I know what it’s like to be nothing.

Not weak. Not lost.

Nothing.

Rotting in a gutter, bones leaking through torn skin, a name no one remembered. They passed me by like trash. Until one man stopped.

John the Revelator.

He didn’t lift me up because he saw potential. He lifted me up because he wanted to own me.

And I let him. Because being a whore in the temple is still better than dying in the street.

He fed me scripture and madness. Dressed me in ritual. Turned my pain into power and my body into a sermon.

I was the pretty thing at his feet. The concubine to blasphemy. The vessel for a prophet’s lust.

And with it, came strength.

Not mine. His. Reflected onto me like light off a cracked mirror.

So don’t think I speak from some imagined high ground, Narcissa.

I know you.

Because you were nothing before Zeus crowned you. A seamstress with delusions of grandeur. A designer of empty dreams.

And every time you tried to rise, every time you tried to be something without him, the thread snapped.

You ran back.

Right back into his arms. Right back into the gold and glory. Right back into the bridal gown you pretended was a throne.

You didn’t break the glass ceiling.

You polished it. Kissed it. Wore it like a veil.

You’re not a queen. You’re a kept thing.

A wife, not a warlord. A mouthpiece, not a monarch.

Your name only shines when it’s whispered alongside his.

And Eclipse, you weren’t always this thing that slithers in black.

You used to be Aurora…

The afterthought. The almost. A thrill-seeker with more speed than weight.

But no one saw you. Not really.

Not until you took his name.

Gravedigger. The Valkyrie. The Ferryman.

You didn’t marry a man. You married a symbol.

And in return, you got your power. You got your briefcase. You got the illusion of purpose.

But it’s not yours.

It never was.

You wear his name like it’s armor, but it fits too loose.

Too borrowed. Too fake.

You became someone—by becoming someone else’s.

That’s what binds the three of us.

You wore lace and I wore chains. You served gods and I served monsters.

You bent the knee, and so did I.

We know what it is to kneel. To be chosen.

To be used.

But only one of us stayed broken.

You clung to your masters and called it strategy. I let mine burn.

And when the fire peeled the name off my skin, what was left wasn’t beautiful.

It was mine.

Now you face me not as equals, but as echoes of what I used to be.

You want to win this match?

Then go home. Dress yourselves in ivory and gold. Lay down beside your gods and whisper that you were good.

Because in this ring you’re not brides.

You’re offerings.

And I’ve come to carve out what little worth they left in you.