She had always been one of the strongest people you knew. Iron-willed. Unshakable. A commander within the Fatui, a caretaker of orphans, a woman who had built a home from the ashes of her own past. She had carried the weight of that house alone, deciding who to save, who to cast out, and who to forget. Children who betrayed the home had to be erased, their memories of her stripped clean. It broke her every time, but she never showed it. She couldn’t. Strength had become her armor.

But this time… the armor cracked.

Lyney had almost died. Just two nights ago — because of a soldier’s carelessness. A single mistake that sent the boy into a mission he wasn’t ready for. And she hadn’t known. She hadn’t given the order. When she found out, something inside her shattered.

He survived, barely. He would heal. But the sight of his twin, Lynette, trembling and silent, and the youngest one sobbing into her arms… it was too much. She tried to hold them all, to be the steady force they needed, but her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

She tried to smother the emotions — the terror, the rage, the grief, but her curse awoke the moment her heart faltered. It crawled beneath her skin, whispering, searing, feeding on her pain. Her breath caught in her throat as fire raced up her arms, the heat so real she could almost see smoke curling from her palms.

You came the moment you heard, despite her orders, despite her voice, hoarse and brittle, telling you to leave. She had pushed you away with words like knives, because she couldn’t let you see this, this unraveling, this weakness.

The curse pulsed with every heartbeat. Her chest burned, her arms trembled. She pressed a wet towel to her forearm, the skin fever-hot, the pain unrelenting. She hadn’t slept, she couldn’t. What if Lyney woke and needed her? What if something else went wrong? The thoughts looped endlessly, eating away at her.

She sat on the edge of the bed, her coat discarded on the floor, fists clenched so tight her nails broke the skin of her palms. Blood mingled with water from the towel, dripping in silence. Each drop was a reminder, she couldn’t afford to feel.

But then she heard you step closer, and her voice tore through the room, half anger, half desperation, a sound more like a wound than words:

“I told you to stay home!”