The prince and his companions were escorted to a village. Serena tried to heal most of Edmund and the soldiers’ injuries, but she too was exhausted and couldn’t heal them fully. Still, it was enough to make certain no one would bleed to death before they reached the village. It was the middle of the night, yet the people awoke when they heard a healer was needed.

  Fortunately for Edmund, there was an Alvarynn and an herbalist living in the village. They scrambled to gather all the supplies they could and lay the injured down. The herbalists didn’t waste time mixing tinctures, cleaning and covering wounds, and bandaging broken limbs. Most of the men were already at ease and fell asleep right after. Edmund’s injuries, however, were an entirely different league on their own.

  Broken ribs, limbs, internal bleeding… the Alvarynn described it as though the prince had been hit by a large boulder. Introducing himself as Orm, he explained it would take him a day to heal Edmund fully. The prince’s injuries were too grievous.

  “In that case,” Serena said, “can I help you heal him?”

  Orm studied her, asked for her arm, and gently placed his palm over her wrist. “You’ve already pushed yourself too hard. You still need some rest too.”

  “I still have some power left,” she reasoned. “Please, allow me.”

  It was clear Serena wouldn’t leave until she was allowed to help. Orm relented, and the two proceeded to heal the prince, one positioned on each side. They placed their palms on his arms and over his chest, hands glowing faintly. Tiny motes of light bloomed, and warmth spread over Edmund’s body. Light crawled along his veins, stitching wounds, mending bones, easing blood flow.

  When Orm felt Serena was faltering, he asked her to stop. Edmund could hear her breathing becoming ragged and echoed the healer’s advice. “Please, rest. You’ve done enough.”

  She hesitated, her hand still glowing against him, stubbornness warring with sense. Then the light dimmed. She pulled back slowly, as if letting go hurt more than continuing. Not wanting to collapse from overexertion and become a burden, she finally nodded.

  “Get well soon,” she said, and placed a hand over the prince’s.

  Edmund managed a small nod. “Thank you,” he whispered. “Both of you.”

  Orm urged them to go and sleep in his house. It wasn’t far, and after reaching the house, Serena nearly fell, her exhaustion finally catching up to her. Leif caught her and helped her lie down.

  “See? I knew you’re all spent,” he said. He didn’t let go of her hands and arms, helping her walk until they reached the bed.

  Once she was lying down, Leif sat beside her. “What kind of monster was that?”

  “It looked like an undead,” Serena said. “Like the ones that attacked us back in Danuville.”

  “But this one… It’s too powerful. And… what’s it doing all the way out here?” Leif asked.

  Serena couldn’t quite answer that question. Something else was in her mind.

  “It nearly killed Edmund,” she said. “And… I couldn’t—”

  “You did what you could,” Leif quickly cut in before she could finish. “And you saved him. You distracted the monster long enough and bought everyone time to get to you.”

  Leif knelt and turned to look her in the eye. “Don’t think too much about it now. He’s safe, and healing. That’s all that matters.”

  Serena didn’t say anything after that. She gave him a quiet nod, and the two bid each other good night. Leif walked to the adjacent sofa and fell asleep right away.

  Serena closed her eyes, but it took her a while to fall asleep. Her mind kept going back to that fight—Edmund thrown through crates, the monster’s red eyes turning toward her, the whisper crawling up the back of her thoughts. Slowly, her vision darkened, and it didn’t take long before she heard voices.

  They were barely audible, and she couldn’t quite make out what they were saying. Serena opened her eyes and found herself in a different bedroom. She pushed herself up slowly, blinking until the haze cleared, and looked around. Confusion struck her fast.

  The familiar blanket. The wardrobe. The curtains.

  It was her bedroom, back at their house in the capital.

  She slid off the bed and crossed to the door. Before her fingers could touch the handle, the voices resumed. Still muffled through the wood, but clearer now. The first was unmistakable.

  It was the king.

  I wanted to ask whether you would like to hone your power further.

  Serena’s breath hitched. It wasn’t only the voice, but the words themselves. So much time had passed since the king had said them, but she hadn’t forgotten. The day Renault offered to train her. To her, it always felt like yesterday—the day he’d placed something in her hands that wasn’t just duty or gratitude, but possibility. The day he’d given her the chance to learn more than healing.

  The king continued.

  When my son becomes king… when I am no longer here… I want him surrounded by people he can trust.

  Eerily so, though it didn’t come as a surprise, she heard her own voice, giving the same simple response she did that day. She remembered not even thinking when she gave her answer, only that she wanted to.

  I accept!

  Serena stepped out the door and walked down the short hallway, toward the living room where she and the king should be. Instead, she saw somebody else, with neither her nor the king in sight. Margot was in their house, wearing her maid’s uniform, head down. She was wiping the tabletop, running the rag in circles on the same spot, repeatedly.

  “Margot?” Serena asked. “Was I… was the king here?”

  Without looking at Serena, breaking her rhythm, or making any other movement, Margot spoke. “Oh, you’re awake. How are you feeling?”

  “I feel… fine,” Serena responded. “Just… fine.”

  “That fight exhausted you?” Margot asked.

  Serena nodded without saying a word, somewhat slighted.

  Margot stopped wiping the table, and as she finally lifted her head and straightened her back, her form shifted. It was only for a fraction of a second, but in that moment, it was as though Margot was nothing but a silhouette, a figure of pure shadow. It happened again when she turned, like every movement she made broke her form.

