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History. A hundred years of faces were loved, and some were lost. Others looked no older than me as they stood proud with grins.

I found my grandfather’s snow-white beard and round glasses staring back fifty-seven frames down.

He had the same crinkled, golden eyes as Father and Charles, and I swore the glass frame was frosted with cracks.

A hundred years of title no longer rested on my shoulders. And it was bittersweet.

I shifted my eyes over Veravine Almera. And I couldn’t help but notice the color of her eyes, how that striking green was a shade of every fern, every leaf…

and how I saw my mother in those features.

She had a neval streak—smudged and concealed through time and age.

She wore a red dress. The exact one I was in, right down to the diamond straps and the stain on the collar.

I was wearing Veravine’s gown.

My lungs burned for air. “Malachi, I think that’s—” The words didn’t dare to empty from my trembling lip. Once spoken, I could never take them back in this unforgivable place.

Malachi understood. She saw what I saw, the eyes, the dress. She tilted her neck, listening—

“Veravine was born in Southern Ravensla. She was known for her beauty and charm. She met a boy at the academy, and they fell in love, but that boy had a future already planned for him, a marriage arranged with Autumn because to control the air meant you controlled the very life force of everyone. They met every few years, relinquished in the simple days when a title meant freedom. No one knew what happened to her. Some say the wife killed his mistress in a jealous rage. Victor claimed her title years later, even her home. There were a few rumors of muddied blood, a daughter born, stolen by scavengers, and forced to live a life unknowing the power she held.”

“How do you know all of this?”

“The wind does more than give us life—it hears everything, even those secrets hissed under breaths years before. Veravine’s daughter lived a hard few years, never knowing who she really was.

” Malachi shrugged her shoulders. “I wonder if this was when she found out who she was. If she stared into the portrait of Veravine and saw her own reflection.”

But Malachi stared at me as if I was finding my truth, the bare truth stripped to chipped paint and clouded glass. I was never destined for Winter—my lungs would forever bleed flame, and I was the burning heir.

Veravine was my grandmother, and she was beautiful.

I couldn’t claim Archer’s title when I knew where my blood was born.

But no matter how I was pulled along this life, I’d lose a piece of myself either way.

My father’s life for my own will. He had done everything to ensure I could walk my own path, never realizing I’d be the one to save him from his own barter.

“I don’t believe this. I stayed in Ravensla, in Victor’s home.”

My mother lost her title to Victor. Ravensla was mine to reclaim. A scavenger must have found her as a little girl and sold her for the neval mark she bore. Victor claimed Veravine’s title—my mother’s rightful name as the Serpent of Ravensla.

Victor’s barter with my father was revenge against Fallon because he knew he could control her. Or perhaps he knew how powerful their bloodline would be together. He knew whose daughter she was and hoped to lace his heritage with royalty, replacing his tattered tapestries with golden columns.

“Perhaps she led you there. Most secrets as powerful as this don’t like to be kept.”

I continued down the line of Serpents until I got to my father’s. His hair was less grey, eyes less concerned, unseen by the horrors of the world. He was just a boy.

Blue eyes caught my stare. I went to Archer’s portrait—to see a version of him who’d been the last to see Klaus alive as if Malachi’s words of the wind absorbing the past would make him appear.

As if I could hear his voice once more and tell him I would win it for him.

And he’d already be standing beside me if love and hope could bring him back .

I imagined the portrait beside him to be Klaus—those freckles, though I could never recall how many, and the eyes that seemed too brown in the painting back on the wall at home.

But there was no portrait, and I would never know the moments he existed while I was away.

Those versions of him had ceased to exist.

Archer didn’t smile. Instead, his expression was defeated—the face of a man who had disappointed his father and taken the Night title. He was a man who had to claim that name for himself before he even understood what it meant. He’d done everything right, yet it would never be enough.

I saw myself in those portraits, in the reflection of failure and resilience. And I knew I had no choice but to make that vision a reality. I would lay my life down for my home, just as Archer said made a great Serpent.

I’d save the boy and the man—my father—who had done everything right, as if fire could not melt ice but could instead mold it into something entirely new.

“Are the shadows true?” Malachi asked softly.

