Chapter Text
Since I could remember, I hated my mother. It wasn’t the fiery, screaming kind of hatred you see in movies. It wasn’t the kind that explodes with slammed doors or shouts echoing down hallways. No, my hatred for her was quiet. It sat in my chest like a cold, heavy stone, growing slowly over the years. It fed on her sharp words, her cutting stares, and the way she always seemed to look right through me, as though I wasn’t even there. My mother wasn’t evil—no, that would’ve been easier. She was calculated, controlled, everything I wasn’t, and everything she expected me to be.
I sat on the sidelines of the training yard that morning, knees pulled up to my chest as the cold air bit at my skin. My older siblings, Brennan and Mira, were sparring in the center, their weapons clashing in perfect rhythm. Brennan, always quick on his feet, grinned as he dodged Mira’s strike, and Mira’s precision with her blade was sharp enough to draw admiration from anyone watching. The frosted grass beneath my feet glinted in the weak sunlight, and I kept my gaze down, content to watch. Watching was safe. Watching meant I didn’t have to fail.
The sound of boots crunching on the gravel made my stomach tighten. My mother strode into the yard, her sharp, commanding presence cutting through the mist like a blade. She didn’t spare Brennan or Mira a glance, even though they were doing exactly what she expected of them. Her eyes, cold and piercing, were fixed on me.
“Why aren’t you training?” she demanded, her voice so sharp it stung worse than the morning air.
Startled, I looked up at her, fumbling for words. “I—I’m watching them,” I stammered, trying to keep my voice steady.
Her gaze narrowed, and she tilted her head slightly, her disappointment palpable. “You’ll never grow stronger by sitting on the sidelines, Violet. Weakness doesn’t earn survival. You either fight, or you fall. And right now, you’re falling.”
The shame her words carried was as familiar as the chill in the air, but it still hit like a fresh wound. I nodded quickly, ducking my head in a futile attempt to hide how much it stung. From the corner of my eye, I saw Brennan glance in our direction. His usual bright expression darkened, but he didn’t say anything. He wouldn’t—not to her.
Her words pulled me back to a memory of my last training session, one that still burned in the back of my mind. I’d fallen—not just once, but over and over again. My knees had been scraped raw, and my arms had trembled from the weight of the sword she insisted I hold. She’d been there, watching, her arms crossed over her chest and her eyes as cold as they were now.
“Do it again,” she had said when I dropped the blade for the third time. “And this time, don’t embarrass yourself.”
I remembered how I’d fought back tears as I bent to pick up the sword, my fingers slippery with a mix of sweat and blood. She hadn’t helped. She hadn’t even offered a word of encouragement. She just stood there, detached, as if I were nothing more than another soldier-in-training, not her daughter.
Her voice echoed in my mind now, her words weaving themselves into my skin. Weakness doesn’t earn survival.
I looked down at my hands, so much smaller and frailer than Mira’s. They weren’t hands meant for gripping swords. They weren’t hands meant to survive in my mother’s world.
Brennan disarmed Mira with a quick flick of his wrist, the sparring match over in an instant. As he walked past me, he reached down and ruffled my hair, his grin softening into something gentler. “Don’t listen to her, Vi,” he said quietly, leaning closer so only I could hear. “You’re stronger than she’ll ever admit.”
I didn’t respond, but his words stayed with me, warm against the cold that always seemed to linger.
One day, I thought. One day, I’ll prove it. To her. To myself.
I watched my mother turn and walk away, her back straight and unyielding. My fists clenched as I stared at her retreating figure. For now, I hated her in silence. But one day, I’d turn that silence into strength.
⛸️👑🤍✨
If my hatred for my mother was quiet, my love for my father was anything but. It burned bright, steady, a warmth I clung to when the coldness of my mother’s disapproval grew unbearable. Where she was sharp and distant, he was gentle and endlessly patient. He didn’t see me as a disappointment. He saw me as Violet, his little girl who was always capable of more than she thought.
