Page 37

37

SERAPHINE

W e’ve been here for three days.

The safehouse isn’t much—abandoned warehouse, reinforced wards, rooftop lookout with cracked solar panels and enough sigils to fry a low-level warlock—but it’s ours. It’s safe.

For now.

We’ve patched together what’s left of PEACE's independent field operatives, plus the team Jackson led into the Black Sun’s compound—Rafe, Dez, Kirin—and a handful of others we can trust. Barely enough to call a resistance, but enough to matter.

We’ve got a makeshift comms setup, food rations, rotating guard shifts.

And silence.

Because Lio’s not back yet.

He left at dawn yesterday—his idea. Said he knew a few safe alley paths, a kid-friendly tunnel route that no one would suspect. He’s the only one who can still slip through the city without setting off a glyph.

I didn’t want to let him go.

Neither did Jackson.

But Lio insisted.

And gods help me—I believed him.

The comms crackle to life, garbled at first, like they’re choking on blood.

“Kirin to base,” someone hisses through static. “We’ve got a body. Sector eight. Gods. It’s—it’s him. It’s Lio.”

The world narrows.

I don’t remember moving. Just the cold rush of air in my lungs as I shove through the safehouse door, boots hitting wet concrete, Portland’s broken skyline flashing red with distant fires.

I hear Jackson yelling behind me.

“Sera! Wait—dammit—Sera!”

But I don’t stop.

I can’t.

The alley is three blocks down.

And there he is.

Small. Still. Like he’s sleeping. But he’s not.

Lio.

My Lio.

Nineteen, a kind yet cocky leopard shifter with big brown eyes and a heart too big for this broken world. He’s lying in the mud and glass, eyes wide, his hoodie soaked through with blood.

His throat’s been slashed.

Not clean. Jagged. Personal.

And carved into his chest, like some sick calling card, is the Black Sun sigil—drawn in fire glyphs that still sizzle when I drop to my knees.

One hand is outstretched like he tried to crawl back.

I drop to my knees.

The scream doesn’t come.

There’s no air for it.

There’s just silence.

And something breaking inside me that might never heal.

Because grief hasn’t caught up yet.

But rage?

Rage’s been waiting.

Jackson catches up, skidding to a stop next to me.

“Shit,” he breathes. “No—no, no?—”

He kneels beside me, and when his hand brushes my shoulder, I don’t flinch. But I don’t look at him, either.

“He trusted me,” I whisper.

“I know.”

“I promised him it’d be okay.”

“I know, Sera.”

My voice cracks. “And I let him die.”

Jackson cups my face, forces me to look at him.

“No. They did this. Not you. You know, even if you had told Lio to stay, he would have gone anyway to give anything to us to help.”

The bond between us thrums, not with comfort, but with shared fury. With promise.

I can’t help but sit there and stare though, letting the rage fill me.

Jackson stays silent the whole time. So does the team.

They know what’s coming.

I’m no longer just the witch who kept to herself. I’m the storm they tried to cage. And now they’ve murdered my own.

I don’t wait for orders.

We track the spell residue from the glyphs carved into Lio’s chest. It’s dirty work—half-buried beneath salt and ash, but I know the stench of death magic when I taste it in the air.

It leads us to a parking structure two blocks away. Long-abandoned, now warded and humming with old, rotten power.

There are six of them inside.

All in those twisted Black Sun robes, faces hidden. But I can feel them grinning.

The first one steps forward, cocky.

“You’re too late, witch.”

I don’t speak.

I just throw a bolt of shadowfire straight through his mouth.

The room erupts into chaos.

Magic whips through the air like a storm with teeth. I summon the shadows, pull them into spears that lash out, impale, drag bodies into the dark screaming.

Jackson’s at my back, gun in hand, blade in the other, taking down warlocks with brutal precision.

“Left!” he yells, and I pivot just in time to catch a curse meant to crush bone, redirecting it into the ceiling with a sigil flare.

I cast wide—runic fire and blood-fueled magic tearing through their wards.

Magic lights the air like a fucking lightning storm. Glyphs screech across concrete. I hurl bolts of black fire that sizzle through their wards and leave nothing but charred robes and smoldering meat.

Jackson moves beside me like death in denim—knife in one hand, gun in the other, blood on his cheek, eyes locked in that soldier’s calm that only breaks when I break.

The last two try to run.

One doesn’t make it.

The other stops and holds up both hands, shaking.

“I didn’t want to—I swear—I was just supposed to watch him—just watch ?—”

I grab his shirt, drag him close.

“You marked him. You let him die in the gutter like an animal.”

“No—it wasn’t me—it was her! She said she wanted it to mean something?—”

“Who?” I demand.

“I don’t know her name. But she’s higher up. Red mask. They said she was next in line?—”

I crush his windpipe before he can finish because I already know who she is.

Let Hessa know I’m coming.

I bury him myself.

No magic.

Just earth.

Just hands.

We build a marker out of broken stone and leftover chalk, etch his name into it with a scrap of sigil wire.

Jackson’s beside me, his knee pressed to mine, quiet.

I light a candle. No magic. Just flame.

“You okay?” he asks.

I don’t look away from the horizon. “No.”

He moves beside me, close enough to touch, but doesn’t reach out yet.

“He died thinking he was doing good,” I say. “He was doing good.”

“Yeah. He was.”

“I won’t let it be for nothing.”

He finally reaches for me then, fingers tangling with mine.

“I know.”

I lean in, press my lips to his.

It’s not about comfort. It’s about survival. About holding onto something when the rest of the world’s gone to hell.

When we break apart, I whisper, “I love you.”

He doesn’t smile.

Just rests his forehead against mine and says, “I love you, too.”

I rest my head on his shoulder.

And in that moment, rage doesn’t drown me.

It fuels me.

Because they want a war?

Fine.

I’ll give them hell.