The Heroine is My Stepsister, and I'm her Final Boss-Chapter 112: Forgive me not.

Lara’s sword sliced through the training post with a deafening crack, splinters flying like shrapnel. Sweat glistened on her skin, each droplet clinging to her as if reluctant to fall. Her breath came in short bursts, chest rising and falling beneath her breastplate as her sapphire hair stuck to her face in tangled strands.

She wasn’t training anymore. She was venting.

Every strike was a question without an answer.

’Why did he look at her that way? Why does he forgive her so easily?’

She swung again.

’Why is it never enough?’

Again.

’Why am I not enough?’

The sword’s edge thudded into the next wooden target, which split clean down the center.

Lara stood over the wreckage, panting.

’Stop. Bring. Distracted’ she told herself. ’We are at war...’

"...We are enough..." she whispered, then louder, firmer, "No kingdom—no empire—can stand before us."

Her words echoed off the stone walls, returning to her like a promise she was trying to make real. Her father’s words repeated in her mind: ’Prepare, as we are their ace in the hole.’

She and Atlas.

Together.

Unbreakable.

She wiped her face with the back of her forearm, noting the thin line of blood trickling down from where her callused grip had finally torn open her palm. It felt good. Real. Something she could understand.

’Unlike his silence.’

Her heart clenched.

Atlas had barely looked at her since the council. Since her confession.

And Sansa? That maid was still alive. Still breathing. Still in his good graces.

Lara slammed the butt of her sword into the ground.

’He should’ve chosen me.’

She took a breath. Another. Then she looked down.

Her chest rose and fell with exertion. It had started to fill out, her body no longer childlike—but not yet woman enough. Not yet like her mother, whose beauty was carved into every corner of Berkimhum’s memory. Not like Claire, whose gaze could command generals. And not like Sansa, whose softness seemed to unravel Atlas’s resolve like silk between fingers.

"Will I... grow like her?" she asked aloud, touching her chest with uncertain fingers. "Does he even... like big breasts?"

The jealousy twisted again, a serpent in her gut.

She hated it. Hated her.

Claire. Sansa. All of them.

’But most of all, she hated herself for caring.’

"I need to grow up ...faster..." she murmured, clenching her fists. "I need to win."

The fire was back in her eyes.

’I’m not a girl anymore.’

Minutes later, she stood outside the infirmary.

The door creaked open.

There lay Sansa. Still bandaged, still asleep. Her Blonde hair cascaded over the edge of the cot like sunlit threads, lips parted in peaceful breath. Fragile. Defenseless. Beautiful.

Lara stepped inside, sword in hand.

The steel whispered against her thigh.

Her heart beat louder than her footsteps.

She stopped at the edge of the bed.

Her eyes scanned the sleeping girl’s face. It was infuriatingly calm. As if none of this had happened. As if she hadn’t drugged Atlas. As if she hadn’t wormed her way into a place that belonged to someone else.

To Lara.

"Maybe I should," she whispered, her voice shaking with something deeper than rage.

She raised the blade.

Its tip hovered inches above Sansa’s throat.

The pulse beneath her skin fluttered—so soft, so vulnerable.

’One move. Just one, and it would be over.’

’And Atlas would finally see who was loyal. Who was worthy.’

But she hesitated.

The doubt came in like fog: slow, then all at once.

Would he forgive her?

Would he ever look at her the same?

The blade trembled in her hands.

Her breath caught.

’What if this breaks him?’

What if it broke ’her’?

The chamber was silent but for the crackle of the oil lamp. The scent of lavender and old healing herbs hung in the air—residual from the tonic Sansa had taken the night before.

Lara stared at her reflection in the polished steel of her blade.

What stared back was not the sister Atlas once knew.

Not the girl who had learned to laugh at midnight.

Not the warrior who danced with thunder.

She was something else now.

Something... wrong.

’...is this...me...How did it come to this?’

A memory surfaced: Atlas laughing as he carried her on his shoulders through a field of silver grass, her arms stretched toward the clouds. She had thought he would always be there. That no matter how far she ran, he would always be home.

But home had become distant.

And she had helped build the walls between them.

Her mind spiraled.

It wasn’t just Sansa. It was everything.

The way Atlas looked at her now. Like she was another problem to solve. Another burden to carry.

She wanted to scream.

"I never wanted this," she murmured. "I thought I was doing the right thing."

She thought of Claire. Of her cold, knowing glances. Of how she always saw things too clearly. Had Claire known this would happen?

Had she let it happen?

Lara’s legs shook. She pressed the flat of her sword against her forehead like she could press the madness back inside.

But it wouldn’t go.

It never did.

She remembered the sound of chains—the ones Sansa had worn in the dungeon.

She remembered the bruises, the blood on her lip, the way her body trembled under interrogation. She had ordered it. She had watched it. She had ...enjoyed it.

And worst of all—she had told herself it was for love.

"I didn’t want to hurt her..." she whispered.

But she had.

And not just her.

She had hurt Atlas.

And he had looked at her like he didn’t recognize her anymore.

That hurt more than anything else.

She stood motionless.

Then she dropped the sword.

It clanged onto the floor, louder than thunder in the quiet room.

Her knees gave out.

She fell beside the bed, hands shaking, body wracked with sobs she refused to let out. Not yet.

Her forehead pressed to the floor.

"I’m sorry," she whispered, barely audible.

"I’m so sorry."

She didn’t know if she was apologizing to Sansa, or Atlas, or herself.

Maybe all of them.

Maybe none of them.

Claire stood in the corridor beyond the infirmary.

She had come to check on Sansa. That was the excuse. But the moment she sensed Lara’s mana inside the room, she paused.

Then waited.

She listened to every breath.

Every silence.

When the blade hit the ground, Claire didn’t move.

Not even a blink.

Only when she heard the apology—small, real, pitiful—did something shift behind her eyes.

She turned without a word and walked away, heels echoing like punctuation down the stone hallway.

Lara stayed kneeling long after her hands stopped shaking.

Sansa stirred once—softly, innocently—and turned onto her side.

The girl had no idea how close she had come to death.

How much power Lara had held over her.

And how close she had come to becoming something unrecognizable.

Lara rose.

Slowly. Heavily.

She picked up her sword and sheathed it.

But it felt heavier now.

As if it wasn’t just a weapon anymore.

As if it now carried the weight of everything she almost became.

She stepped out into the night air, the wind sharp against her tear-streaked cheeks.

And whispered, not to anyone—but to the dark sky above:

"....Things people do for love...." She voiced, not thinking about lara but herself. As she took it out, the pills, the same pills Sansa had mixed into Atlas tea.

"...but I will be precise...and even more careful."

Updated from fr𝒆ewebnov𝒆l.(c)om