The first time my body truly betrayed me, I was nine years old. It happened during one of my mother’s grueling training sessions, the kind where her expectations sat like a weight on my chest. I was practicing rolls and dodges, trying to keep up with Brennan and Mira, when pain flared in my knees so suddenly and intensely that I collapsed onto the cold, hard ground.
At first, I thought I’d simply landed wrong. But then my wrists ached from catching myself, my joints felt like they were on fire, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t push myself back up.
“Get up,” my mother said, standing over me, her arms crossed. Her tone was sharp, unyielding, but I could hear the undercurrent of disappointment. “Violet, get. Up.”
“I—I can’t,” I stammered, blinking back tears. My hands trembled as I tried to push off the ground, but the pain only worsened.
Her gaze darkened. “You’re not hurt. You’re just weak.”
Brennan stepped in, his face pale with worry. “Mom, I think—”
“Stay out of this, Brennan,” she snapped, not even sparing him a glance. “She doesn’t need coddling.”
But it wasn’t coddling I needed. It was someone to tell me it was okay to stop. To tell me that my body wasn’t broken, even though it felt like it was.
The flare left me bedridden for days, my joints swollen and my muscles aching with every slight movement. My father stayed by my side the entire time, reading me stories or simply sitting with me when the pain made it hard to speak. He was the one who brought me to a doctor, who pushed past my mother’s insistence that I was fine.
The diagnosis—Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome—didn’t mean much to me at the time, but it meant everything to him. It meant the training sessions would stop. It meant I could breathe again.
By the time I was eleven, my parents’ marriage was falling apart. I didn’t need to overhear their late-night arguments to know they weren’t going to make it. My mother’s icy pragmatism had always clashed with my father’s warmth, but after Brennan’s death, the gap between them became a chasm.
When they finally split, it wasn’t a surprise. What surprised me was the choice I had to make.
“You’ll come with me, of course,” my mother had said, her tone clipped, as if it wasn’t up for debate. “You need discipline. Training. You need to learn how to survive in the real world.”
My father didn’t argue with her. He simply looked at me, his expression calm but hopeful. “You can stay with me and Brennan,” he said quietly. “We’ll figure it out.”
I didn’t hesitate.
Mira chose to stay with my mother, determined to follow in her footsteps, but I chose my father and Brennan. I chose a house filled with warmth, even if it wasn’t perfect.
It was around this time that I discovered figure skating.
My dad had been a figure skater in his youth, something he rarely talked about but clearly loved. Brennan mentioned it once in passing, and I begged him to tell me more. The next day, he pulled out old photographs of himself in glittering costumes, his hair a little longer and his face bright with laughter.
He took me to an empty rink one weekend, just to “see what I thought.”
I thought it was magic.
The ice felt like freedom in a way nothing else ever had. My joints ached at first, but the more I skated, the more I realized the fluidity of the movements seemed to help rather than hurt. My dad didn’t push me or critique me the way my mother had. He simply showed me the basics, letting me move at my own pace. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t trying to meet someone else’s expectations. I was just… me.
By the time I was twelve, skating had become my escape. Whenever the pressure of school or life got to be too much, I’d slip on my skates and let the ice carry me. My dad would watch from the sidelines, cheering me on as I tried—and often failed—to land jumps or spins.
“You’re getting better every day,” he’d say, even when I knew it wasn’t true.
And for once, I believed him.
🤍❄️⛸️👑
I was thirteen when my world fell apart.
It was a crisp autumn morning, the kind where the air smelled of leaves and frost. I was at the rink, trying to perfect a spin my dad had shown me the week before. He was leaning against the boards, a cup of steaming coffee in his hands, smiling every time I stumbled but got back up.
Then the call came.
I saw the way his face changed the moment he answered his phone. The warmth in his expression vanished, replaced by something tight and unreadable. He glanced at me, hesitated, and then walked to the far side of the rink. I stopped mid-glide, my chest tightening. Even then, I knew.
When he finally told me, I didn’t cry. Not at first.
“Your brother…” He paused, swallowing hard, his voice cracking in a way I’d never heard before. “There was an ambush. Brennan didn’t make it.”
