POV: Seraphina / Thalion
SERAPHINA
Thalion was waiting at the perimeter.
Guards flanked the entrance to the lower passages, torches casting long shadows across ancient stone. The Crown Prince stood apart from them, blade drawn, watching the darkness below.
"It went deeper," he said as they approached. "I tracked it to the third level before pulling back to hold the line."
"We end this now." Seraphina moved past him toward the passage. "Together."
Thalion fell into step beside them without argument. Whatever he was processing about what he had witnessed in the infirmary, he kept it locked behind that rigid mask.
The blood trail led deeper.
Black ichor smeared across stone that had not seen light in decades. The passages twisted in ways that made no sense, corridors doubling back, stairs descending when they should have climbed. Old magic saturated these walls.
Seraphina moved carefully. The borrowed power from the soulwell essence was gone. Her own fire was a guttering ember, barely enough to light her palm.
"How much do you have left?" Caelan walked at her shoulder, sword drawn.
"Enough." A lie. She had one strike in her, maybe two. After that, she was useless.
The blood trail turned sharply left and vanished through a crumbled archway.
Beyond it, there was only darkness.
The vaulted chamber had been a records room once. Shelves lined the walls, rotted and collapsed, their contents scattered across the floor in moldering heaps. Scrolls and ledgers and sealed documents, centuries of palace secrets left to decay.
A fresh body lay crumpled near the far wall.
Seraphina's stomach turned. The corpse had been torn apart with savage efficiency. One arm ripped free at the shoulder. The chest cavity exposed, ribs snapped outward. The face was unrecognizable pulp.
Thalion moved to examine it, his expression sharp.
"Not one of mine." His voice was clipped. "Not palace guard and not staff."
The clothes were wrong. Dark, unmarked, the kind worn by people who did not want to be noticed. Someone who should not have been down here at all.
"There." Thalion crouched beside the body, pointing at the corpse's remaining wrist. A tattoo, still visible beneath the blood. A serpent coiled around a shattered crown. "I do not recognize this mark. It is not any noble house I know."
The creature that had been the Court Clerk crouched in the center of it all, blood still wet on its claws.
Gray skin stretched tight over bones that showed too clearly. Flesh had begun to slough in places, revealing tendon and dark meat beneath. Its fingers clutched a bundle of papers to its chest, protective even in death.
That was wrong. The other undead had been pure feral hunger. This one had fled and hidden and guarded something.
It looked up when they entered. Black pits where eyes should have been fixed on Seraphina.
Kneel.
The command crashed through her skull with physical force. Pure pressure, demanding submission.
Her knees buckled before she could brace. Beside her, Caelan staggered against the wall. Even Thalion, rigid and controlled, swayed on his feet.
Seraphina gritted her teeth and pushed back. Her fire flared at her fingertips, golden light driving back the darkness that tried to settle into her mind.
The creature smiled. The expression split gray skin at the corners of its mouth.
Then it moved.
It moved faster than anything rotted should move.
It dropped into a crouch and launched itself at her, fingers extended into claws that had once signed death warrants. Seraphina dove aside. The creature's nails raked the wall where her head had been, gouging deep furrows in the stone.
Caelan's wind slammed into its side. The creature flew across the chamber and crashed through a rotted shelf, scattering documents in a cloud of dust and decay.
It rose immediately, unharmed. The papers it had been clutching were scattered now, some still gripped in one clawed hand.
Thalion's vines erupted from the cracked floor and wrapped around its limbs. For one moment, they had it pinned.
The creature tore free, shredding the vines and crumbling the stone where its feet had been anchored.
Kneel.
The pressure doubled. One of Thalion's guards dropped to his knees, hands clutching his skull. Another turned and fled screaming into the dark passage behind them.
This one was stronger than the others. The leader and the source.
The creature turned toward Thalion with those empty black pits and lunged.
THALION
He met it head-on. His blade cut through the air, catching the thing across the shoulder and shearing through gray meat. The arm hung loose, nearly severed.
The creature did not slow.
Its remaining hand caught him across the chest and sent him crashing into the far wall. Stone cracked behind him. His vision went white with pain.
He recovered fast because he had to. Earth magic flared, and stone spikes erupted from the floor to impale the thing through the torso.
It looked down at the stone piercing its chest, then wrenched itself free and left chunks of flesh behind. It kept coming.
He raised his blade to meet it.
The creature's teeth sank into his forearm.
He felt the grinding of bone against bone. Cold flooded through his veins from the wound, wrong and hungry and spreading faster than thought.
He roared and drove his sword through its eye.
The creature released him, shrieking without sound, and retreated toward the far passage. The scattered papers rustled in its wake.
The damage was done.
Thalion stared at his arm.
Gray was already spreading from the torn flesh. It moved faster than the others he had seen in the infirmary, climbing toward his elbow with alarming speed.
The leader's bite was concentrated and potent.
He did not have hours. He had minutes.
Seraphina's eyes found his wound. Found the corruption racing up his arm.
"You will turn before we get back."
"Then I turn." He met her gaze without flinching. "The mission matters more than one soldier. Chase it down. Kill it. Both of you."
"I can heal you."
"No." The refusal was instant and sharp. The gray was climbing past his wrist now. "I have seen what your fire does to people. How they follow you. How they trust you without question."
"You think I would use healing to control you?"
