Seraphina's POV
The Twilight Abyss is cold.
Not the kind of cold that makes you shiver. The kind that reaches inside your chest and freezes your heart from the inside out.
I'm floating in gray nothingness. No ground beneath my feet. No sky above my head. Just endless gray in every direction.
"Hello?" My voice echoes weirdly, like it's coming from a thousand miles away and right next to my ear at the same time.
No answer.
Then I hear something. Footsteps. Getting closer.
A figure emerges from the gray mist. It's me. Another Seraphina, but this one is different. Her eyes are completely black. Her smile is cruel. Her hands drip with shadow.
"Welcome home, sister," she says.
"Who are you?"
"I'm you. The real you. The part you've been hiding all these years." She circles me slowly. "I'm the monster everyone always said you were."
"I'm not a monster."
"Aren't you?" She laughs. "Let me show you something."
She waves her hand, and suddenly I'm somewhere else. I'm twelve years old again, standing in my village. But this time, I can see what really happened the night of the plague.
I watch myself as a child, crying over my mother's dead body. But there's something else—something I never noticed before. Black smoke leaking from my skin. Spreading through the air. Touching everyone around me.
"No," I whisper.
"Yes," dark Seraphina says. "You killed them. Not Morganna. You. Your power awakened that night, and it reached out, searching for life to feed on. It drained your entire village dry. Morganna didn't cause the plague. She just watched it happen and took credit."
I fall to my knees. "That's not true. That can't be true."
"Watch."
The scene changes. Now I'm older, sixteen, living with a coven. There's a girl my age—Emma. My only friend. She's laughing, brushing my hair, telling me about a boy she likes.
Then I watch as Emma grows pale over the next few weeks. Watch as she gets weaker. Watch as she dies in her sleep.
And I see it again—black smoke leaking from me whenever we touched. My power feeding on her life force without me knowing.
"You've killed everyone who ever got close to you," dark Seraphina whispers. "Every friend. Every person who showed you kindness. You're a parasite, feeding on others to fuel your own existence."
"Stop it!" I scream.
"Why? Because the truth hurts?" She grabs my face, forcing me to look at her. "You're the Void's daughter. Destruction is in your blood. You can pretend to be good, pretend to be a hero, but deep down, you know what you really are."
Tears stream down my face. "If that's true, then killing me is the right choice. Let me die. Let this end."
"Oh, sweetie." She smiles cruelly. "You can't die. That's your curse. You'll live forever, killing everyone you love, until you're the only thing left in a dead world."
The gray mist swirls around us, and I see more scenes. Hundreds of them. Every person who ever cared about me. All of them dead. All because of me.
"This is what the Void wants you to see," a new voice says.
I spin around. A woman stands behind me—old and young at the same time, with silver hair and kind eyes.
"Celestia?" I gasp.
"Not quite. I'm what's left of her. A memory fragment." She looks at dark Seraphina with disapproval. "And you need to stop believing the lies."
"They're not lies!" dark Seraphina hisses. "Show her the memories. Show her the truth!"
"I am showing her the truth." Celestia touches my forehead. "The real truth."
Suddenly I can see beyond the surface of the memories. Yes, black smoke leaked from me. But it wasn't draining life—it was trying to share my life force with the sick. My power was trying to heal them, not kill them. It just wasn't strong enough yet.
Emma didn't die because of me. She died from poison that her jealous stepmother gave her. The smoke I saw was my magic trying desperately to save her.
"The Void has been twisting your memories," Celestia says gently. "Making you see yourself as the villain when you've always been trying to help. You're not a parasite, child. You're a healer who hasn't learned to control her power yet."
Hope flickers in my chest. "So I'm not a monster?"
"You're human. Which means you're capable of both good and bad. But being capable of darkness doesn't make you dark." Celestia smiles. "It just means you have a choice."
Dark Seraphina screams. "No! She's mine! The Void claimed her first!"
"The Void can claim nothing that isn't freely given," Celestia says firmly. "And Seraphina chooses light."
"Do I?" I ask, my voice small. "Because right now, I don't know what I choose. I'm tired, Celestia. So tired of fighting. Maybe it would be easier to just give up. Let the darkness win."
"Easier, yes. But you've never chosen easy." Celestia's form starts to fade. "Remember who you really are, Seraphina. Remember the girl who survived two centuries of hell and still chose kindness. That girl is stronger than any darkness."
She disappears completely.
Now it's just me and my dark reflection.
"She's wrong," dark Seraphina says, but she sounds less certain now. "You can't fight what you are."
"Maybe I am part darkness," I say slowly. "Maybe I do have the Void's power inside me. But I also have Celestia's light. And I choose—"
Before I can finish, the gray mist explodes.
The Void rises in front of me, massive and terrible. It's not just shadow anymore—it's a creature with a thousand eyes and a mouth that could swallow the world.
"Enough games," it roars. "You are my daughter. My creation. My tool. And you will serve me or be destroyed!"
It lunges at me, and I scream.
But just as its jaws are about to close around me, something crashes between us.
A dragon. Massive and black, with golden eyes that burn like the sun.
