LIROIDS

The Transformation Complete

Eyela’s POV

The days blurred into one another after Glen’s death. I drifted through the Dark Forest as though it were the only place left in the world that could bear me. The lilies followed me, sprouting in my footsteps, curling around my ankles, opening their dark mouths toward the moon.

At first, I thought them a gift, proof of the goddess’s favor. But soon I realized they were chains.

I woke one night to find my arms bound by vines of my own making, the flowers sprouting from my skin as though I were soil. My scream split the air. I tore them away, blood spilling from the wounds, but by dawn the lilies bloomed again. They would not let me go.

Ciria’s voice haunted me. Every gift bears a burden.

I began to dream of Seyal each night. Sometimes he came to me laughing, whole and alive. Other times, he stood covered in blood, his eyes hollow, his voice accusing. You let me die, Eyela. You traded love for vengeance.

I would wake clawing at the earth, begging for forgiveness, only to find the lilies blooming from my tears.

The people of Cellon whispered of me now. They called me a demon, a witch, a shadow that walked with flowers of death. At first, I thought to confront them, to show them I was still their daughter. But when I crept close, I saw fear in their faces, fear that burned worse than hatred.

Even my parents… I watched them one last time from the shadows. My mother wept into her hands as neighbors whispered of me. My father’s face was pale, his back bowed. He looked twenty years older. And still, he did not speak my name.

I turned away. If they would not remember me as Eyela, then I would carve my memory into the world as Evilside.

The forest changed with me. Where I walked, sunlight vanished. The air grew heavy, damp with rot. The lilies spread in waves, turning groves into seas of purple blossoms. And then the visions began.

I saw the future, children born with blood like mine, cursed to carry my shadow. I saw kingdoms crumble beneath fields of lilies. I saw myself not as a woman, but as something rooted, immovable, eternal.

One evening, when the moon was high, I felt the ground shift beneath me. My legs trembled, and I collapsed among the flowers. Roots erupted from my spine, coiling into the soil. My fingers stiffened, my skin splitting into bark.

“No!” I screamed, clawing at the earth. “Not yet…I am not ready!”

But the forest did not listen.

The lilies bloomed faster, curling around my limbs, swallowing me. My voice grew faint, my body heavy. I felt myself sinking, becoming part of the earth itself. The last thing I saw was the moonlight glinting on the flowers that sprouted from my chest.

I was Eyela no longer. Not even Evilside.

I was the Tree of Lilies.

Yet even as my body hardened into bark and my veins filled with sap, my mind remained. I could feel every root stretching through the soil, every blossom opening to drink the night air. I could hear the whispers of travelers who stumbled upon me, marveling at the beauty, recoiling from the stench.

And in my dreams, Ciria came to me.

“You are eternal now,” she said, her silver hair spilling like water across my branches. “Your story has only begun. From you will come daughters who carry your blood. They will walk the world where you cannot. Through them, the curse will live.”

I tried to scream, to beg her to end it, but no sound passed my wooden lips.

The goddess smiled. “Rest now, Evilside. Rest and bloom. Your legacy will outlast kingdoms.”

Her form dissolved into starlight, and silence claimed me.

But deep within my roots, I still felt Seyal’s name burning. A memory. A wound. A promise I could never keep.

And so I waited, watching the years pass, as the first whispers of Heartless, my daughter, began to stir in the world beyond my roots.