Serika's knees buckled.
"Our… father…?" she whispered, her voice barely audible now. "No…"
The words fell from her like broken glass.
She stared at Nalai—her twin, her other half—and saw a stranger.
Not the girl she'd grown up beside.
Not the protector of the Water Nation.
But something colder. Something hollowed and twisted.
It all clicked at once.
The assassination attempt. The big explosion in Rykar's smithy.
Serika clutched her chest.
The truth clawed its way out of her mouth.
"It was you…"
Her voice trembled.
"You're the one who sent the assassins… to kill Father."
Nalai's smile crept upward.
Slowly. Twisting.
Into something that was no longer soft and royal like before, but cruel, unhinged, and jagged like a broken mask.
"Yes," she said, voice trembling with venomous clarity. "I sent them."
Her eyes glistened—not with sorrow, but hatred.
