Aurelian stood in the war room long after Yvaine left. The map stretched before him was dotted with ink and pins, crisscrossed with lines drawn in haste and desperation. But it wasn't just a map anymore. It was a wound. A trail. And somewhere at its end was Sera.
The Bond still pulsed steady in his blood—distant, like a heartbeat underwater—but the flare from earlier hadn't faded entirely. He could still feel the echo of her scream, like it had been carved into the bone behind his ribs.
Something had shifted. Not just with Ezra. With Sera, too.
She was walking into something she hadn't named. And she hadn't taken the bond to save herself. She'd taken it to stop him from following.
But he wasn't going to sit and wait for that silence to become permanent.
⸻
The trail began in whispers.
A merchant from the western edge of Rhime said he'd seen a woman matching Sera's description boarding a supply cart headed east—into the Veiled Quarter, where no House banners flew and the old blood taxes were still collected in secret.
A day later, Aurelian found the cart burned to its axles. No bodies. Just ash. And silk.
A single ribbon of it, red and gold, wound around the base of a tree.
Aurelian recognized the pattern immediately.
House Veylan.
Sera's bloodline.
Noble. Untouchable. And rotting from the inside.
"She went home," he muttered.
Yvaine had warned him once—months ago, in the wake of the southern skirmishes, when half the banners still fluttered in the wind and the other half were soaked in mud—that Rhime's war wasn't the only one being fought.
The Houses were fracturing. Not just from enemies abroad, but from truths long buried in their own halls.
And Sera… she hadn't just left to chase Ezra.
She'd left to cut out something diseased.
⸻
The Veylan estate was nothing like the Rhime fortress.
Where Rhime was carved from stone and steeped in legend, Veylan was silk and gold and glass. The estate loomed at the edge of the riverplate, all tall spires and mirrored towers, built to impress rather than endure.
It was also heavily guarded. But not by uniformed soldiers.
By masked ones.
Aurelian kept to the shadows, moving through the lower city where the old weavers still spoke in codes and passwords laced with lullabies. He hadn't set foot here since the Unification Tour five years ago. Back when Rhime still pretended every House had a voice.
Now, those voices were being silenced. And someone had wound silk around their throats.
He made contact with a former courier, a man named Olen who owed Sera too many debts to count. Olen spoke fast and soft, like the walls were listening. Maybe they were.
"She's not just stirring the pot," Olen whispered. "She's setting fire to the whole kitchen."
"What's she found?" Aurelian asked.
Olen shook his head. "Not what. Who. There's a faction—small, but old. Been working under the Veylan crest for decades, breeding loyalty with coin and fear. They call themselves the Silken Chain."
Aurelian frowned. "That's not a name. That's a warning."
Olen nodded. "It started as a way to keep the city under control. Smuggling, debt rings, indentures hidden behind fancy contracts. But then the war hit, and they turned it into something else."
"Slavery."
"Not in name. But in blood, yes. They use silken cords to mark their servants—twined with trace magic. Harmless on the surface. But the deeper bond, the magical tether? That's forced loyalty."
"And Sera found out."
"She was born into it, Aurelian," Olen said quietly. "Her mother helped build it. But Sera… she started cutting cords years ago. Quietly. Patiently. Now she's trying to bring it all down."
Aurelian exhaled. "That's why she left. She wasn't running toward Ezra. She was buying time. Trying to finish this before it touched Rhime."
But it already had. The Chain didn't stop at Veylan borders. He could see the threads now—tightening around trade routes, grain reserves, even healing supplies sent to the northern provinces. It was all wrapped in silk.
Wrapped in silence.
He straightened. "Where is she now?"
Olen hesitated. Then handed him a slip of paper.
"She's going after the Loommaster."
"The who?"
"The one who binds the cords. No one knows their real name, but they hold the center of the Chain. Sera's going to cut it."
Aurelian read the name etched onto the paper.
Karthis Hall.
An abandoned weaving house, three stories tall, gutted by fire twenty years ago.
No guards. No traffic.
Perfect for secrets.
Perfect for an ambush.
⸻
Sera pressed herself against the cold stone of Karthis Hall, heart thudding slow and even.
She'd scouted the building the night before. No wards. No sigils. But that didn't mean it was empty.
The Chain was smarter than that.
She'd kept her ribbon visible—the gold twine still wrapped around her wrist. To anyone inside, it would mark her as one of theirs. But the dagger at her back was marked with broken glyphs. The kind that could sever a tether, if the blow landed clean.
She moved silently through the first floor, past shattered looms and dust-thick air. Every step felt louder than it should. But there was no one.
Not yet.
Then a voice cut through the dark.
"I wondered when you'd stop hiding."
She froze.
A figure stepped forward from the shadows. A woman in silver robes, hair pulled into a braid thick with rings. The rings glinted with old magic.
Sera knew her.
Lady Venra. One of her mother's oldest allies. And once, her tutor in House protocol.
"You're the Loommaster," Sera said.
Venra smiled. "No, child. I'm just the needle."
From behind her, others stepped forward. Not guards. Not soldiers.
Servants.
People Sera had known for years. One by one, they raised their wrists.
All bound with silk.
All enchanted.
Venra moved closer. "You see, we never needed chains. Just comfort. Just a promise of safety. That's what silk does, Sera. It softens the blade. It whispers obedience."
Sera's grip on her dagger tightened.
"You used them," she said. "You turned House loyalty into servitude."
"No," Venra said calmly. "We turned chaos into order. We protected our people in a world that has none."
"By binding them?"
"By giving them purpose."
Sera's eyes burned.
"Then what does that make me?"
Venra's expression softened, in the way a mother's might before giving a cruel lesson.
"A threat. But not yet lost."
She extended a hand.
"Come back, Sera. Take your place. You don't have to do this alone."
A silence fell.
Then—
"I'm not alone."
Aurelian stepped from the shadows behind them, blade drawn.
The servants turned, startled. But Sera was already moving—blade out, cutting the cord from her wrist, the gold twine falling to the ground like a shed skin.
The tether broke.
The Chain screamed.
Magic rippled through the air, snapping like a whip. One of the enchanted servants fell to their knees, clutching their head. Another staggered. The spell was unraveling—faster now, raw and panicked.
Venra's face twisted, but not in rage.
In grief.
"You would break what your mother built?"
Sera's eyes were ice.
"She built it on blood."
Aurelian moved like a hammer, cutting cords with the flat of his blade, never striking unless he had to. Sera moved like water, her dagger dancing through the threads of enchantment, unraveling the web.
In minutes, it was over.
Venra stood alone in the center of the room, cords trailing from her sleeves like veins.
She didn't fight.
She just looked at Sera.
"They'll come for you now. You know that."
"I'm counting on it," Sera said.
Aurelian stepped beside her. "So what now?"
Sera looked at the room, at the faces waking from enchantment. Confused. Frightened. Free.
"We show them what freedom looks like," she said. "We build something better."
He nodded.
"And Ezra?"
Sera's jaw tightened.
"I'll find him."
Aurelian didn't argue. He just stood beside her, shoulder to shoulder, and watched the first cords fall from the rafters.
The Chain was broken.
But the war was just beginning.