All Chapters of Let the World Burn Without Me: Chapter 1 - Chapter 9

9 Chapters

Chapter 1

Thunder cracked overhead. I turned on instinct, reaching for the man beside me, but my hand met cold sheets. "Derek!"Panic rose, fast and sharp. I searched the palace from one end to the other before I found Derek Ingram in a quiet, out-of-the-way wing. A woman was nestled in his arms, and he was so wrapped up in her that he never noticed me standing in the doorway.Lightning flashed, and I saw her face. Vanessa Cole, my adoptive sister, who had taken my place at Cole Manor.I stood there, staring at Derek's back, trying to make sense of what I was seeing."Ah!"Vanessa noticed me first, her eyes flicking toward the door with a brief flash of surprise. "What is it?" Derek asked as he started to turn, but she tightened her arms around his neck. "Careful," she said softly. "You're hurting me."He let out a low laugh and pulled her closer. Vanessa looked at me again, this time with a small, knowing smile.I was about to push the door open when a flat, mechanical voi

Chapter 2

I didn't sleep that night.At dawn, a message came from Cole Manor saying Mother was ill. I dropped everything and rode back, my chest tight the entire way, while the system repeated the same prompt in my head over and over. [Exchange your remaining merit either for passage home or to delay the world's destruction. Please make your choice as soon as possible.] I still couldn't answer. If I chose to leave, the world would begin to fall apart the moment I died. Everyone here—countless people and my parents—would be caught in it without warning. In my real world, I had no one, no family to return to, no place that had ever felt like home. Here, at least for a time, I had that. Even if they had grown cold toward me because of Vanessa, they were still the only family I had.When I walked in, Mother was lying on a chaise, her face pale. "Your sister will be joining the royal court. Your father and I have already agreed," she said, her eyes fixed on me. "You will not stand in th

Chapter 3

"What's all this noise about?"Father walked in from outside, already irritated. "Do you have to turn the house upside down every time you're upset?"I pressed a hand to my forehead and forced myself upright, unsteady on my feet. Blood slipped through my fingers and down my face, but he didn't even glance at it.He hadn't always been like this.When I first came back to Cole Manor, he was still a powerful man, but he treated me with an easy kind of patience. "You've had it hard out there," he told me then. "You won't have to deal with that anymore. I'll take care of you." People laughed at me for not knowing the rules, for being out of place, and he never once minded.I held on to that.Every year on their birthdays, I would carefully prepare a grand party and wish them a happy birthday. They would always smile, touched, and pull me into a hug.It changed the first time Vanessa cried because of me. That was when I realized blood ties meant less than the years they had sh

Chapter 4

"Charlotte, are you really going to accuse me like that? Do you want me dead?"Vanessa's face drained of color as tears spilled over. "I know you hate me, but you shouldn't curse Father, Mother, and the king." She turned toward them, her voice shaking. "I won't enter the palace. I'll enter a convent instead." She swayed as though she might collapse at any moment.I almost laughed. The same move. It worked every time. As long as she cried, everything turned on me. I didn't expect this time to be any different."Enough!" Derek pulled her into his arms and glared at me. "Whether you agree or not, we're together. Vanessa will enter the palace, and I'll make her my official mistress!"A flicker of satisfaction crossed her eyes.I looked at them and felt nothing. "Fine. No need to wait. Hold the ceremony tomorrow."Tomorrow would be a good day. The day my husband and my sister celebrated their union. The day I died.Maybe he thought I would change my mind, or maybe he just d

Chapter 5

After the ceremony, I left the palace without saying a word.The city was still celebrating. Lights were strung across every street, banners hanging overhead, all of it for the king and his new mistress. I went back to Cole Manor and waited.At the same time, thick clouds gathered over Harkenslow, dark and heavy, like something building under the surface.No one paid attention.Inside the palace, Derek had Vanessa in his arms, completely absorbed in her. Father and Mother were still celebrating, raising their cups and smiling as if nothing in the world could touch them. Out in the city, people prayed for the mistress to conceive quickly, for an heir to be born.The moment death came for me, a deafening peal of thunder split the sky.In the sweltering heat of June, snow began to fall.In crowded taverns, people turned toward the windows, confused. "It's summer. How is it snowing?" "This feels wrong. Doesn't it look like what happened ten years ago?"Someone said it out lou

Chapter 6

People managed to endure the cold, but there was no escaping the hail that came down like falling stones. By the time they reached the palace, more than half of them were already dead.When Derek arrived at the gates, he stopped short. The devastation before him was almost beyond comprehension.A woman clutched her child and sobbed until she couldn't breathe. Others lay where they had fallen, heads split open, blood soaking into their clothes. Some had gone past fear into outright panic, throwing themselves at the palace gates, pounding on them with bleeding fists as they begged for someone to save them."The king is here! Where's the queen?"As soon as they saw Derek, they surged toward him. "Everything she said was true! Bring her out. Tell her to save us!"Hail kept hammering down, the ground slick with blood. Derek didn't move, and something in the crowd snapped. They rushed past him and forced their way inside.They searched the main hall, then the queen's chambers, but

Chapter 7

The crowd traded looks, as if they had suddenly found a target."That's right! Vanessa drove a wedge between the queen and her parents!" "She went after her own brother-in-law and pushed the queen over the edge!"Someone yelled in rage and stormed toward the palace."Get her! Drag her out and bring the queen back!"People this close to the edge didn't need much.Vanessa had barely taken her place as the official mistress before they pulled her down. They closed in, and everything they had been holding back poured out at once: fear of the end, the weight of what was coming, and grief for the ones already gone.Derek shouted himself hoarse, trying to push them back.Vanessa screamed, fighting against the hands on her. "How dare you! I'm carrying the king's child!" Her voice broke. "Father, help me! Mother, they're going to kill me! Derek, I'm pregnant with your child! Get them off me!"Mother didn't move. She looked at Vanessa, her expression hard. "Were you the one sprea

Chapter 8

After Derek and I fell in love, I told him the truth.I told him I wasn't from this world, that it was already on the edge of collapse, that he would die soon, and I couldn't accept that.He listened to everything without interrupting. Then he said, "If that's how it ends, I'll spend whatever time I have left making sure you get out. Death can take me. It doesn't get to take you."The fierce love that drove him to challenge death itself touched me in a way nothing else ever had.I stayed because of that.When he learned I had been trading my lifespan to keep the world from breaking apart, he ordered shrines built for me across the kingdom and made sure my story spread. People believed it, and their gratitude kept me alive.When we were close, and I didn't want to let go, I once asked him, "If they forget me one day, if I have to die… What will you do?""I'll give you what I have left," he said. "We'll die together."He sounded like he meant it.Back then, I believed him. T

Chapter 9

"Grab the queen! She has to have a way!"The shout spread through the crowd in an instant, catching and multiplying."Right! She gave up her lifespan last time! She can give something else now! "Her body's still here. If she's divine, that body has to carry some kind of power!" They surged forward like lunatics, fighting over my corpse. "Take it! Use it as an offering!" Their faces twisted as they spoke, their eyes glazed with madness. "She's divine. What if her flesh grants immortality? If we eat her, we won't die!"I looked down at them, a cold weight settling in my chest. These were the people I had protected. I had never thought it could come to this.Derek held my body tight, his hands shaking as my form in the sky thinned. "Charlotte, go." His voice broke as he forced the words out. "I'm sorry. You should have left ten years ago. You shouldn't have stayed for people like us!" He didn't say he loved me this time. He just kept telling me to leave.Mother, barel

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