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SEVENTEEN

SERAPHINE

T he dreams wouldn’t stop.

Every night since Cassian left, she saw his face.

Not smiling. Not burning.

Just... gone.

She’d reach for him and come back with ash. Wake with her fingers curled around her blanket like they were his shirt, clutching a memory instead of a man. The scent of smoke still clung to her skin, even when the fire had long gone cold.

She told herself it was exhaustion. A temporary fracture in her mind, worn down by battle and blood and choices that bled more than they healed.

But something deeper gnawed at her.

In every dream, the shadows whispered his name—but not the way she knew it. The whispers were older. Weightier. Like they had known him before she did.

Beneath it all, that same word repeated over and over.

Stormfire.

It wasn’t just his power. It was a name. A history. A warning.

Seraphine was tired of dancing in the dark.

So on the fourth morning without a word from him, after a night where the dream-Cassian looked at her like he didn’t know who she was, she lit the summoning flame and sent word to House Umbraclaw.

Because if anyone still kept record of the Hollow’s first breath—of buried bloodlines and erased names—it would be the shadowseers of Aethermoor.

Maybe, just maybe, she could find out if the man she trusted with her life…

…was the very weapon her bloodline had sworn to destroy.

They welcomed her like they would a storm.

Silently. Cautiously.

She descended into their territory beneath an overcast sky, the sun hiding behind thick gray clouds as if it, too, feared what might be waiting in the dark below.

She had told the others to wait on the outskirts for her to return. They hadn’t liked it, but she didn’t need them knowing whatever it was that she found out. Or why she was really detouring them in the first place.

The obsidian towers of Aethermoor pierced the Veil like daggers, shadow-wrapped and echoing with old, dead things. No banners flew. No light flickered in the windows. Only the constant whisper of shadows shifting where they shouldn’t.

It wasn’t just a stronghold. It was a tomb of truths waiting to be dug up.

Seraphine had come with a spade made of fire.

Lucien Umbraclaw stood at the steps when she arrived.

Tall. Unmoving. Dressed in layers of black that shimmered like silk spun from midnight.

“Dragonborn,” he said, silver eyes narrowing.

“Shadowmancer,” she replied evenly.

They didn’t shake hands.

Evryn appeared behind him, stepping from a fold of shadows like she’d walked straight out of a forgotten fairytale. Barefoot. Fierce. Her violet eyes gleamed silver as they locked on Seraphine.

“You’ve seen him,” Evryn said.

Seraphine blinked. “Cassian?”

“No.” She shook her head, curls bouncing. “ The Hollow. It clings to you.”

Lucien’s expression didn’t change, but the shadows around his feet coiled tighter.

“You came for answers,” he said.

“I came for truth. ”

“Then follow me.”

The chamber of memory was buried beneath three stories of catacombs and two rituals Evryn muttered in a language older than the empire.

Seraphine stood in the center of a circle etched in bloodglass.

Lucien placed a shard of onyx against her palm. Cold. Sharp.

“Give it blood,” he said.

“Yours or mine?” she asked.

He didn’t answer.

She bit her palm and let it bleed.

The room spun.

Magic ignited. Shadows danced.

The past… spoke.

She saw a woman—tall, beautiful, eyes made of flame.

A queen. Drakar. One of her ancestors.

Then betrayal.

Chains made of whitefire. A man screaming as his soul was torn from his chest and sealed beneath the Veil. His blood turned to storm. His fire… unnatural.

He looked like Cassian.

The queen’s voice echoed in Seraphine’s ears: “The Hollow feeds on memory. And so we will bury it in lies.”

Seraphine dropped to her knees.

When it ended, Lucien was the one who steadied her.

Evryn watched quietly, arms crossed.

Seraphine’s voice shook. “We erased them.”

Lucien’s silver gaze sharpened. “Your House did.”

“And now it’s coming back. Because we didn’t kill it. We locked it away. ”

Evryn tilted her head. “You thought the Heartblade would seal it again.”

Seraphine nodded. “It was supposed to. That’s what I was told.”

Lucien stepped back. “They didn’t lie, Dragonborn. But they didn’t tell you everything.”

“What do you mean?”

“The blade doesn’t seal the Hollow.” Evryn’s voice was soft. Pained. “It chooses the one who will.”

Seraphine’s breath caught. “What if it’s not me?”

Lucien’s mouth twisted. “Then the one you’re chasing will die for nothing.”

Hours later, she sat in the windowed alcove of a forgotten tower, staring into the mist-veiled forest.

Evryn approached quietly, offering a cup of honey-laced wine.

“He’s not dead, you know.”

Seraphine looked up. “You’re sure?”

“I’m Sighted, remember?” Evryn said with a crooked smile. “He’s breathing. And he’s not alone.”

Seraphine clutched the message Cassian had sent.

“Safe. For now. Hold your location. I’ll find you.”

Seven words. But her heart had latched onto every one.

“Do you think he knows?” she asked.

Evryn didn’t need to ask what.

“Yes,” she said. “He just doesn’t know how to tell you.”

Seraphine closed her eyes.

The Hollow’s origin was a Drakar sin. Cassian might be its only salvation. And her father would burn them both if he knew.

So now she had a choice.

Follow him.

Or run from what they were becoming.