“It’s true,” I said, uncurling my fist and showing her the faded shadow relic on my palm. “I don’t want to claim Archer’s title, but I don’t think I have a choice. I didn’t know Ciaran and Naraic were born in Demetria.” I drew out of my breath. “He keeps saving me.”

Malachi looked over the wall of Serpents, thumbing the lace bodice of her dress. “Possibly. But you saved him first.”

I didn’t believe that was true. I hadn’t saved him—I only prolonged his inevitable death. And everyone who knew about my forbidden quell was on that list. Malachi included.

I’d seen enough. “We should get back to the bid,” I said, turning on my heel.

We were back in the hall that reeked of booze and sweat.

Serpents communed with one other, speaking of warding and infrastructure.

Bottles clanged together, and a glass of wine was already in my empty hand as a server whisked away in the flurry.

Father spoke to Knox, patting him on the back.

Archer talked to a Serpent of Autumn, a wide grin spread across his face.

Everyone had a place. I could speak endlessly of the frost that coated our windowsill and the howls of the ice beasts in the middle of the night.

I had a million words to say, but none that made sense.

I could not speak of the heat and how I’d seen every ray of sun.

But perhaps that mark of the Unknown was for my heart—and so for the next hour, I spoke about ice whenever the conversation dulled.

Lasar seemed particularly interested. Even debated the best types of snow with me. Archer’s voice brought me back to the present as I downed another drink.

“I never knew that was how snow formed,” he said while grabbing the stem of my glass and finishing the last sip as red stained his lips.

Heat flashed in my cheeks for no reason. “There are different types of snow, and it all depends on the amount of water in it.” He’d claimed me to win a title, and here I was speaking about the snow.

“Moisture,” he mumbled. “Do you enjoy the cold, Severyn?”

It was all I knew. “No, not really.”

Archer furrowed his dark brows. “Then the heat?”

I had to say yes. “It is better than cold.”

“You’ll have to visit the Night realm sometime. I think you’ll find it the perfect temperature, Severyn.” He played the act of not knowing more than my name well. Meanwhile, I debated dragging my nails down his chest and mounting the Serpent of Night.

The wine sloshed in my stomach with one look at the shadows dancing within his fingers.

“Take me. ”

“Is that a demand, Severyn?”

“It was a demand, Serpent.” I’d spoken it aloud, and Lasar gave me a strange look.

Archer grinned back. “Someday.”

Heat flushed my cheeks. “Can we speak alone?”

Archer nodded. “Let’s not be rude, Severyn. Your guests are still here.”

Father approached, resting a hand on my shoulder.

“I love you, Severyn. I should have said it more.” And his shoulders finally relaxed after all those wordless months he’d been weakened from warding.

I knew he loved me. I knew he held on to see us become Serpents, even for us to live a life carved with our own daggers.

“I love you, Father,” I promised again to make him proud.

That was all. I nodded and watched him leave, and a part of me thought I’d never see him again. The king kept glancing at us, and I swallowed hard when he stood from his golden throne, cane stomping into the stone as he walked closer.

He stopped before us, holding my hand between his. The hardness I’d seen in his stolen gaze was gone, shrouded by what I could only say was kindness. He blinked, and his eyes paled.

“Veravine would have loved to see you in that gown.” His jaw clenched tight, a whisper hanging on his lips.

I didn’t think I could speak. I believed my teeth were forced shut. “Thank you. I wish I could have met her.”

The king hardened his eyes. “Our love was starved and brittle. It had never seen daylight. And yet, I have never found something so powerful before. Something that fed off secrets and lust, and I knew the poison between our touch, how I’d be willing to destroy my legacy for one more gaze into her eyes.

” He twisted off a silver bracelet and placed it in my hand.

“It was Veravine’s. She wore it every day.

They say all things loved hold memories.

Please take it. Unveil her words for me. ”

I curled my fingers around the metal band, and a simple purple glass pendant was looped around. “I don’t know what to say.” I wanted to ask why he saved me. He knew what I was to him. He knew of my forbidden quell. “Neval hair—is it truly powerful?”

“It seems to be.” The king waved his cane in the air and was gone, leaving a shattering wall of brilliant dust behind.

He had no idea. He’d just sent Bribers on a hunt for anyone with this streak, knowing it could be a descendant of Veravine’s—possibly his.