The words didn’t feel real. I stared at him, waiting for him to correct himself, to say it was a mistake. But he didn’t. He just looked at me, his face pale and his eyes glassy.
I whispered, “No.”
And then the world seemed to tilt.
The weeks that followed were a blur. There was a military funeral, cold and formal, with men and women in crisp uniforms saluting as Brennan’s casket was lowered into the ground. My mother stood at the front, her face a mask of composure. Mira was next to her, stiff and stoic, her lips pressed into a thin line.
I stayed with my dad, clutching his hand so tightly I thought my fingers might break. He was the only thing keeping me grounded, the only warmth in a sea of cold formality.
My mother didn’t cry. I don’t think she even blinked.
After the funeral, she pulled me aside. “Brennan wouldn’t have wanted this,” she said, her tone as sharp as ever. “You have to be strong. No more falling apart.”
I wanted to scream at her, to tell her that I wasn’t her, that I couldn’t just turn off my feelings like a switch. But I didn’t. I just nodded, my throat too tight to speak.
The only thing that kept me from completely breaking was ice skating.
Every free moment, I went to the rink. It was the only place where I could breathe, where the weight of Brennan’s death didn’t feel so crushing. On the ice, I didn’t have to think. I didn’t have to feel. I could just move, letting the rhythm of my skates drown out the chaos in my mind.
My dad came with me most days, sitting on the sidelines and cheering me on even when my movements were clumsy and slow. His encouragement was the only thing that kept me going.
It was during one of those skating sessions that I met Rhiannon.
She was new to Navarre, and I noticed her watching me from the other side of the rink. When I tripped over my own feet and fell hard on the ice, she laughed—not in a mean way, but the kind of laugh that made me laugh, too, despite the ache in my chest.
“You’ve got guts,” she said as she skated over to me, holding out a hand to help me up.
I smiled for the first time in weeks. “Or I’m just stubborn.”
Rhiannon became my first real friend. She didn’t try to fix me or tell me it would all be okay. She just skated with me, her easygoing nature a balm to the storm in my chest.
A few months later, my dad told me about Basgiath Military School.
We were sitting at the kitchen table, the warm glow of the overhead light softening the lines of worry on his face.
“Your mother has… insisted,” he said carefully, not meeting my eyes. “She thinks it’s important for you to start at Basgiath in the fall. The training, the structure—it’s what she believes you need.”
I froze. “I don’t want to go.”
“I know,” he said quietly. “I don’t want you to either, but… it’s not my decision. She left me no choice.”
Tears prickled at the corners of my eyes, but I blinked them back. “Why does she get to decide everything?”
“Because she’s your mother,” he said, his voice heavy with regret. “But Violet, listen to me. No matter what happens, no matter how hard it gets, you’ll always have skating. That’s yours. No one can take that from you.”
When I started at Basgiath the following September, I quickly learned that it wasn’t a place meant for someone like me.
I was smaller than the other cadets, weaker, my joints aching from the endless drills and physical training. Every day was a struggle to keep up, and every night I fell into bed, my muscles screaming in protest.
But I clung to skating like a lifeline. Whenever I was free, I went to the rink. On the ice, I wasn’t weak. I wasn’t fragile. I was free.
👑🤍✨🐉👑
The rink was nearly empty that evening, the fluorescent lights casting a soft glow on the smooth expanse of ice. My breath puffed out in small clouds as I adjusted the laces on my skates, fingers numb from the cold but buzzing with anticipation. This was the night I was going to nail it—my first double axel.
I’d been working on it for weeks, replaying every video my dad had shown me, studying every movement. I could hear his voice in my head as I stood at the edge of the rink, visualizing the jump.
“Commit to the takeoff, Vi. Don’t hesitate. Trust your body and let the ice do the rest.”
I took a deep breath, shaking out my arms before pushing off. The familiar sound of my blades slicing the ice steadied me, and I glided into the setup. Arms tight, knees bent, I launched into the air.
For a split second, everything else fell away.
