Darkness throbbed behind her eyes.
Seraphina gasped as she awoke, coughing smoke from her lungs, the acrid sting of fire still clinging to her skin. The ceiling had collapsed—she remembered the explosion, the look on Kaelith's face, the flash of fear in his usually unshakable gaze.
But now…
She was alone.
Half-buried in ash and ruin.
And her hands were glowing.
Not with fire.
With sigils.
Ancient ones.
Spiraling up her wrists like brands.
---
Scene Break – Underground Chamber
Marianne clawed through the rubble above, bleeding, panting. She'd lost Seraphina in the blast. Lost Kaelith too.
But not the enemy.
A figure emerged from the smoke.
Verren.
Alive.
He dragged behind him something wrapped in a crimson cloak—a tome. Bound in skin, sealed in a lock shaped like the Empress's crest.
"Too late," he muttered to himself.
Then smiled cruelly.
"She's triggered the bond. We don't need her alive now."
---
Scene Break – Beneath the Debris
Seraphina staggered to her feet.
The walls around her pulsed with energy, as though awakened.
At the center of the space stood a black mirror—unbroken, untouched by time. It reflected not her image, but a thousand versions of herself. Crowned. Drowned. Burned. Betrayed.
And one, bleeding from her hands, standing at Kaelith's side.
Each version whispered.
> "You were never meant to love him."
Her heart clenched.
"Why?"
> "Because love is what destroyed us the first time."
---
Scene Break – The Royal Tower
Far away, in the Empress's highest chamber, Lord Alden bowed low.
"She survived," he said.
The Empress turned, her silhouette framed by the moonlight.
"Of course she did," she said. "The pact would not let her die before the war begins."
Alden looked up. "But Your Majesty… the pact cannot exist without—"
"She's not alone," the Empress interrupted. "Kaelith is bonded. She doesn't know yet."
"And when she does?"
The Empress's lips curled.
"She'll either kill him… or crown him."
---
Scene Break – Temple Ruins
Seraphina reached out to the mirror.
It shattered beneath her fingertips—silently.
The glow on her skin flared.
She screamed.
Memories poured into her—visions not her own.
> Kaelith as a boy, watching a woman burned at the stake.
Her mother, whispering incantations over a baby not hers.
A sword buried in a throne.
Blood running through the capital like water.
And a voice, ancient and male, echoing through the chamber:
> "One must kill the other.
Or the empire dies."
---
Final Scene – The Mountains of Solvain
Kaelith stumbled into the snow, his clothes scorched, his arm broken, but alive.
He collapsed before the shrine of the old gods, snow melting around him in angry hiss.
A monk emerged from the shadows.
"You shouldn't have survived."
Kaelith looked up, eyes wild.
"She's alive. I know it."
The monk shook his head.
"You don't understand. The pact doesn't mean love. It means sacrifice."
Kaelith clutched his chest.
"I'll protect her."
The monk sighed, stepping back.
"Then prepare to kill her."