the timid bride

Chapter 24: The Blood Moon Rises

The air had changed.

It wasn't just the broken mirrors or the shaking ground. Something deeper had shifted — in the castle, in the kingdom, in the very bones of the land. Arin felt it in her breath, in the way the wind moved differently, in the stillness that followed the shatter.

She was not the same girl who had arrived here weeks ago in white silk and wide eyes.

She was no longer anyone's bride.

Not anymore.

—

Rael had not spoken much since the Mirror Hall broke. He walked beside her like a shadow, quiet, uncertain, no longer the dominant prince who had ruled over her with control masked as protection.

He had lost something that day too. Arin could see it in the way he moved — slower, more cautious. As though something inside him had cracked.

"Where's your mother?" she asked as they passed the throne room.

He shook his head. "Gone."

"Gone where?"

Rael hesitated. "I think she was part of the curse. Not the source, but… bound to it. When you broke it, she disappeared."

Arin's heart twisted. She had not loved the Queen. But part of her had respected her. Even feared her.

And now she was just… gone?

"Everything feels different," Arin murmured.

Rael nodded. "It is. And we don't know yet if that's good or bad."

She glanced at him. "Do you regret it? Letting me destroy the mirror?"

His eyes met hers. "No. Even if it kills me, I'd rather die free."

Arin looked away. That was the thing about truth — once spoken, it could not be taken back. And freedom, once felt, refused to be caged again.

—

That night, the **blood moon** rose.

Red and full, like a wound in the sky. The servants whispered and crossed themselves. The old guards at the tower lit fire-bowls they hadn't touched in decades. And far beyond the walls of the castle, wolves howled.

Arin stood on the balcony of the highest tower, her hair unbound, the night wind lifting it like a banner.

The curse was gone.

But something worse was coming.

Rael joined her, holding an ancient scroll.

"It's started," he said, handing it to her.

She opened it.

The parchment was old, brittle — but the ink was fresh.

> *"When the mirror breaks, the veil lifts. The old blood will stir, and the forgotten kings will rise again."*

Arin's voice was low. "What does it mean?"

"It means the curse wasn't just protecting the kingdom. It was **containing** something."

Her blood ran cold. "You mean we freed it?"

Rael nodded. "Unintentionally. But yes. The curse wasn't just a punishment — it was a seal."

Arin stared up at the blood moon.

"What have we done…"

—

By dawn, the skies had turned strange.

Ash fell like snow over the fields beyond the palace walls. Farmers came bearing stories — crops dying overnight, animals refusing to eat, the rivers running black for an hour before returning to normal.

And in the eastern mountains, old fires had awakened.

Arin called a council.

Not of nobles — most had fled or hidden when the curse fell — but of survivors. The captain of the guard. Two priestesses. A blacksmith's daughter who had seen the Queen vanish with her own eyes. A healer from the lower city.

"We don't know what's coming," Arin told them, standing tall before the broken throne. "But we know this — the curse is gone. We are no longer ruled by ancient lies. But now we must defend ourselves from ancient truths."

The priestess with silver-threaded braids stepped forward. "We have felt the tremors. Something is waking beneath the earth. The last time the blood moon rose, the **Serpent Kings** walked the world."

Arin's brows furrowed. "Serpent Kings?"

"Dark gods in human skin," the woman said. "Long buried. Long cursed. They fed on devotion and bone."

Rael said nothing, but his jaw was tight.

"And now?" Arin asked.

"They're hungry again."

—

That night, Arin didn't sleep.

She walked the shattered halls of the Mirror Chamber alone, the silence pressing around her. She traced a finger across the broken shards still embedded in the wall.

"I was supposed to be a bride," she whispered. "But now I'm a weapon."

The mirror didn't answer.

Rael found her there, his expression drawn. "I want to show you something."

She followed him into the oldest part of the castle — the underground catacombs.

They passed tombs with faded names. Kings. Queens. Brides who never survived long enough to be crowned.

At the deepest chamber, he lit a torch.

Carved into the wall was a mural. It showed a girl in white, striking a mirror with a dagger — and behind her, rising from the cracks, a massive shadow with serpent eyes and a burning crown.

"It was always a trade," Rael said softly. "Free us, and wake it."

Arin stared at the image. "Can we fight it?"

"We have to."

"And if we lose?"

Rael met her gaze. "Then it wasn't love that killed us. It was truth."

—

The next morning, the skies burned red.

A horn sounded from the east gate.

Arin rushed to the wall with Rael and the guard captain. In the valley below, a strange army was approaching.

They weren't human.

Figures in bone armor, draped in red silk and gold masks. Their eyes glowed white, and every step they took left the ground blackened behind them.

At their head was a massive figure with a horned crown and blood-stained robes.

The Serpent King.

"He's returned," Rael whispered.

Arin felt the ring on her finger burn again — the one the Queen had given her, still pulsing with old power.

She turned to Rael. "I need your sword."

He gave it without hesitation.

She stepped up onto the battlement wall, eyes locked on the thing approaching.

She wasn't a bride anymore.

She wasn't running anymore.

She was fire. She was fury. She was the first to resist — and the last to bow.

And when the Serpent King lifted his staff toward the sky, Arin raised her sword high.

And the blood moon burned brighter than ever before.