Page 39

39

SERAPHINE

I don’t breathe as we move through the tunnel.

Just that shallow, barely-there rhythm that keeps me from passing out while the rest of me braces for war.

The walls around us vibrate with old warding runes, crumbling in places, patched over with fresh ones from our crew. Ahead, Jackson leads the point team—blade in one hand, the sigil I carved into his skin earlier glowing faintly through his sleeve.

He doesn’t look back, but I know he feels me behind him.

We hit the temple at moonrise.

It’s massive and wrong—black stone that seems to suck the light out of the sky, banners of the Black Sun hanging like skin from the rafters. The air’s thick with sulfur, incense, and something older—blood magic, old as the bones buried beneath this place.

I hate how familiar it feels.

How much of me this place remembers.

They know we’re coming. They’re ready. So, instead of splitting like we planned, we bum rush them all together with everything we have.

We pour through the southern gate like a goddamn hurricane—mages, shifters, fae warriors, blood-marked witches. A militia born of desperation and vengeance. United by grief.

By Lio.

I feel his loss like a broken rib.

I use it like a blade.

The first wave of cultists tries to hold the courtyard.

They last maybe three minutes.

Dez drops a hexbomb that blinds half of them, Kirin skewers three with a whip of electric sigils, and Jackson cuts a warlock clean through the clavicle.

I don’t even slow down.

My shadows eat the rest and I unleash everything I have kept hidden all of these years.

We breach the inner sanctum, and there he is.

Halbrook.

Traitor. Murderer. Monster wrapped in a politician’s smile.

He stands tall at the altar, hood thrown back. His skin is pure onyx now, hair white as bone, and his eyes.

Gods. His eyes glow with silver flame.

Not human.

Not even close.

Behind him, Hessa paces like a caged predator, her cloak thrown off, twin daggers spinning in her fingers.

“Seraphine,” Hessa purrs, her voice dripping venom as she twirls one dagger lazily. Her eyes glitter behind her war paint, wild with power and smug satisfaction. “Still pretending you’re better than us?”

I step forward, pulse steady, fire already coiling in my palms. “You’re not even worth pretending for.”

She lunges.

I meet her halfway.

The moment our bodies collide, the room detonates around us. Magic and steel crash in violent harmony, shouts echo off the stone, and a dozen spells flare at once like fireworks laced with hate.

I catch the glint of Jackson as he crashes into Halbrook, both of them disappearing in a swirl of dark light and gritted fury. Halbrook throws an eldritch blast—a sickly green pulse that warps the air as it flies. Jackson ducks under it, slides low, and drives his shoulder into the elf’s ribs with a snarl.

Halbrook barely budges.

He just laughs, brushing blood from his lip like it’s wine. “And here I thought you had promise. What a disappointment.”

Jackson grits his teeth and rams his elbow into Halbrook’s jaw. “Go to hell.”

The two of them vanish in a haze of fire and blade, swallowed by the surge of war that explodes around us.

But I can’t watch.

Because Hessa is still on me.

She’s fast—faster than she ever was back in the days we called each other friend. Her blades sing through the air, one slicing a crimson ribbon across my bicep before I can block the second with a conjured ward.

The ward shatters from the impact. Her laugh cuts deeper than her steel.

“I trained you better than this,” she sneers.

I twist, plant my boot in her stomach, and send her flying into the nearest pillar with a crack that echoes.

“I upgraded,” I growl.

But she’s already back on her feet, her smile twisted with something cruel.

She circles me like a predator, eyes sharp, movements a blur. “You know,” she says, voice low, almost conversational, “he screamed for you.”

The words hit like a punch to the solar plexus.

“What?”

“Lio,” she hisses. “His last words were your name. Over and over. Like a damn prayer.”

The world tilts.

I see red.

Then black.

I snap.

Shadows explode from me like a storm uncaged. They rush across the temple floor, wrapping around Hessa’s legs, dragging her off balance. She yells, slashing through one with her dagger, but she’s too slow.

I’m on her.

I slam her into the altar, the force cracking the obsidian slab beneath her. She tries to throw a glyph—fiery, venomous—but I eat it, my magic swallowing hers like oxygen fueling a firestorm.

Her eyes go wide.

My fire burns through the protective charm on her chest, melting the sigil and searing the skin beneath it.

I don’t stop.

Every ounce of pain I’ve swallowed—every betrayal, every death—floods my magic. It tears through her shields, her pride, her lies.

“I trusted you,” I scream, voice ragged, hands glowing with molten shadowlight.

She smirks, even as blood drips from the gash on her forehead. “That was your first mistake.”

And still, she moves to stab me again.

I beat her to it.

I hurl a final incantation—one laced with a piece of my true name, my real power. It tastes like ash and lightning as it leaves my tongue. It hurts to say it.

She doesn’t even have time to scream.

Just collapses into the wreckage of the altar with eyes wide and empty.

I don’t look away.

I stagger, half from exhaustion, half from rage that hasn’t found a place to land.

And then I see him.

Jackson.

He’s bleeding—badly—from his side and shoulder, one eye swollen, blood smeared across his jaw. But he’s alive.

And Halbrook?

Pinned.

He’s on his back, face twisted in fury, Kirin’s spear driven through his thigh, Jackson’s boot planted on his chest.

“You don’t get it,” Halbrook gasps. “You never got it. Tharos is coming. You can’t stop this. None of you can.”

I limp over, body aching, hands scorched from spellwork, and crouch beside him.

“You built this,” I whisper. “You fed it.”

He tries to smirk, but he’s too weak. Still, I see the flicker of arrogance in his eyes—right up until I press my palm to his sternum.

The magic is already there, humming at my fingertips.

He finally realizes what I’m going to do.

“No—wait—Sera, listen ? — ”

I whisper the spell.

His heart detonates in his chest like a thunderclap.

Halbrook’s eyes go blank.

And I feel the silence that follows like a knife in my ribs.

It’s done.

We think.

The cult shatters without its spine, their scattered remnants fleeing into the woods, hunted down by our people. The banners burn. The temple begins to crumble.

But not before we count our dead.

Fourteen.

Rafe’s gone.

Two of the fae elders. A witch from the southern front I’d trained personally. And Dez.

Gods.

Dez is still alive. But just barely.

She’s missing her leg.

She still flipped Halbrook’s body off as they carted her to the med tent.

Later, I stand at the edge of the battlefield, looking down at the cracked stone where Halbrook’s body still smolders.

Jackson finds me there.

He doesn’t speak.

Just wraps his arm around me.

And for once, I let myself lean into him. Let myself be held. Just for a moment.

“I’m tired,” I whisper.

“I know.”

“I thought it would feel different.”

“We’re not done yet,” he says softly. “You know that, right?”

“I do.”

“But you’re not alone.”

I turn, look at him.

Even bloodied, bruised, filthy—he’s steady.

Mine.

“I love you,” I say.

He smiles, eyes soft. “I know.”

“Smartass.”

He kisses me like the world hasn’t ended. Like maybe it won’t.

And when we break apart, the fire in me is still there.

But it’s burning for something more than vengeance now.