Seraphina's POV
Kieran wasn't in the estate when I got back.
Adrian had disappeared too — conveniently — leaving me alone in the entrance hall with a head full of questions and nobody to aim them at. I waited twenty minutes. Then forty. Then I went to bed, because standing in a hallway being anxious was still standing in a hallway, and I refused to pace for anyone.
I didn't sleep well. Again.
What I did instead was lie in the dark and make a list of every person in this academy who seemed to know a secret about me, which at this point was approximately everyone I'd spoken to for more than five minutes. By the time the sunset bell rang, I had arrived at a decision.
If nobody was going to tell me what I was, I was going to have to become strong enough to survive finding out.
I got to the training chamber early specifically because I wanted Theron Blackwell to see me arrive first. To see that I had chosen to be here instead of being dragged.
He noticed. Said nothing. Handed me the practice sword.
Today was different from the start. Blackwell ran me through footwork drills for thirty minutes — precise, repetitive, relentless. Then combinations. Block, pivot, counter. Block, pivot, counter. My arms burned. My shoulders screamed. The vampire students on the far side of the chamber trained in pairs, moving with their supernatural grace, and I focused on not watching them because watching them only reminded me how outmatched I was.
"You're thinking again," Blackwell said, circling me.
"I'm always thinking."
"In a fight, thinking gets you killed. Reacting keeps you alive." He came at me mid-sentence — no warning, the way he always did — and I blocked the first strike and completely missed the second, taking a hit to my left side that sent me stumbling.
I didn't fall. I recovered my footing through sheer stubbornness and turned back to face him.
He came again. And again. Each time I absorbed a hit, I got back up. Each time I got back up, he hit harder — not cruel, but honest, the way a storm isn't cruel. It just doesn't care. It just keeps coming.
The twelfth time he put me on my knees, I stayed there for a moment longer than usual.
"Get up, Ashford."
"I'm getting up."
"You're kneeling."
"I'm getting up," I said through my teeth.
"Stop fighting like a victim." His voice was harder than I'd heard it before — the specific hardness of someone who is frustrated because they see more than you're giving. "You're not defending yourself. You're enduring. There's a difference."
Something hot cracked open in my chest.
Stop fighting like a victim.
Vivienne's voice in my head immediately, unbidden: you're so fragile, Seraphina. So useless. So easy to break. Four years of it. Four years of learning to make myself small and quiet and enduring because fighting back only made the punishment worse. Four years of swallowing every ounce of rage because rage was a luxury I couldn't afford.
I looked at Blackwell's scarred hands. His steady green eyes. And I thought: he's not Vivienne. This isn't survival. This is training.
I'm allowed to be angry here.
I let the cage open.
Everything I had never been permitted to feel — every morning scrubbing floors on my birthday, every meal I cooked that I wasn't allowed to eat, every piece of my inheritance worn by Morgana, every phone call Vivienne made selling me like I was furniture — I gathered all of it and I threw it.
I attacked Theron Blackwell.
Not defensively. Not desperately. With actual, genuine, four-years-of-compressed-fury force.
He blocked the first strike and the second. Moved to counter on the third, probably expecting me to backpedal—
I didn't backpedal. I dropped under his arm and drove my fist straight up into his jaw with everything I had.
The impact traveled from my knuckles to my shoulder like hitting a wall. My hand immediately regretted the decision.
But Theron Blackwell stumbled.
One step backward. His head turned from the impact. The practice sword dropped from his hand.
The entire chamber went silent.
Every vampire student had stopped moving. All of them staring.
Theron straightened slowly. Reached up and touched his jaw with two fingers. Looked at me standing there breathing hard with my bruised hand hanging at my side and absolute shock on my face — because I hadn't actually planned that, it had simply happened.
Then he grinned.
It transformed his face entirely — the scar-rough warrior turning suddenly into something younger and warmer and privately delighted. "There she is," he said. Low. Like he'd been waiting for her specifically. "There's the fighter."
"I hurt my hand," I said.
"Worth it." He picked up the practice sword and held it out. His green eyes were different now — something in them had changed, some assessment completed and settled. "Again. But this time with the sword, not your fist."
I took it. My bruised hand throbbed. I didn't mention it again.
Cassia appeared from nowhere after class ended, materializing at my elbow in the corridor with the cheerful stealth of someone who had been practicing the skill for decades.
"That," she said, matching my pace perfectly, "was the most entertaining thing I have seen in fourteen years of attending this academy."
"I'll add it to my list of accomplishments."
"You punched Professor Blackwell." She said it with the reverence of someone describing a historical event. "You, a human girl who has been here less than a week, punched the vampire who fought in the Crimean War and survived fifty years of torture, directly in the face." She pressed both hands to her cheeks. "I need you to understand that story is already everywhere. Three students filmed it."
I stopped walking. "What?"
"You're famous." She beamed. "Incredibly dangerous famous, but famous. Half the academy is impressed. The other half is furious." Her smile didn't waver, but something in her eyes shifted — still warm, but serious underneath. "That second half is the problem."
Something in her tone changed enough that I stopped.
"Cassia. What aren't you saying?"
She glanced both directions down the corridor. Then stepped closer, dropping her voice. "Morgessa has been quiet since the Grand Hall. Since Kieran claimed you." A pause. "Morgessa being quiet is so much worse than Morgessa being loud. When she's loud, she's reacting. When she's quiet—" She stopped.
"She's planning," I finished.
"She didn't come to combat training today. Didn't come to Blood Magic Theory either. Nobody knows where she's been." Cassia met my eyes steadily. "But three of her closest friends were seen near the Forbidden Forest at dawn. And one of them was carrying something I didn't recognize — a small silver case, the kind that's used to transport magical objects the academy prohibits."
The hairs on my arms rose.
"Prohibited," I said. "Meaning Elara doesn't know?"
"Meaning nobody's supposed to know." Cassia wrapped her hand around my wrist — gently, carefully, nothing like Morgessa's grip. "I'm your friend. I decided that when you punched a professor and I felt genuinely proud. But friendship here means telling you things you don't want to hear." She looked at me. "Morgessa isn't planning to embarrass you, Sera. Humiliation was last week. Whatever she's planning now—"
She didn't finish the sentence.
She didn't need to.
I looked down at Cassia's hand on my wrist. At the small, faded cut Morgessa's nail had left there three days ago — barely visible now, almost healed.
Almost.
"What does a silver case mean?" I asked. "Specifically. What would she need one for?"
Cassia's grip tightened slightly. "Silver cases are used for exactly two things at Moonveil. Transporting artifacts." She paused. "Or transporting a very specific kind of poison."
"Poison that works on vampires?"
Cassia's eyes met mine. Very still. Very serious.
"Poison," she said quietly, "that works on humans."
And then, behind us, at the far end of the corridor, a door clicked shut — the sound of someone who had been standing just out of sight, listening, and had now heard exactly enough.