Page 5

FIVE

SERAPHINE

T he door to the war room shut behind him with a final, echoing thud.

Seraphine didn’t move for a long moment. She stood at blackstone table, one gloved hand braced against its molten-veined surface, staring not at the maps scattered across it but at the flames dancing in the nearby sconces.

They flickered just a little too wildly.

Calm down, she told herself. But her pulse hadn’t quite listened.

Cassian Veyne.

Storm-blooded, sharp-tongued, unclaimed bastard of fire and rebellion. He walked into her domain like it didn’t matter who her father was. Like the thrones carved into stone and bones and centuries of power didn’t mean a damn thing to him.

She’d expected to hate him for it.

Instead…

Seraphine scowled and shoved off the table, crossing the chamber in swift, measured steps.

Her armor clinked faintly as she walked, the whitefire seams dimming now that her body wasn’t keyed up with tension.

She tugged her gloves off one finger at a time, tossed them onto the workbench beside her travel gear.

He’d gotten under her skin. She hated that.

It’s just heat. Just pressure. Two lethal creatures thrown into the same cage. It was bound to spark.

Still… the way he looked at her. Not with reverence. Not with fear. But like he saw her.

That was worse.

Her chambers were tucked into the southeast wing of the Citadel, where the light of the lava rivers painted her walls in constant moving gold.

She stepped inside and locked the door behind her, the sound oddly grounding.

She didn’t waste time. Morning came fast in Drakar territory, and dawn waited for no one—not even the Icefire Heir.

Seraphine stripped the formal armor first, piece by piece, revealing the thinner battle-weave beneath. She moved with precision, practiced hands sorting what would stay behind and what would travel with her. No House-standard garb. No insignias. This wasn’t about titles—it was survival.

She packed two throwing daggers with silverfire-etched hilts, her collapsible glaive, newly reforged with a whitefire core, three vials of focus-blood, in case the Hollow pulse hit hard, a journal, half-filled with her mother’s encoded war notes.

And, almost as an afterthought, the obsidian ring her father had given her when she turned thirteen.

The only thing he’d ever given her that hadn’t come with a warning.

As she worked, her thoughts returned to Cassian.

The way he hadn’t flinched under her threat. The way his voice had gone low when he called her “Princess” like it meant something filthy.

The fire—his fire.

It had felt… wrong. No, not wrong. Untamed. Like a beast that hadn’t learned how to be a weapon yet. Not shaped by legacy. Not built from tradition. Just raw, born magic that didn’t give a damn about old rules or old Houses.

She hated how much that intrigued her.

Seraphine paused, breathing slow.

He was dangerous. But maybe that’s what they needed.

A knock at the door shattered her thoughts.

It wasn’t a servant’s knock. It was sharper. Meant to be heard. She knew before she opened it who it would be.

Vaela stood on the other side like a froststorm wrapped in silk. Her hair, pale as moonlight, had been twisted into intricate loops pinned with gold. Her smile was a weapon, and her eyes flicked over Seraphine’s armorless form with open disdain.

“Packing already?” she asked, stepping inside without waiting for permission.

Seraphine closed the door with a click. “Didn’t realize this was a social call.”

“It’s not.” Vaela walked to the edge of the bed and flicked her fingers at the journal lying open. “Just came to see if the rumors were true.”

“Which ones?”

“That you’re really dragging some mongrel merc into Hollow territory with you.” She turned, eyes sharp. “I thought you at least had standards.”

Seraphine crossed her arms. “Funny. I was thinking the same about you.”

Vaela’s expression twisted, but only for a heartbeat. Then she smiled again.

“You’ve changed,” she said softly. “Used to be, you’d sooner cut your tongue out than backtalk to me. Now you’re playing house with halfbloods and pretending it’s strategy.”

Seraphine didn’t move. Didn’t blink.

“I’m not playing at anything,” she said. “This is war.”

“And that’s what scares me,” Vaela said. “Because you’re starting to sound like your father.”

Seraphine’s jaw clenched. “What do you want, Vaela?”

Vaela stepped closer, voice dropping into something almost like sincerity. “To warn you. Whatever that thing is—Veyne—it’s not yours to control. He’ll burn you down the second you turn your back.”

Seraphine stared at her, long and hard. “Good,” she said at last. “I’d like to see him try.”

Vaela’s smile vanished. “Don’t die out there,” she said, heading for the door. “You’re too useful to waste.”

She was gone, trailing silk and tension behind her like smoke.

Alone again, Seraphine finished packing.

But sleep wouldn’t come.

She stood at the window, watching the volcanic rivers snake through the mountain valleys. The night was still, save for the occasional wingbeat of a sentry dragon overhead.

Below, in the east wing, was the rogue fire she’d brought into her war.

She didn’t trust him. Not even close. But some part of her—the part she kept buried, deep under duty and discipline—believed that if anyone could burn through the lies choking their world, it’d be someone who’d never sworn to protect it.

She didn’t want to need him.

But maybe she already did.