POV: Caelan / Seraphina
CAELAN
The war horns had stopped an hour ago. Now only silence remained, heavy with everything unsaid.
Caelan stood in the courtyard with his hand on his horse's neck, watching the sky lighten from black to gray. The army waited behind him in ordered ranks. Gravenor sat mounted at the front of the column, his face hard with the same grim purpose that had carried him through three decades of border campaigns. Delca moved between the horses with easy efficiency, the stiffness that had marked his steps before Seraphina's healing now completely gone.
Three days to the first fortress, maybe less if they pushed hard, and maybe too late regardless.
Caelan looked up at the palace. Her window was dark. She would be awake by now, he was certain of it. She had not slept when he left her chambers. He had felt her watching him dress, felt the weight of words she refused to speak pressing against his back.
Whatever's happening with the scars, whatever you're not telling me.
He had seen them spreading and felt the heat of them against his skin when he held her. She thought she was protecting him by staying silent. She was wrong.
The letter he had left on her nightstand contained everything he could not say aloud. How he knew she was hiding something. How he understood why. How none of it changed what he felt or what he would do to return to her.
Come back to me.
Her last words stayed with him.
"Commander." Gravenor's voice cut through the predawn quiet. "The men are ready."
Caelan mounted in one smooth motion, leather creaking beneath him as his sword settled heavy at his hip.
He allowed himself one final look at her window.
She stood on the balcony. Waiting for him, he realized. She had been there the whole time, watching him prepare to leave. The distance was too great to see her face clearly, but he knew she was looking back. He could feel it the same way he always felt her, even without the bond.
He raised his hand once. A gesture that meant everything he could not cross the courtyard to say.
She raised hers in answer.
He turned his horse toward the gate and gave the order.
"Move out."
The column lurched forward. Hooves struck stone loud enough to echo through the empty streets. Behind him, the palace grew smaller with every stride.
He did not look back again.
SERAPHINA
The last banner disappeared over the horizon, and the courtyard below went silent.
Seraphina lowered her hand slowly. Her fingers were cold from gripping the balcony rail, and she did not remember when she had stopped feeling them. The sky had turned pale gold while she watched him ride away. She had tracked his silhouette at the head of the column until the distance swallowed him completely.
The fire-scars pulsed beneath her sleeves.
Two weeks.
She pressed her palm against her chest where the marks were spreading. The golden veins had reached past her elbows now, branching upward with each passing day. Yona's diagnosis echoed in her memory. Two weeks before they reached her heart. Maybe three if she stopped using fire completely.
She would not stop using fire. The realm needed her power more than she needed another week of borrowed time.
Yona had tried to attend her this morning, still pale from her own brush with the curse, but Seraphina had sent her back to rest. The healers had ordered another day of recovery, and some battles required solitude rather than presence.
Liora appeared in the doorway behind her. "My lady. You should eat something."
"Later."
"You said that three hours ago."
Seraphina turned from the balcony. The chamber felt too large without him in it. His scent still lingered on the pillows. Caelan's letter pressed against her chest where she had clutched it through the final hours before dawn. She still had not broken the seal.
She was not ready to read it yet. Opening it would make his absence real in a way she could not face.
"Send for Siran," she said. "Tell him to bring the box."
Liora's expression shifted slightly. "I thought you were waiting for the Duke's return to examine it."
"The Duke may not return for weeks." The words came out steadier than she felt. "I cannot afford to wait that long."
Liora nodded once and disappeared into the corridor.
Seraphina crossed to her desk and began clearing space. She set Caelan's letter carefully on her nightstand as she passed. She could not read it and think clearly. Not yet. Her hands moved automatically, stacking correspondence she had not read, setting aside petitions she had not answered. The work of ruling and surviving did not pause for heartbreak or anything else.
The fire-scars throbbed again, and she ignored them.
Siran arrived within the hour.
He carried the wooden box in both hands and set it on her desk without ceremony.
"My lady. I kept it secure as you ordered."
"Thank you." She gestured toward the door. "I will summon you if I need anything further."
He hesitated. "You are certain you wish to examine it alone?"
"I am certain."
Siran bowed and withdrew. Liora remained at her post outside the door, close enough to respond if called, far enough to grant privacy.
Seraphina turned to the box.
It was unremarkable. Plain wood, slightly warped from age, with no markings to indicate its importance. The woman who had compiled it fled rather than let herself be found. The courier tracking her had killed himself rather than reveal who sent him.
She lifted the lid and found dozens of papers, yellowed with age. She lifted the first stack and spread them across her desk.
Servant records bearing the House Vessant seal. Lists of names with marks beside them, some crossed out, some circled, some with dates in the margins. Letters in elegant handwriting that bore no signature, only fragments of wax seals.
She sorted through them methodically. The records spanned years. Names appeared again and again, tracked and annotated by whoever had compiled this collection. Some entries noted positions: kitchen staff, laundry, guards. Others noted dates of departure. A disturbing number simply said "vanished."
A pattern emerged as she worked. The names were not random. They were connected to specific events, specific moments in House Vessant's history. Staff who had served during particular seasons. Guards who had been on duty during particular nights.
Someone had been tracking these people. And a disturbing number of them had vanished.
Her hands went still when she found the sketch.
It was drawn on heavy parchment, rendered with careful precision by someone working from memory. A serpent coiled around a shattered crown.
She had seen this before. On the dead agent's wrist in the palace depths. On the charred fragment of a document the creature had tried to protect. The same symbol, appearing again.
She set the sketch aside and continued through the papers, finding more lists and names and fragments of a conspiracy she could not yet see clearly.
Then she found the name.
It appeared in the margin of one document, underlined twice, circled once, surrounded by question marks.
Calis.
Alaric's mother. Dead before Seraphina ever married into House Vessant. The family rarely spoke of her, and Alaric never mentioned her at all. Seraphina had assumed it was grief. Now she wondered if it was something else.
Why would someone tracking Vessant servants be so obsessed with a woman who died years ago?
One final item remained at the bottom of the box. A small pouch, tucked beneath the papers and wrapped in cloth. She opened it carefully.
Inside lay the broken remnants of a crest ring. The metal was scorched and warped, the outer band cracked as if someone had torn it off in haste. Most of the design had melted beyond recognition.
A piece of a serpent still caught the light.
The same symbol. Again.
Seraphina set the ring beside the sketch and stared at them both.
Three times now. The dead agent. The burned document. And now this ring, hidden by someone who had spent years watching House Vessant from the inside.
What connected them?
The fire-scars pulsed sharply. She pressed her hand against her arm and forced her breathing to steady.
Thalion arrived three hours later.
He said nothing as he entered. Simply crossed to the window and took up position there, his back to the room, his posture broadcasting professional distance.
She felt the pull the same way she had since their magic first recognized each other, that strange awareness that had started the moment their hands brushed and only grown stronger with every touch since.
She returned her attention to the papers.
The silence stretched between them, heavy with things unspoken. She heard him shift his weight once, twice. Felt his attention on her even when he faced the window.
"There is food on the side table. Untouched."
His voice broke the silence without warning. She looked up to find him watching her reflection in the glass rather than turning around.
"I am not hungry."
"And those marks on your neck. Are they always visible?"
Her hand went to her throat before she could stop it. The fire-scars had climbed higher, gold veins branching above her collar.
"They spread when I use fire. They fade when I rest."
"You are not resting." He still did not turn. "You are sitting in a room full of documents that clearly distress you, ignoring food, and the marks are visible. That suggests you have not rested in some time."
She could not argue with his logic.
"I have seen curse-marks before," he continued. "Those are moving faster than most."
"You are not wrong."
Now he turned, and his expression held something she had not expected. Not suspicion. Not hostility. Something harder to name.
"How long?"
"I do not know. Weeks, perhaps. It depends on whether I complete what needs to be done."
He studied her for a long moment. She saw the questions behind his eyes, the same ones he had been holding back since the underground chamber.
I have already died once.
She had said it without thinking during the battle. He had heard. He had filed it away with all his other suspicions about her, but he had not asked. She saw him remembering it now, weighing whether to push.
He did not push.
"Eat something," he said finally.
He turned back to the window.
She returned to her work.
Evening fell slowly.
Seraphina had moved through the box's contents three times, cataloging everything, searching for patterns. The name Calis haunted her. It connected to something, she was certain. A person, a place, an event that would make these scattered pieces form a coherent picture.
She needed more information, archives and records, someone who knew House Vessant's history well enough to identify what she was looking at. She needed Caelan.
The sealed letter still sat on her nightstand. She had glanced at it a dozen times throughout the day, each time turning away without touching it.
Not yet.
Thalion had not moved from the window. He had not spoken since telling her to eat. She felt his presence constantly, impossible to ignore.
The fire-scars throbbed. She pressed her fingers against her forearm and felt the heat radiating through the fabric of her sleeve.
Two weeks.
A knock at the door shattered the silence.
Liora entered, her face carefully neutral in a way that immediately set Seraphina's nerves on edge.
"A messenger has arrived from the border. He insists on delivering his report immediately."
Thalion turned from the window. "Send him in."
Seraphina's hands stilled on the papers. Liora glanced at her once before stepping aside.
The messenger was young, barely more than a boy, with dust coating his uniform and exhaustion carved around his eyes. He saw Thalion first and dropped to one knee, breath still ragged from the ride.
"Your Highness. Urgent word from the eastern watchtowers."
"Report."
The boy's voice shook. "Enemy forces massing along the army's projected route. Our scouts report larger numbers than any previous incursion." He swallowed hard. "They are moving to intercept. The land itself is turning dark where the demons pass."
The room went very still.
Seraphina's heart seized. The army had left at dawn. Caelan was riding directly into an ambush.
"When was this intelligence gathered?" Thalion's voice was sharp, controlled.
"Yesterday evening, Your Highness. I rode through the night."
"The army departed this morning. You did not pass them?"
"I took the courier path through the hills, Your Highness. Faster for a single rider, but too narrow for an army. The main road runs south of it." The boy's face twisted. "They would not have seen me."
Thalion's jaw tightened. "Return to the war council chamber. Report everything to the Empress directly. Every detail about numbers, positions, terrain. Go."
The messenger bowed and withdrew.
Silence filled the chamber.
Seraphina stood motionless at her desk. The papers around her, the serpent symbol, the names and dates she had been cataloging, all of it faded to nothing against the image of Caelan riding into darkness he did not know was waiting.
Come back to me.
The fire-scars burned against her skin.
Thalion was watching her. She felt his attention, heavy and unreadable. He did not offer comfort. He did not speak.
She did not look at him.
She looked at the serpent coiled around its shattered crown, at the name Calis circled in faded ink, and at fragments of a larger structure she could not yet place or fully understand.
The first report had come. It would not be the last.