Chapter 75 Montague & Capulet (7)
A few nights after the wedding...
Juliet awoke, her body drenched in a cold sweat that clung to her neck. Her breath came in gasps, as if she had been running through the threshold between dreams and reality. Her fingers gripped the bedclothes tightly, as though holding on to prevent herself from falling into the abyss of darkness that lurked nearby. Her red eyes seemed to signal her inner turmoil, but not from tears that flowed.
Because something had returned with her from the dream world, something she could not ignore.
She stood in the Capulet family garden, a place once filled with sweet memories, now resembling a ruined landscape that no longer recognized her. Thorny roses grew wild, fiercely climbing the castle walls, encircling her like bars of a prison. The sky was painted a blood-red, mirroring the darkness gnawing at her soul. And in the middle of the garden... stood a figure challenging her to face the truth: her mother.
Vivienne. But not the Vivienne she once knew.
Her face was filled with inverted glyphs, darkness enveloping her blue-white glowing eyes, like a crystal from a cursed mine. Juliet felt a fierce blend of fear and longing, two emotions battling within her heart.
"You have cast aside your name, Juliet." The voice cut through her soul like a sword, reminding her of the dual identity that bound her.
Juliet wanted to respond, but her voice was lost, drowned in a sea of helplessness. She yearned for the freedom she should have possessed, yet was locked within the blood ties that separated her from all the love she truly desired.
"You swore an oath, yet you never severed the blood." The words felt agonizing, as if they were haunting the uncertainty that had always burdened her mind. And from behind Vivienne's chest, small hands emerged, the hands of children, of babies that were never born. Their faces were familiar—a mirror of the Capulet-Capulets who had perished in wars of mines and magic, shadows of a past she could not forget.
"We are the blood you have rejected. We are the legacy you burned for a fragile love." The phrase echoed in her mind, the bond between love and betrayal transforming into threads that continually entwined around her.
Juliet ran, but the garden transformed into a mine, the stone walls echoing the whispers that troubled her soul, highlighting her uncertainties: