Page 53

53

SERA

I walk.

One step.

Then another.

The wind rakes through the battlefield behind me, howling through the ruins, carrying the stench of blood, of war, of everything I have left behind.

I do not stop.

I do not look back.

Veylan does not stop me.

No one does.

Let them watch me leave. Let them see what they have created.

My body should ache.

I should be weak, trembling, barely able to keep myself upright after everything that has happened. But I am not.

Something in me has shifted, and I feel it in my bones. In the air curling around me like an unseen force, waiting. Breathing.

I was supposed to die.

I did die.

But I didn’t. Why? I’m not alive. Not dead. Something else entirely. A new being.

My transformation has been complete.

I glance down at my hands. The skin is smooth, unmarred, untouched by the wounds I should still bear. But beneath the surface, I feel it—the raw power slithering inside me like a second heartbeat, like something not my own.

It does not feel wrong.

It does not feel foreign.

It feels inevitable.

The war is over. The House Drazharel is no longer under Hazeran’s rule. The brothers have their victory.

But this? This is mine.

I reach a broken archway, stepping over shattered stone, my boots slick with dried blood. Beyond this point, the land stretches wide and wild. Unknown.

I do not hesitate.

The wilderness swallows me whole.

I was once a girl locked in a cage.

A human girl. A fragile, breakable thing.

That girl begged. She fought against chains that were too strong, against a fate that was never hers to control.

That girl died on an altar.

I do not mourn her.

Let them think they buried me. Let them think they ended me.

Let them fear what rises from the ashes.

The further I go, the lighter I feel, as if I am shedding something with every step.

Regret.

Pain.

The remnants of who I used to be.

I hear nothing but the whisper of my own breath and the rustling leaves above. The battle, the voices, Veylan—they are all behind me. Gone.

He did not stop me.

He did not even try.

I do not allow the sting of that truth to touch me. It does not matter. Nothing matters except what comes next.

I am no longer a prisoner.

I am no longer a pawn.

And I will never let anyone control me again.

I walk for miles. Hours.

The ruins vanish behind me, lost to the mist that clings to the valley, to the darkness that spreads as the night deepens.

I do not stop.

My body does not demand rest. I’m oozing with my newfound power.

There is a river ahead, silver under the moon, reflecting the sky like a blade. I crouch at the edge, staring into the water, expecting to see myself.

I do not recognize the woman staring back.

Her eyes—too bright, glowing faintly in the dim light. A shimmer of unnatural gold bleeding into the silver of her irises. Her skin—pale, almost ethereal, like something not meant to exist in this world.

Her presence—wrong. Not human.

I reach out, my fingers brushing the water. The reflection ripples. The moment shifts.

The magic in my veins hums.

I exhale slowly, watching the way the river bends toward me.

It listens.

The night wind picks up. The trees sway. The world feels different.

The power inside me is different.

For the first time since my death and rebirth, I smile.

I was never meant to be a captive. Not to my captors.

Not to the brothers.

Not to Veylan.

I belong only to myself.

And they will learn that soon enough.

I rise to my feet, my reflection distorting in the river’s surface, shifting, changing—until it no longer resembles me at all.

I turn my back on it.

On the past. On everything.

And I walk into the unknown.