"I think I do not know what you are capable of." His voice cracked. "I will not become one of your followers. Go. Now. Before it escapes."
And then the situation changed.
SERAPHINA
Footsteps echoed from the passage behind them. Running, not shuffling.
A palace knight burst into the chamber, gasping for breath. He carried a small chest and blood soaked his sleeve where gray was spreading from a bite wound.
"Your Highness. The soulwell essence you requested. The turned caught me in the lower corridor."
Thalion had sent for it before they even descended.
Seraphina grabbed the chest and wrenched it open. Three crystal vials glowed faintly blue inside.
She uncorked one and drank. Power flooded back into her emptied veins.
"Caelan. Track it. Do not let it escape."
Caelan hesitated for half a breath. Then he was moving, wind gathering around him, sword drawn, disappearing into the darkness after the retreating creature.
Seraphina turned back to the wounded.
"Both of you. Give me your arms."
The knight extended his wounded arm without hesitation. Thalion pulled back again.
"No excuses left." She grabbed his arm before he could retreat further. "You are not dying today."
He fought her.
Wrenched against her grip with strength born of terror. The gray climbed toward his elbow. His skin was going cold beneath her fingers.
"Let go."
"Stop fighting me."
She grabbed the knight's arm with her free hand. Golden fire poured into his wound first, burning out the corruption in seconds. He gasped as the gray receded.
Then she turned her full attention to Thalion and poured soulfire into his blood.
She expected his magic to fight hers. Earth and fire were not natural allies.
Instead, his magic welcomed her.
The soulfire slid into his veins, chasing the corruption. His earth did not resist. It channeled her fire, guided it toward the darkness with precision she could not have achieved alone.
This was nothing like healing Yona. Thalion was awake, fighting, and his magic was actively participating.
Golden light spiraled through green. The corruption burned away under her fire.
She felt him through the connection. She sensed his rigid discipline and the weight of duty he carried. His suspicion never quite rested, even now.
And beneath it all, buried so deep he probably did not recognize it himself, she felt his doubt. Doubt about himself and about everything he had been taught to believe.
What if I was wrong?
The curse died.
She released him and staggered back. The soulwell essence still burned strong in her veins. The healings had taken effort, but she had plenty left.
Thalion looked down at his arm. Pink and healthy where gray had been climbing moments before.
"How?" The word scraped out of him.
"I do not know." She had no idea why their magic worked together. "But you are alive."
Shuffling sounds came from the passage behind them. The three turned had caught up, stumbling through the archway with hungry groans.
Thalion moved without hesitation.
His hand slammed against the stone floor. Vines erupted and wrapped around the three turned, pinning them in place. They thrashed and clawed against the restraints, but his magic held.
"Burn them."
Seraphina stepped forward and let her fire loose. Golden flames poured over the restrained bodies. The curse began to blacken and crumble, but slowly.
"This will take minutes," she said. "Caelan is alone with that thing."
"Go." Thalion's voice was steady. "I will hold them until they are ash. Find Caelan. End this."
She turned to leave.
"Seraphina."
She stopped. Thalion threw her one of the remaining soulwell vials. She caught it.
"In case you need it."
She tucked the vial into her belt and ran.
The passage twisted deeper into the earth. She followed the sounds of combat, wind shrieking and stone cracking. And beneath it all, the wet thud of flesh refusing to die.
She found them in a collapsed antechamber.
Caelan stood over the creature, breathing hard. His wind had torn it apart. One arm lay ten feet away. Its torso was shredded, ribs exposed, organs spilling across the stone.
It was still moving.
Gray fingers clawed at the floor, dragging what remained of its body toward the far passage and escape. The papers it had been clutching were scattered around it, some already burning from a fallen torch.
"It will not stay down." Caelan's voice was ragged. "I have cut it to pieces and it keeps pulling itself back together."
Seraphina stepped forward.
The creature's head twisted toward her. Those empty black pits fixed on her face.
Kneel.
She did not kneel.
"I'm sorry for this." Her voice cracked. Tears slid down her cheeks. The Court Clerk had been a person once. He had not chosen this.
Golden fire erupted from her hands and poured into what remained of him. The curse burned away. The gray flesh blackened and crumbled until nothing remained.
When she was done, there was nothing left but ash.
"The papers." Seraphina turned to the scattered documents.
A figure moved at the far end of the chamber. Dark clothes, moving fast. Fresh flames erupted across the remaining documents before she could react.
"No." She rushed forward.
Too late.
Caelan held up a single scorched fragment. She took it. Charred edges crumbled at her touch. A partial seal at the corner.
A serpent coiled around a shattered crown.
The same mark as the tattoo on the dead agent.
"A house emblem I have never seen in any registry." Thalion stood at the chamber entrance, pale but steady. "The turned are ash."
THALION
He flexed his arm. Smooth and whole.
Her fire had saved his life. Her magic had worked with his in ways he could not explain.
What if I was wrong about everything?
"The Empress will want a full report," Caelan said.
Seraphina tucked the fragment into her sleeve. "Then we give her one."
She turned toward the surface. Caelan fell into step beside her.
Thalion followed. He had questions. He did not ask them.
The third hunter was dead. The siege was ending.
Thalion walked behind them, watching Seraphina climb toward the light.
She had saved his life. Her magic had welcomed his. And everything he had believed about her was crumbling.
What if I was wrong about everything?
The doubt followed him all the way to the surface.