Sera's POV
I ducked into an alley as boots thundered past.
My lungs burned. My legs shook. But I couldn't stop running.
"Find her!" the officer's voice echoed behind me. "Lord Theron wants them both!"
I pressed against the cold stone wall, trying to catch my breath. Finn's face flashed in my mind—bloody, terrified, chained. Three days until execution. Three days to save him.
If I could stay free.
I peeked around the corner. Two guards stood at the alley's entrance, scanning the crowd. I was trapped.
Think, Sera. Think.
I spotted a vegetable cart nearby. The merchant was arguing with a customer, distracted. I grabbed a dirty cloak hanging from the cart's side and threw it over my shoulders, pulling the hood low over my face.
Then I walked straight toward the guards.
My heart hammered so loud I was sure they'd hear it. I kept my head down, shuffling like an old woman. Five steps. Four. Three.
"You there!" one guard barked.
I froze.
"Move along. Clear the street."
I nodded without looking up and kept walking, forcing myself not to run. Behind me, I heard them stop someone else.
I didn't breathe until I turned the corner.
The crowd had grown thicker near the market square—everyone wanted to see what the guards were doing. I pushed through, desperate to get one more look at Finn, to see where they were taking him.
"Shame about that boy," a woman whispered beside me. "So young."
"What did he steal?" another asked.
"Who cares? Lord Theron said he stole, so he stole. That's all that matters."
My hands clenched into fists. Finn had never stolen anything in his life. This was revenge. Uncle Theron had finally found us, and now he was going to finish what he started seven years ago—erasing everyone who knew the truth about how he stole our family's wealth.
I climbed onto a broken crate to see over the crowd.
There. The guards were dragging Finn toward a prison wagon. His face was swollen, one eye already turning purple. But he was fighting, struggling against the chains even though it was useless.
That's my brother. Never stops fighting.
"Finn!" I screamed before I could stop myself.
His head whipped toward my voice. Our eyes met across the crowd.
"RUN, SERA!" he shouted. "RUN!"
The officer's head snapped in my direction. He pointed. "THERE!"
Guards pushed through the crowd toward me. I jumped off the crate and ran, but there were too many people. Hands grabbed at me. Someone tripped me. I hit the ground hard, tasting blood.
"Got her!" a guard yanked me up by my hair.
Pain shot through my scalp. I kicked and scratched, but he was too strong. He dragged me through the crowd toward the officer.
"No! Let me go! I didn't do anything!"
The officer smiled when he saw me—a cold, satisfied smile that made my stomach turn. "Miss Ashveil. Lord Theron has been searching for you for a very long time."
"I don't know what you're talking about," I spat. "My name is Sera Kane. You have the wrong person."
"Really?" He pulled out a piece of paper—a drawing. My face. Younger, but definitely me. "Lord Theron had this made seven years ago. He knew you'd survived. He knew you were hiding somewhere in the city."
All these years, we'd thought we were safe. All these years, he'd been hunting us.
"What does he want?" My voice shook.
"You're a loose end, Miss Ashveil. You and your brother are the last people who remember that Lord Theron isn't really an Ashveil at all. That he stole everything from your mother. That he's a fraud."
He leaned closer, his breath hot on my face. "Dead girls don't tell tales."
In the wagon, Finn was screaming my name, throwing himself against the bars. The guards hit him to make him stop.
"Please," I begged, hating how weak I sounded. "Please, my brother didn't do anything. He's innocent. I'll confess to whatever you want, just let him go—"
The officer laughed. "Oh, you'll both confess. Lord Theron has been very clear. The boy hangs in three days at the Grand Plaza. You'll watch him die. And then, conveniently, you'll be found guilty of helping him steal. You'll hang the day after."
No. No, this couldn't be happening.
"People will know!" I struggled against the guard holding me. "They'll know this is murder!"
"People will know what we tell them to know." The officer nodded to his men. "Take her to the Citadel dungeons. Keep her away from the boy. I don't want them planning anything."
Different guards grabbed me, dragging me toward another wagon. I looked back at Finn one last time. He'd stopped fighting. Tears ran down his bloody face.
"I'm sorry," I mouthed to him. "I'm so sorry."
This was my fault. I should have made him stay home. I should have been more careful. I should have—
Something hard hit the back of my head.
The world went dark.
When I opened my eyes, I was lying on cold stone. My head throbbed. I tried to sit up and realized my hands were chained to the wall.
A dungeon. I was in a dungeon.
Panic clawed at my throat. I pulled at the chains, but they didn't budge. The cell was tiny, dark, and smelled like death.
"Finn?" I called out. "FINN!"
No answer. Just my voice echoing off stone walls.
I was alone.
Three days. I had three days to figure out how to save my brother, and I was chained in a dungeon with no way out.
I let my head fall back against the wall, tears finally coming. We'd survived seven years of hiding, seven years of barely living, and for what? To die anyway?
No. I couldn't think like that. There had to be a way. There had to be—
Something rustled in the corner of my cell.
I went very still.
It rustled again. Closer this time.
"Who's there?" My voice came out as a whisper.
A figure stepped out of the shadows—too tall to be a rat, too quiet to be a guard. In the dim light from the hallway, I saw a face I didn't recognize. A woman, maybe forty, with silver streaks in her dark hair.
"You're Helena Ashveil's daughter," she said. It wasn't a question.
My breath caught. Nobody had spoken my mother's name in seven years.
"Who are you?"
The woman knelt beside me, moving fast. She pulled out a thin piece of metal and started working on my chains. "Someone who owed your mother a debt. She saved my son's life once."
The chains clicked open.
I rubbed my wrists, staring at her. "Why are you helping me?"
"Because your mother told me something before she died. She said if anything happened to her, if the empire came for her children, I should give you this." She pressed something into my hand. A small leather book.
My mother's journal.
"How did you—"
"I broke into your shop after they arrested you. Found it under the floorboards, right where Helena said it would be." The woman stood. "There's a ritual in there. Page forty-seven. The Exchange of Fates. Your mother was researching it before she died."
"A ritual? What kind of—"
"The kind that might save your brother." She moved to the cell door. "But you have to hurry. The guards change shifts in five minutes. That's your window."
"Wait!" I scrambled to my feet. "What does the ritual do?"
The woman looked back at me, her eyes sad.
"It lets you trade places with someone destined to die. But blood magic always has a price, girl. Always. Whatever you do, be careful what you wish for."
Then she was gone, melting into the shadows like she'd never been there at all.
I stood in my unlocked cell, holding my mother's forbidden journal, my heart pounding.
Three days until Finn's execution.
And now I held the power to save him—if I was brave enough to use it.