Seraphina's POV
The iron chains bit into my wrists.
"Is this really necessary?" I asked the guard shoving me toward the black carriage. "I'm not going to run."
He didn't answer. None of them had spoken to me since they'd arrived at dawn to collect me. They treated me like I was already dead.
Maybe I was.
The carriage door opened, and Celestine stepped out, blocking my way. My mother's moon necklace glittered at her throat.
"I wanted to see you off," she said sweetly, loud enough for the gathered servants to hear. Then she leaned close, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Try not to die too quickly. Father needs at least two weeks to rally the provinces. Any faster and his plans fall apart."
So she knew. Of course she knew. She'd probably helped plan it.
"I hope the necklace strangles you in your sleep," I whispered back.
Her smile faltered for just a second. Good.
A guard grabbed my arm and threw me into the carriage. The door slammed shut, and we lurched forward. Through the small barred window, I watched Ashford Manor disappear behind us.
Good riddance.
The journey was supposed to take three days. It felt like three years.
The carriage was cramped and dark. My chains were attached to a hook on the wall, keeping me from reaching the door. They'd given me a thin blanket and nothing else. No pillow. No comfort.
On the first day, a guard opened the slot in the door and shoved through a piece of bread and a cup of water. The bread was stale and the water tasted like metal, but I ate and drank anyway. I needed my strength.
I pulled out the mysterious note I'd hidden in my dress pocket and read it again by the thin light coming through the window.
"Trust nothing you see. Trust no one you meet. Except the one with silver eyes."
The Emperor had silver eyes. Everyone knew that—they were the mark of his curse. But the note made it sound like I should trust him.
How could I trust the man who was supposed to be my death?
Unless...
Unless he wasn't the one killing his brides. The note had said so. "The Emperor is not what kills his brides."
So who was?
On the second day, I barely got any food at all. My stomach cramped with hunger. When I asked for more water, the guard laughed and kept walking.
I spent the hours trying to stay warm and thinking about the silver-eyed man in my garden. He'd disappeared like smoke. He'd known about the child. He'd known I would be locked in my room.
He'd been watching me.
The thought should have scared me. Instead, it felt almost... comforting. Someone out there knew the truth. Someone wanted me to survive.
On the third day, the carriage finally slowed.
I pressed my face to the barred window and saw crowds of people lining the streets. They were silent, staring at the carriage with wide eyes. Some made warding signs with their hands—protection against evil.
"The Emperor's newest victim," I heard someone whisper.
"Poor girl. She'll be dead within the week."
"I heard the last one lasted only four days."
Their pity felt like insects crawling on my skin. I wanted to scream at them that I wasn't dead yet, that I wasn't giving up, but my throat was too dry to speak.
Then I saw it.
The Obsidian Palace rose before us like a mountain of black stone. It was massive—bigger than anything I'd ever seen. Sharp towers reached toward the gray sky like claws. No windows reflected light. It absorbed everything, giving nothing back.
It looked like a place where hope went to die.
The carriage passed through enormous gates that groaned as they opened. The sound reminded me of a graveyard gate. Inside, the courtyard was empty except for guards in black armor. They stood perfectly still, like statues.
The carriage stopped.
My heart hammered against my ribs. This was it. The moment I'd been dreading for three days.
The door opened, and rough hands pulled me out. I stumbled, my legs weak from sitting so long. The chains jerked tight, and I fell to my knees on the cold stone.
"Get up," a guard commanded.
I forced myself to stand, even though my legs shook. I wouldn't crawl before these people. I wouldn't give them that satisfaction.
They marched me toward a pair of massive doors. Each step felt like walking toward my own execution. The doors opened silently, revealing a vast entrance hall. Black marble floors. Black walls. Even the torches burned with strange dark flames that gave off light but no warmth.
At the far end of the hall, a figure sat on a throne carved from a single piece of obsidian.
Emperor Kael Dravonis.
