Page 35

THIRTY-FIVE

SERAPHINE

T he wind had changed.

Seraphine knew it the second her eyes snapped open.

The ruins were too quiet. The air too still. It was that pregnant kind of silence that came before disaster—thick, suffocating. Like the world was holding its breath.

She sat up, cold stone digging into her back, heart hammering.

Cassian wasn’t beside her.

She didn’t panic at first. He had a habit of pacing at dawn, stalking the perimeter like a restless flame. But the fire had long burned out, and the wards they’d set were cold.

A groan echoed to her left. She turned sharply, already moving, reaching.

A man lay sprawled across the moss-covered stones. Not Cassian.

Not even close.

She was on him in a second, blade drawn, pressed to his throat.

“Move, and I carve your spine out through your front,” she said coldly.

The man blinked up at her. His face was blank for a moment as if he had no idea where he was or what had happened.

“Whoa. Whoa. I’m not here to fight you.”

“Where’s Cassian?” she snapped.

“I—”

“Where is he?” Her glaive pressed deeper. A trickle of blood slid down his neck.

The man swallowed hard. “He’s gone.”

The world tilted.

Her heart dropped somewhere near her boots. “What do you mean gone?”

The stranger looked at her then, something like guilt bleeding through the pain in his eyes. “She took him.”

“Who?” she demanded. “Say her name.”

“…Mirael.”

Seraphine stumbled back a step. Her fingers trembled, but she didn’t lower her blade. “You’re going to explain everything,” she said. “And if I don’t like a single word, I’ll burn your tongue out through your teeth. Clear?”

“Crystal.”

She stepped back enough for him to sit up, but kept her weapon ready.

He coughed, wincing. “Name’s Roen. Cassian trusted me.”

“Mistake,” she muttered.

Roen gave a bitter chuckle. “He’d probably agree with you right about now.”

“Talk.”

“I had the last shard,” Roen said, digging into his coat with shaking fingers.

He pulled out a cloth-wrapped bundle and unrolled it slowly, revealing a jagged piece of black crystal pulsing faintly with magic.

“It’s been in my family for generations.

Passed down, kept hidden. We were Watchers— guardians of the final piece, waiting for the right moment. The right hand.”

Her eyes locked on the shard. “He never told me.”

“He didn’t know until I told him.”

“And Mirael?”

“She was watching. Always watching. I didn’t even feel her arrive. Just a cold. Like the Veil split open.”

Seraphine’s voice was barely a whisper. “What did she do to him?”

“Didn’t kill him,” Roen said quickly. “Not yet. She touched him. Said something. I didn’t hear it—but he…changed. His eyes. His posture. And then she took him. Just vanished into the dark.”

Seraphine clenched her fists. “Why him?”

“Because he’s the key,” Roen said grimly. “Not just to the blade. To the Hollow itself. That line of his, the one Drakar buried? It wasn’t just cursed—it was bound. Tied to the Veil.”

Her knees gave, and she dropped to the stone.

Cassian hadn’t just been chosen. He’d been doomed.

She’d known. Deep down, she’d always known.

“I have to get him back.”

Roen looked up sharply. “You can’t go alone.”

“I’m not.” Her voice was steel. “I’m taking the Houses with me.”

He blinked. “You mean… unite them?”

“Yes.”

“They’ll never follow you. You’re half in rebellion already?—”

“They’ll follow when I tell them the Hollow’s not just breaking,” she cut in, standing tall again, eyes blazing, “it’s ready to spill.”

Roen tilted his head, expression unreadable. “You’ll need proof.”

“I’ll give them proof.” Her jaw clenched so tightly her teeth ached. “I’ll drag the Hollow to their gates if I have to.”

Roen stared at her a long moment, then nodded once. “I’ll come.”

Seraphine didn’t move.

Then, slowly, she turned to him. Her eyes, once tired and rimmed red from grief, were sharp now—hard as obsidian. Her glaive still glinted at her back, but it was the weight of her gaze that silenced him.

“No,” she said.

Roen frowned. “I can help.”

“You helped by handing him over.”

“I didn’t know?—”

“You didn’t try to know.” Her voice was quiet, venomous. “You didn’t protect him. You gave him a shard with one hand and turned your back with the other. That doesn’t make you loyal. That makes you dangerous.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. For once, the smooth thief had no defense.

She stepped forward, just enough that he had to look up at her from where he still knelt. “I don’t trust you. I won’t let you near him again.”

“I didn’t sell you out,” Roen muttered.

“No,” she said coldly, “but you would’ve. If the Emperor had asked first, if the bounty had been heavier… you’d have bartered Cassian’s life like a coin purse. And mine.”

Roen didn’t argue. Didn’t deny it. Which only proved her point.

She leaned in, close enough that he could feel the heat of her breath. “I will deal with my father. With every gilded coward sitting on a throne made of bone and blood. But first—I get him back.”

“You won’t make it alone.”

“I’m not alone,” she said, turning her back on him. “Not where it matters.”

She could feel Roen watching her as she moved, but she didn’t look back.

She had no time for redemption arcs. Not his.

She had a war to start.

A storm to get back.

Together, they would do what no House had dared: they’d end the Hollow, bury the Drakar lies, and set fire to everything that had tried to chain them.

Her father’s reign was a dying star.

Seraphine was coming to tear the sky apart.