The world tilted as I spun, two rotations sharp and fast, before my blades kissed the ice again with a satisfying crunch. My knees bent to absorb the landing, and for a moment, I was stunned.
Then I laughed, a breathless, giddy sound that echoed through the empty rink. I’d done it. My first double axel.
My dad was waiting for me when I stepped off the ice, his face lighting up the way it always did when I achieved something new. He handed me a towel, his grin wide and proud.
“I saw that,” he said. “Perfect rotation, solid landing. You made it look easy.”
“It didn’t feel easy,” I admitted, wrapping the towel around my shoulders as I sat to unlatch my skates. “I was sure I was going to wipe out again.”
“But you didn’t,” he said, crouching in front of me to meet my eyes. “And now you know you can do it. That’s all that matters.”
We walked home together, the crisp night air biting at my cheeks. My dad hummed quietly as we strolled, a habit he had whenever he was in a good mood. It was one of those rare, perfect evenings—just me and him, the world quiet and still.
I didn’t know it would be the last one we’d have.
The next morning, I woke up to the sound of someone knocking on the door. Groggy, I stumbled out of bed, expecting to find my dad in the kitchen with his usual cup of coffee. But the kitchen was empty.
The knocking grew louder, more insistent. When I opened the door, a man in a dark uniform stood there, his expression somber.
“Miss Sorrengail?” he asked, his voice low.
I nodded, confusion and dread curling in my stomach.
“I’m sorry to inform you… your father passed away early this morning.”
The words didn’t make sense. They couldn’t. I shook my head, backing away from the door. “No. That’s… that’s not possible. He was fine last night. We walked home—he was fine!”
“I’m so sorry,” the man said again, stepping inside. “It was sudden. A heart attack.”
My knees buckled, and I sank to the floor, the world spinning around me. The man’s voice faded into the background as the weight of the words crushed me. My dad was gone.
The one constant in my life, the person who had always believed in me, who had made me feel like I was enough—he was gone.
I don’t know how much time passed before the man spoke again, his voice pulling me back to the present.
“There’s one more thing,” he said carefully. “Your mother has arranged for you to move into the dormitories at Basgiath War Colleg. You’ll be living there from now on and go the Military school as you’re still too young for College.”
It was like another blow, swift and brutal. My mother. Of course, she wouldn’t wait, wouldn’t even give me time to process. This was her chance to pull me back under her control.
“No,” I said, my voice shaking. “I can’t—”
“It’s already been decided,” he interrupted. “You’ll start immediately.”
I felt hollow, like the air had been sucked from my lungs. My dad was gone, and now I was being forced into a world I didn’t belong in, surrounded by people who would see me as nothing but weak.
That night, I packed my things in silence. Every time I folded another sweater or tucked away a keepsake, I felt like I was leaving a part of myself behind. My dad’s empty chair at the kitchen table, the way he used to hum when he cooked dinner, the warmth he brought to every room—all of it was gone.
As I stared at the duffel bag on my bed, my chest ached with the weight of what I’d lost. The only thing I could cling to was the rink, the ice. It was the one place where I still felt like myself, where I could still hear my dad’s voice guiding me.
“Commit to the takeoff, Vi. Don’t hesitate. Trust your body and let the ice do the rest.”
✨🐉👑⛸️🤍
By the time I turned fifteen, I’d stopped trusting people.
The world had taught me that trust was fragile, and I was tired of watching it shatter. My mother’s cold indifference had already taught me not to rely on her. Losing my father solidified that lesson. The only person I let in was Rhiannon. She didn’t push or demand anything from me. She just showed up, steady and constant, and I clung to her friendship like a lifeline.
At Basgiath Military School, I was surrounded by cadets who were everything I wasn’t—stronger, faster, and unrelenting. I was the smallest in my class, the weakest in terms of physical strength, and my joints ached constantly from the endless drills. Every day felt like a battle to prove that I wasn’t a waste of space.
The instructors didn’t care about my sharp mind or quick thinking. To them, all that mattered was brute strength, and I didn’t have it.
But the ice still welcomed me.