Draeven.
"Get away from her!" he roars, breathing fire at the Void.
The creature recoils, hissing. "The Dragon King. How predictable. Come to save your witch?"
"She's not a witch. She's not a monster. She's not yours." Draeven's voice shakes with rage. "She's mine."
My heart stops. "Draeven, what are you doing here? This place will kill you!"
"Then I'll die saving you." He looks back at me, and in his golden eyes I see everything he's never said. "I should have told you sooner. Should have said it when we had time. But I'm saying it now—I love you, Seraphina. I've loved you since the moment you shielded me instead of running. And I'm not leaving without you."
The words hit me like lightning. He loves me. After everything. After I'm possibly the Void's daughter. After all the death and chaos. He still loves me.
"That's very touching," the Void says mockingly. "But love won't save you here, Dragon King. This is my realm. My rules. And you're already dying."
I look at Draeven and see it's true. His scales are turning gray. His breathing is labored. Being in this place is killing him.
"Draeven, please," I beg. "Leave. Save yourself."
"Not without you."
"I'm not worth dying for!"
"Yes, you are." He smiles at me, even as gray spreads across his body. "You're worth everything."
The Void laughs. "How sweet. You'll die together. How romantic."
It raises a massive claw to strike us both down.
I feel power surge inside me. Not Celestia's silver light. Not the Void's black darkness. Something new. Something that's purely mine.
"NO!" I scream, and white light explodes from my body.
The light hits the Void like a hammer. It screams and stumbles backward.
When the light fades, I'm standing between Draeven and the Void. My chains are gone. My power is fully unleashed. And I finally understand what I am.
"I'm not your daughter," I tell the Void. "I'm not Celestia's replacement. I'm Seraphina Ashborne. I carry both light and darkness inside me, but I choose which one controls me. And I choose light."
"You can't defy me!" the Void roars.
"Watch me."
I reach for Draeven. Our hands touch, and suddenly I can feel his life force, his dragon magic, flowing into me. And mine flows into him. We're sharing power. Sharing strength.
The gray color fades from his scales. He stands tall again, strong again.
Together, we face the Void.
"You wanted a weapon?" I say. "You wanted a tool to destroy the world? Well, congratulations. You created something much more dangerous."
"What's that?" the Void asks.
"Someone with nothing left to lose and everything to fight for." I squeeze Draeven's hand. "And I'm not alone anymore."
The Void's thousand eyes narrow. "This changes nothing. You're still in my realm. Still under my control. And when the Blood Moon sets, you'll have no choice but to—"
It stops mid-sentence.
Because suddenly, the gray mist is changing. Turning gold. Turning bright.
"What's happening?" the Void demands.
"I think," Draeven says, a smile in his voice, "we're rewriting the rules."
The Twilight Abyss is a place between life and death. But Draeven brought life here. His dragon fire. His beating heart. And I brought something else—the will to survive.
Together, we're transforming this dead place into something new.
"No!" the Void screams. "This is my realm! You can't—"
But we already are.
The gray turns to gold. The cold turns to warmth. The endless nothing becomes something.
And in that moment, I see a way out. A way back to the real world.
"Draeven, we need to run. Now."
"Where?"
"Toward the light." I point to where the gold is brightest. "It's a gateway. But we only have seconds before the Void closes it."
We run.
Behind us, the Void roars in fury. I feel its claws swipe at my back, feel its breath hot on my neck.
But we're faster.
We dive through the golden light just as the Void's jaws snap shut behind us.
Everything goes white.
When I can see again, I'm lying on cold stone. The throne room. We're back.
Draeven is beside me, also on the ground, gasping for breath. But he's alive. We're both alive.
"You did it," Kael's voice says from somewhere above us. "You actually did it."
I sit up slowly. The throne room is full of people—Kael, Casimir, the High Priestesses, dozens of guards. They're all staring at us like we're ghosts.
"The Blood Moon," I gasp. "Is it—"
"Still in the sky," Casimir says, and he sounds almost relieved. "You made it back with minutes to spare."
I look at Draeven. He's looking back at me with those golden eyes full of emotions I'm afraid to name.
"You came for me," I whisper. "You nearly died."
"Worth it," he says simply.
Before I can respond, the floor beneath us cracks.
Black smoke pours through.
And the Void's voice echoes through the room, louder than ever before.
"Did you really think you won? Did you really think escaping my realm would save you?" It laughs, a sound like worlds ending. "You opened the gateway, little priestess. You let me through. And now, I'm here. In your world. In your realm. And I'm never leaving."
The cracks in the floor spread wider. More smoke pours through. The Void is coming.
And this time, it's not trapped between realms. It's here. In the living world.
Where it can destroy everything.
"What have we done?" I breathe.
Draeven stands, pulling me up with him. "We survived. Now we fight."
"Against that?" I look at the growing cracks, at the smoke filling the room. "How?"
"The same way we escaped the Abyss." He takes my hand. "Together."
The smoke forms into the Void's shape—massive, terrible, unstoppable.
"Your love story ends here," it says. "Along with everything else."
It lunges at us.
And the real battle begins.