for the day she could stand again without trembling.

He had seen warriors bleed out on battlefields, had watched men fade from life with nothing but a whisper on their lips. He had seen death and despair, but never had he felt so helpless as he did now, sitting beside a girl who was little more than skin and bone, curled up beneath a mountain of furs as she trembled with withdrawal.

She had stopped begging for nightrose days ago. Now, she simply wept in the quietest of moments, when she thought he was not watching.

Drinian had done what he could – Cair Paravel's healers had offered what remedies they had, but there was no easy cure for what ran through her blood. She had to endure it. And Diamande had to endure it with her.

He had played for her again that morning, and when his fingers grew tired, he simply sat by the window, watching the snowfall beyond the glass.

There had been no sign of Sapphyre.

Neither he nor Drinian had heard anything since the night the Den burned. It was as if she had vanished from the land entirely, disappearing like the embers that had risen into the sky. But Diamande had seen the fire in her eyes.

She had not given up.

He could feel it in his bones. The same way he had felt her magic across the breadth of Narnia that night, the same way he had known, in his heart, that she would not rest until the ones responsible had been dragged into the light.

So, Drinian searched for her.

The Lord Advisor had resources. He had eyes in every corner of the kingdom, ears in every shadowed hallway. And yet, Sapphyre remained elusive, slipping through their fingers like mist at dawn.