Whenever I had free time, I slipped away to the rink. It was the only place where the world didn’t expect me to be anything other than what I was. Some days, I could barely manage a few laps before my body screamed in protest. Other days, I pushed through the pain to land jumps and spins that made me feel like I was flying.
Skating reminded me of my father. It reminded me that there was more to life than Basgiath, more than my mother’s cold expectations.
When I turned eighteen, I transitioned from the school into Basgiath War College. It was supposed to be a step up, a mark of success. But to me, it felt like a sentence. I was still small, still weaker than most of my peers, and the constant grind of training pushed my body to its limits.
Most cadets thrived on the camaraderie, the sense of belonging that came with their squads. I didn’t. I kept my walls high, my distance clear. Trusting people was a luxury I couldn’t afford.
Rhiannon was my only exception. She stood by me through every failure, every bad day, every moment I wanted to give up. I didn’t deserve her loyalty, but I didn’t know how to let her go either.
🤍❄️⛸️🐉
The first time I heard about Tyrrendor, I wasn’t paying attention.
It was a late night in the mess hall, the kind of night where exhaustion weighed heavy on everyone. I was bent over my notes for a strategy exam, trying to block out the murmurs around me.
“Another border dispute,” someone muttered nearby. “Navarre and Tyrrendor are going to come to blows sooner or later.”
“Wouldn’t be surprising,” someone else replied. “General Sorrengail’s been gunning for Tyrrendor for years.”
I froze, my pen stilling on the page.
“Yeah,” the first voice continued. “She’s been vocal about their ‘expansion’ efforts near our borders. Doesn’t help that Tyrrendor keeps trying to play the victim.”
“Didn’t they have an assassination attempt a few years back? On their king?”
“King Fen, yeah. That was a mess.”
“And his son? The prince? What’s his name—Xavier?”
“Xaden,” the other corrected. “Prince Xaden Riorson. Though good luck finding anything about him. Fen keeps him out of the public eye, supposedly until he’s twenty-five.”
I forced my attention back to my notes, but the conversation echoed in my mind long after it ended.
But that night, I couldn’t help myself. I pulled out my laptop and searched for Tyrrendor, skimming through articles about the border disputes and the kingdom’s growing tensions with Navarre. I found vague mentions of King Fen Riorson and his son, Prince Xaden, but there were no photos, no interviews, no details.
One article stood out: “King Fen Riorson has worked tirelessly to keep his only son out of the public eye, citing the failed assassination attempt on his own life as a reason for heightened security.”
It made sense. After what had happened, who wouldn’t want to protect their family?
I leaned back in my chair, the pieces slowly falling into place. My mother had always been cold and calculating, but whenever Tyrrendor came up, something sharper lurked beneath her mask. She dismissed the kingdom as irrelevant whenever I asked about it, but I’d heard her voice harden in strategy meetings. She didn’t just see Tyrrendor as a rival. She saw them as a threat—and one she deeply resented.
I couldn’t help but wonder if she was involved in the failed assassination.
The thought made my stomach twist, but it also made too much sense. Her hatred for Tyrrendor was palpable. And now that I thought about it, she’d been angrier, colder, and more determined than ever after the assassination attempt failed.
I closed my laptop, staring at the blank wall of my room.
I didn’t know much about Tyrrendor. I didn’t know anything about Prince Xaden Riorson, other than the fact that his father had gone to great lengths to protect him. But what I did know was this: my mother’s hatred wasn’t going to end with whispers and strategy meetings.
Her bitterness ran too deep for that.
The next day, I stepped onto the ice, my skates cutting through the surface as I pushed forward. My thoughts churned, but I let the cold air and the rhythm of my movements steady me.
Whatever was happening between Navarre and Tyrrendor, whatever my mother had done or would do—it wasn’t my fight. Not yet.
On the ice, I could forget about borders and politics. On the ice, I could just be.
🤍🐉✨👑⛸️
The hum of the plane filled the silence between Rhiannon and me. She sat beside me, her legs crossed and a magazine open in her lap, though I doubted she was reading it. Every so often, she glanced out the window, her grin so wide it could have lit up the whole cabin.
