Page 11

ELEVEN

SERAPHINE

T he morning air still smelled like ash and old fear.

Seraphine tightened her cloak against the cold bite of dawn as she crested the ridge with Cassian beside her, the rest of the team trailing just behind. The path through the Veil’s scar had grown darker with every mile—trees too quiet, earth too soft. Shadows hung wrong.

Still, the ruins of Thal’s Hollow appeared like a jagged promise through the mist.

Sablewing territory.

She knew better than to trust it.

Their kind didn’t believe in open doors or clean alliances. They believed in half-truths and blood-pacts, and Malrik—well, he was something else entirely.

Cassian glanced sideways as the old watchtower emerged, half-swallowed by vine and time.

“Friend of yours?” he asked, voice low.

Seraphine scoffed. “Malrik doesn’t do friends.”

“What does he do?”

She hesitated. “He remembers.”

Cassian arched a brow. “Well, that’s not creepy at all.”

“Don’t touch him,” she said. “Don’t bleed near him. And don’t— under any circumstance —let him make a deal.”

Cassian grinned. “I’m starting to think you do like me. That’s a lot of concern.”

Seraphine didn’t answer.

The doors creaked open as they approached.

Malrik Sablewing stood in the center of the ruined hall like he’d been waiting there for centuries.

Pale as death, dressed in layered obsidian silks that shimmered like shadow-oil. His hair spilled loose over his shoulders, dark and damp, and his wings—sleek, black-veined, almost translucent in the broken morning light—were folded behind him like a cloak of living leather.

His crimson eyes locked onto Seraphine’s.

They flashed silver.

“You brought a storm,” he said, voice like velvet soaked in frost.

She inclined her head. “And you always did love a little chaos.”

Malrik’s gaze slid to Cassian. “That’s not chaos. That’s memory you haven’t touched yet.”

Cassian stiffened slightly.

Seraphine stepped between them. “We’re not here to play, Malrik. We need your mind.”

Malrik offered a ghost of a smile.

“You always did get right to the bleeding point.”

They moved to a side chamber where cracked mosaics still shimmered with lost enchantments. Brann gawked at them. Alek kept to the shadows. Lira stayed close, eyes on Malrik like a dagger ready to fly.

Seraphine set the encoded Heartblade map on the stone table.

Malrik didn’t touch it.

He simply closed his eyes, placed his palm against the blood-woven runes, and breathed in.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then silver spilled from his lashes like smoke, his body arching slightly as he inhaled memory.

Everyone backed up.

Cassian, to his credit, didn’t flinch.

Malrik’s voice shifted, layered.

“There are seven pieces,” he said. “Scattered across the Dominion, buried in places that don’t remember they were ever whole.”

“Seven?” Seraphine breathed.

“I can see only one clearly. The oldest. The keystone. Hidden beneath the drowned temple in the Deadrun Marshes.”

Seraphine exhaled, fisting her hands. “And the others?”

“Shattered across broken time,” he murmured. “I see a veil of wolves. A burning sky. Blood-soaked sand and...”

He stopped.

Eyes opened slowly, irises still glowing faint silver.

“…a throne of bones where no king dares sit.”

Silence.

Cassian whistled low. “You sure know how to pick vacation spots, Princess.”

Malrik turned his gaze on him, something unreadable in his expression. “He hides much.”

Cassian crossed his arms. “Yeah, well, it’s all mine to hide.”

Malrik’s eyes narrowed slightly. “For now.”

Seraphine stepped between them again, sharper this time. “Enough.”

Malrik inclined his head, a smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“As charming as ever,” he said.

“And you’re still a bastard in silk.”

That made him laugh—soft and humorless.

“You’ll need a blood key to breach the Marsh temple,” he said finally. “It won’t open for fire alone.”

She nodded. “Where do I find one?”

He looked at her like he pitied her. “You don’t. You make one.”

They left the ruins by midday, heading south.

The wind bit harder, the sky a bruised gray, and Seraphine felt the weight of progress.

Seven shards. One confirmed. Six to go.

Cassian fell into step beside her as the group pushed forward.

“So. Blood keys.”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t ask.”

“Too late. Already imagining it involves some deeply disturbing ritual involving ancient gods and sharp objects.”

She smirked despite herself. “You’re not entirely wrong.”

He nudged her shoulder lightly with his own. “We’ll find them.”

She didn’t answer right away. But when she glanced at him again, his face was turned forward, jaw tense, eyes watching the horizon.