THE CURSED QUEEN’S CONSORT

 Dominic's POV

 I knew the gods would come. Not with fire. Not with vengeance. But with silence. That was always their cruelest game watching, waiting, whispering truths no one could survive hearing and tonight, I felt their breath on the wind. I found Isabella in the war room, a scroll unfurled on the table in front of her. Her hands were steady, but her shoulders carried the weight of centuries.

 "What did it say?" I asked. She didn't look up. "The god who remains warned me." My jaw clenched. "I told you they'd come." "I'm not afraid of gods," she said. "I'm afraid of what I'll become when they're done with us." I stepped closer. "You'll still be you." She finally looked at me. "Will you?"

 That question hit harder than it should've because I wasn't sure anymore. Each day she remembered more, I saw less of this world in her eyes and more of hers. A shadow shifted in the corner of the room.

 We both turned.

 The flames in the torches dimmed, then flared blue, then violet, then pure silver and from the space between heartbeats, a figure appeared. No face. No voice. Only presence and a single black card in its outstretched hand.

 Isabella didn't hesitate. She took it. A trial card. The first. She flipped it over. The words burned into the table. "Choose who dies: The traitor who saved you, or the innocent who betrayed you." "What the hell?" I stepped forward, but the figure was already gone. Isabella stared at the card like it was written in her blood.

 "It's not real," I said. "It's a manipulation." "No," she whispered. "It's a memory." She turned to me, her voice low. "I've done this before. And I chose wrong." I moved toward her. "Whatever this is, we face it together." Her eyes held something deeper than fear.

 Resolve.

 "Then be ready," she said. "Because I won't choose wrong again." And in that moment, I realized… The gods weren't testing her power. They were testing her heart.