Even from this distance, I could see his eyes. They glowed silver in the darkness, fixed on me with an intensity that made my breath catch.
The guards stopped twenty feet from the throne and forced me to my knees again.
"Your Majesty," one guard announced. "The bride from Duke Ashford, as requested."
Silence.
The Emperor stood slowly. He was tall, broad-shouldered, wearing black armor that seemed to absorb light. His face was hard, all sharp angles and no mercy. But his eyes...
His eyes weren't cold like I'd expected.
They were burning.
He walked down the steps from his throne, each footstep echoing in the vast hall. He came closer. Closer. Until he stood right in front of me.
I looked up at him, and for the first time since this nightmare began, I felt something other than despair.
I felt angry.
This man—this cursed, immortal tyrant—was supposed to be my death sentence. Everyone said so. But looking at him now, seeing the way he stared at me like I was a puzzle he couldn't solve, I realized something.
He was just as trapped as I was.
"Stand up," he said.
His voice was deep and cold, but there was something underneath it. Something that sounded almost like... uncertainty?
I stood, chains rattling.
"You're the eighteenth," he continued. "Do you know what that means?"
"It means seventeen died before me," I said. My voice came out stronger than I expected. "But I'm not them."
Something flickered in his silver eyes. Surprise?
"No," he said quietly. "You're not."
He reached toward my face, and I forced myself not to flinch. His fingers stopped an inch from my cheek, hovering there like he was afraid to touch me.
"You're bleeding," he said.
I touched my face and felt the wet warmth of blood from where I'd hit the carriage wall during a rough turn. I hadn't even noticed.
The Emperor pulled back his hand and looked at his guards with an expression that made them step back.
"Who chained her?"
"Your Majesty, the Duke requested—"
"I don't care what the Duke requested." His voice dropped to something deadly. "Remove them. Now."
The guards rushed forward and unlocked my chains. They fell away, and I rubbed my raw wrists.
"Take her to the Empress's chambers," the Emperor commanded. "Have healers tend her wounds. Give her food, water, whatever she needs."
He turned to walk away.
"Wait," I called out.
He stopped but didn't turn around.
"Why?" I asked. "Why are you being kind to me? Everyone says you're a monster."
For a long moment, he stood perfectly still. Then he looked back over his shoulder, and his silver eyes met mine.
"Because," he said softly, "I'm hoping you can tell me why you're different."
"Different how?"
"My blood turned gold the night before you arrived." He faced me fully now, and I saw something in his expression that looked almost like fear. "Three hundred years of silver blood, and it changed for you. Before I even met you."
My breath caught. The note. The warning. The silver-eyed man in my garden.
"The curse is breaking," I whispered.
"Yes." He took a step toward me. "And I need to know why. Because if it's breaking, that means the thing that's been killing my brides will come for you next. And this time—" his jaw clenched, "—I'm going to stop it."
Before I could respond, the torches flickered and died.
All of them. At once.
The hall plunged into darkness.
I heard guards shouting, drawing weapons. The Emperor's hand found my arm in the blackness, pulling me close.
"Don't move," he breathed in my ear.
Then I felt it.
Something cold brushed past my face. Not wind. Something solid. Something that whispered as it moved.
"She's here," a voice hissed from the darkness. A woman's voice, ancient and full of hate. "The last of Thalia's blood. I've waited so long to finish what I started."
A light exploded in the center of the hall—not from torches but from something else. A figure materialized, floating above the ground.
It was a woman in tattered robes, her face hidden behind a veil. But her hands...
Her hands were dripping with fresh blood.
"Hello, dear husband," she said, and even through the veil, I could hear her terrible smile. "Did you miss me?"
The Emperor's grip on my arm tightened. "That's impossible," he breathed. "I watched you die."
"You watched her die," the figure corrected. "Your first bride. The one you actually loved, three hundred years ago. But I never left, Kael. I've been here the whole time. Killing them. Every single one." She turned toward me. "And now, I'll kill her too."