I stared at the small, scratched tray table in front of me, tracing the chipped edges with my finger. The plane was carrying us to Aretia, the capital of Tyrrendor, and with it, the promise of a new beginning.
I was leaving Navarre. Finally.
It wasn’t a rash decision. Rhiannon had asked me weeks ago, her voice bubbling with excitement as she painted a picture of life in Aretia—new opportunities, new faces, and the freedom to leave our pasts behind. I hadn’t even hesitated before saying yes.
Navarre had never felt like home, not since my father died. And Basgiath Warriors War College had only solidified my resolve to leave.
I shifted in my seat and turned toward the window. The clouds stretched endlessly across the horizon, the faint glow of the sun reflecting off their edges. I should have felt nervous, but all I felt was relief.
My mother didn’t know by now I’d dropped out of Basgiath.
The thought made my lips curl into the faintest smile. It would be weeks, maybe longer, before she realized I was gone. She wouldn’t care about why I left, only about how it would reflect on her. Another failure to add to my list.
I didn’t care. Navarre and its endless expectations could rot for all I cared.
“Are you nervous?” Rhiannon asked, breaking through my thoughts.
I glanced at her, the corners of my mouth twitching. “Not really. Just… thinking.”
“You’re lying,” she teased, closing her magazine with a slap. “You’re totally nervous.”
“Okay, maybe a little,” I admitted. “But only because I don’t know what to expect.”
“That’s what makes it exciting,” she said, leaning back in her seat. “Aretia is going to be amazing, Vi. You’ll see.”
Her confidence was contagious, but my thoughts still drifted to the uncertainty of what was ahead.
I had already secured a place at one of Aretia’s figure skating rinks. Weeks ago, I’d sent a collection of videos and an application, and to my surprise, the response had been immediate. They’d wanted me, even after all these years of skating quietly, away from the spotlight.
Figure skating had always been my lifeline. Even during my years at Basgiath, juggling relentless training and injuries, I’d kept going. Every year, I competed in tournaments, pouring everything I had into my routines. The medals I earned, tucked away in a small box in my bag, were the only reminders of what I was capable of.
Skating was mine. It wasn’t tied to my mother’s expectations, or Navarre’s corruption, or Basgiath’s impossible standards. On the ice, I could breathe.
The plane hit a small pocket of turbulence, and I tightened my grip on the armrest, my mind drifting back to Navarre.
The country was rotten to its core. I’d known that for years, but I’d learned just how deep the rot went when I overheard my mother’s strategy meetings. She never outright admitted it, but I’d pieced enough together to know the truth: she was the one behind the failed assassination attempt on King Fen Riorson of Tyrrendor.
And just like always, she hadn’t faced any consequences.
Navarre’s government had looked the other way, covering up her involvement and blaming the growing tension on Tyrrendor. I’d stayed silent, knowing there was nothing I could do to change it. My voice wouldn’t have mattered. Not in Navarre, where corruption was woven into the very fabric of its leadership.
But I couldn’t shake the memory of those whispers about the Prince.
Even now, years after the failed assassination, no one seemed to know much about him. Fen had gone to great lengths to protect his son from the public eye, and I couldn’t blame him. Tyrrendor might not have been perfect, but it had something Navarre lacked: a king who actually cared about his people.
My mother despised Tyrrendor, and she hated Fen even more. Her disdain had always seemed petty to me, but now I wondered if it was guilt.
The pilot’s voice crackled over the intercom, announcing our descent into Aretia. My heart quickened, a strange mixture of anticipation and fear thrumming through me.
This was it. Aretia. A new beginning.
I glanced at Rhiannon, who was practically bouncing in her seat. “Ready?” she asked, her grin infectious.
I took a deep breath, letting the weight of Navarre slip from my shoulders. “Ready.”
The plane dipped lower, and through the window, I caught my first glimpse of Aretia—a sprawling city that glittered like the sun had caught on every surface. It was bright, unfamiliar, and full of possibility.
For the first time in years, I felt hope.