Page 39

THIRTY-NINE

SERAPHINE

S moke split the air like a scream.

Seraphine felt it before she saw it—Cassian’s magic unraveling the dark like thunder through a cracked sky.

The air shimmered where his stormfire had flared, burning away the illusion walls that had tried to swallow him whole.

The Hollow shrieked around them, but she didn’t hesitate.

Her boots hit the ground hard as she shoved open the ruined gate of the prison carved into the Hollow’s spine.

"Cassian!" she yelled.

Gods help her, he answered.

A raw, shuddered breath from the cell’s shadows. She rushed in, light bleeding from her hands, illuminating the crumbling cell.

Seraphine’s heart slammed against her ribs at the sight of him.

Cassian wasn’t just bruised. He was broken.

His body slumped against the wall like a crumpled shadow of the man she remembered.

His skin was blistered, singed in places where Hollow magic had tried to claw him from the inside out.

His lips were cracked, his breaths ragged, shallow.

And yet… when his eyes found hers, something alive still burned there. Flickering, but present.

“You came,” he rasped, voice barely more than air.

Seraphine dropped beside him without hesitation, knees scraping stone. She cupped his face with trembling fingers, felt the heat of his skin, the clammy coldness underneath. “Of course I came,” she whispered. “I told you—I’d burn the world for you.”

He tried to smile. It broke her heart more than if he’d wept.

Another blast shook the cavern behind them, a roar of corrupted power that sent fissures skittering across the stone floor. The Hollow was aware. Awake. It screamed through the roots of the world like a beast in pain—angry, hunted, bleeding.

“They know you’re here,” Cassian murmured, eyelids drooping.

“Obviously,” she snapped, voice sharp with fear she wouldn’t show.

She pulled him upright with one arm under his, bearing his weight like it was nothing. He staggered, wincing, but he stood, shoulder braced against hers. He’d always been stronger than anyone gave him credit for.

Outside, the Hollow Gates had turned into a battlefield.

Through the broken archways of the fortress, firelit chaos reigned.

She saw the banners first—tattered but defiant—whipping through the smoke: the twin wings of Sablewing, Umbraclaw’s silver fangs, Grimhart’s crimson crest, Fenrir’s roaring wolf.

Even House Drakar’s own sigil blazed—though not with pride, but reckoning.

They had come. All of them. Every House she’d called.

They fought not just for survival, but for redemption.

Monsters bled from the earth. Shadows born of grief and magic, of things long buried and never meant to return. Hollowborn with eyes like empty skies, limbs too long, voices that hissed with stolen names. And above them?—

Mirael.

Floating like a queen of death, Hollow magic coiled around her like living smoke, twisting, shifting with every flick of her hands. She watched the battle like it amused her. Like she had already won.

Seraphine’s grip on Cassian’s hand tightened.

There was only one hope left.

They reached the sanctum at the fortress’s heart—an altar carved into the bone of the world, its walls still etched with the blood of the first war.

The final circle waited, symbols pulsing faintly with ancient runes.

In the center, the six shards of the Heartblade hovered, locked in place by the weight of fate, forged into a broken whole.

Only one piece remained.

Seraphine reached into her cloak and pulled the last shard—the one Roen had betrayed them for, the one Cassian had bled for. Her fingers shook as she set it into place.

The blade trembled in the air.

Cassian dropped to one knee, his breath hitching like something inside him had cracked. “I can’t—” he choked. “I don’t have enough left.”

She didn’t let herself cry. Not now. Not with the world falling apart around them.

“You don’t need to,” she said, stepping into the circle.

She drew her dagger with a flick of her wrist, sliced a deep line across her palm. Her blood hit the stone with a hiss, steam rising.

“This is Drakar blood,” she said, voice lifting like a vow. “Dragon fire. Ancient, cursed, blessed—it doesn’t matter anymore. It’s ours. It’s enough.”

Cassian looked up at her then, truly looked. And the raw ache in his eyes nearly broke her.

“Together,” she whispered.

His hand, shaking, reached for hers. Their blood mingled over the stone. His magic sparked—wild, fractured stormfire. Hers surged white and relentless, flames without origin. Fire met fire.

The shards pulsed.

They didn’t just glow—they ignited.

A column of fire erupted from the altar, blinding and searing, cutting through the roof of the sanctum like a beacon to the gods. Screams echoed outside as Hollowborn shrieked in fear or fury. The walls shook with the sound of battle and magic and death.

The Heartblade spun between them, twisting on invisible currents.

Its jagged edges melted into unity, forged not by smiths but by sacrifice.

Steel gave way to something more. A weapon born not just of power, but pain.

It hummed with the weight of every name lost to the Hollow.

Every life stolen. Every soul bound to end it.

It then dropped—right into her waiting hands.

Cassian slumped, spent.

“Hold the line,” he whispered. “I’ll catch up.”

She kissed his brow. “Like hell you will. We do this together .”

She stood, blade gleaming like a captured star, and turned toward the gate as Mirael descended in a storm of wings and teeth.

The final war had begun.

Seraphine was ready to burn it all.