The attack came at midnight.
Of course it did.
Most assassins preferred darkness.
They assumed shadows belonged to them.
Foolish.
Shadows were hers.
She did not sleep deeply anymore. Not after dying once.
The faint disturbance in air pressure woke her instantly.
Window latch.
Barely audible.
She remained still beneath the silk covers, breathing slow, even.
The first assassin entered without a sound.
Dressed in matte black. Twin daggers. Efficient posture.
Professional.
A second followed.
Better.
They were not amateurs.
She allowed them to approach her bedside.
Three steps.
Two.
One—
The first dagger descended.
The bed erupted in thorns.
A violent surge of shadowed vines burst from beneath the mattress, splitting wood, shredding silk, coiling upward like serpents awakened from starvation.
The assassins leapt back—fast, disciplined.
Impressive.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
One slashed through a vine.
It regrew instantly.
Ah.
That was new.
She rose slowly from the center of the writhing mass, barefoot, calm, untouched.
Her nightgown shimmered faintly with dark energy.
“You chose the wrong garden,” she said softly.
One assassin lunged directly at her.
Bold.
The vine responded before she consciously commanded it—snapping forward, wrapping around his wrist mid-strike.
He twisted, attempting to sever it—
But the vine pulsed.
And something deeper activated.
Instead of merely restraining—
It began draining.
His movement slowed.
Breath hitched.
Strength faltered.
Her eyes widened slightly.
Mana siphoning.
Evolution.
Interesting.
The second assassin saw it too.
“Retreat—” he began.
The vines shot across the room, sealing the windows and door in a lattice of living shadow.
No escape.
The first assassin collapsed to one knee, drained but alive.
She approached him calmly.
“Who sent you?”
Silence.
Professional indeed.
She extended a single vine toward his shadow.
It pierced.
And she listened.
Payment delivered through third party… crest obscured… instructions: eliminate before royal inquiry expands…
Royal inquiry.
So Vaelmont’s allies had panicked.
Predictable.
But there was something else—
A symbol.
A crest she recognized.
Not Vaelmont’s.
Higher.
Older.
Interesting.
The second assassin made one final attempt, charging recklessly.
This time she did not restrain.
The vine struck his shadow fully.
His body froze mid-motion, eyes wide, consciousness suspended.
Not dead.
Paused.
Her breathing steadied.
Her power had grown.
Not because she trained.
But because she was threatened.
Adaptive evolution.
That made her dangerous.
Very dangerous.
She knelt beside the conscious assassin.
“Return to whoever sent you,” she said quietly. “Tell them this.”
The vines tightened just enough to make him tremble.
“I am not prey.”
She released them.
Both men collapsed unconscious but alive.
Killing them would send noise.
Letting them crawl back?
That sent fear.
By the time her guards burst in, drawn by the earlier crash, the room looked like a storm had passed through.
Broken bed.
Shattered wood.
Blackened thorn marks across marble.
She stood in the center of it all.
Unharmed.
“My lady—!”
“I’m fine,” she said calmly.
Outside, lightning cracked across the sky.
And far beyond her estate—
In another wing of the city—
A certain golden-haired knight felt a pulse of magic ripple through the night air.
Light and shadow reacting.
He looked toward her estate immediately.
He felt it.
Something had changed.
Back in her ruined chamber, she stared at her own hands.
The vines curled around her wrists like obedient serpents.
Drain.
Regrow.
Anchor.
Evolve.
This was no longer simple manipulation.
This was escalation.
If her enemies grew desperate enough to send blades into her room—
Then the board was larger than Vaelmont.
Much larger.
And now?
She was no longer merely rearranging pieces.
She was becoming one of the strongest on the board.