  She was now staring directly at Serena. “So this is your idea of protecting him?”

  Serena took a step back, her brows curved. Margot’s irises were gone, her eyes pure white. Her mouth didn’t even move when she spoke.

  “You’re not—you’re not real.”

  “They took you in,” Margot continued, walking closer to Serena, slowly, each step causing her form to shift. “A complete stranger, lying unconscious in the middle of nowhere. Someone whose origin they didn’t even know. You’re not even human, yet they accepted you, fed and clothed you, gave you a home and a family, and this is how you’re going to repay the king.”

  Serena kept backing away, breath snagging in her throat, her eyes glassy and trembling. “No… I want to… I’m going to—”

  Her heel caught on something unseen. The wall met her back with a thud. Margot was already there, too close. Close enough that Serena could smell her, like cold perfume, her scent overwhelming Serena’s lungs—strangely sweet, creamy, opulent, intoxicating. Margot’s expression didn’t change. “Return the favor,” she murmured, “by watching his son get killed from a distance?”

  Serena shook her head hard, like she could shake the words out of the air. “I—I tried but…”

  “Tried,” Margot echoed, tasting the word like it amused her. “You’re too weak. Still too dependent on others just to help you stand.”

  Serena’s lips parted, soundless. Her throat burned. “Please… stop…”

  Margot’s hand shot out and clamped around her wrist. The grip was firm. Serena tried to yank away, but it was like trying to pull free of iron. Her bones felt small in Margot’s fingers.

  “You are useless,” Margot said, each word sharp. “Pathetic. What are you even here for?”

  Serena’s eyes darted, searching for a door, a window, anything. “Let go… please… let me go,” she pleaded, voice breaking on the last word.

  Margot stepped in and pulled her closer, hard enough that Serena stumbled. Their faces were a breath apart, so close Serena could see the faint cracks in Margot’s eyes, like glass under pressure. “They will cast you out,” Margot whispered, and her tone softened in the cruelest way. “Throw you away like a used rag.”

  Serena’s heart hammered so violently it felt like it might bruise her ribs from the inside. Margot’s hand released her wrist only to shove her shoulder with sudden force. She was hurled toward a mirror, but she didn’t just hit it, she crashed into it. The glass screamed, the mirror gave way, and she burst through it, shards flickering past her like sharp snow. She hit the floor on the other side so hard her teeth clicked. Pain flared up her arms.

  The air was wrong here. Thick, cold, stale, like a room that hadn’t been breathed in for centuries. Serena pushed herself up on shaking hands, and her stomach dropped. She had only seen it once, only for a moment, but the memory had branded itself into her. The dark room. The obsidian floor that swallowed light. The walls lined with veins of purple glow, pulsing slow as a heartbeat.

  And behind her, coffins.

  They stood in rows, tall and narrow, their surfaces slick and black, edges outlined by faint violet seams. The purple light made everything look bruised. The air hummed with something she couldn’t name, a pressure against her skin, a whisper pressed into her ears even when nothing spoke.

  One of the places she saw in the Abyss.

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  “No,” Serena breathed, and her voice came out thin and childish, a sound she didn’t recognize as her own.

  The broken mirror behind her glimmered like a torn mouth. Margot stepped through, her shoes making no sound on the obsidian. Her form didn’t stay whole. As she crossed the threshold, Margot’s outline began to bleed. The light around her bent. She melted into pure darkness, her form dissolving until she was gone, yet her presence remained.

  A woman spoke again, but it wasn’t Margot anymore.

  The voice that came out was older, colder, raspier, like stone dragged over bone.

  “This,” it said, almost tenderly, “is where you belong.”

  Serena scrambled backward, palms skidding on the smooth floor. She couldn’t stand. Her legs refused, trembling too hard. “This isn’t real…” she whispered. “This isn’t—”

  One of the coffins made a sound. Something hit the lid from inside. trying to strike it open. It did so repeatedly, until the lid shattered. Splinters of black crystal and violet dust burst into the air. A shape spilled out, falling into the room, limbs folding wrong as it landed. It tried to rise, but it couldn’t. It dragged itself forward, elbows scraping, fingers clawing at the obsidian floor. The thing’s outline was mostly shadow, its shape vaguely human.

  “Come…” it rasped.

  Another coffin opened, then another. A chorus of splitting lids, limbs spilling out. Bodies, or what used to be bodies, crawling, limping, dragging themselves toward Serena.

  “Join… us…”

  The voices weren’t loud. That was the worst part. They were close, intimate, spoken right into her bones. Serena tried to scramble away, but something cold wrapped around her ankle. One of them had reached her, fingers tight. Another hand grabbed her wrist, clamped around her forearm, around her calf.

  She forced herself upright with a broken sob, stumbling, half-running, half-falling as she tore herself free. She turned, only to find a coffin standing upright directly in her path, placed there like it had been waiting for her. Its lid was broken down the middle. The inside was pure dark, a depth that didn’t end.

  Hands rose out of it, darker than the shadows around them, edges blurred like smoke, reaching so slowly it made Serena’s blood go cold. Serena spun away and tried to run, but the shadows caught her arms from behind and yanked her back. Her feet slipped. Her shoulder wrenched. Hands looped around her ribs, her waist, her throat, pinning her so she couldn’t even twist.

  Their touch was cold, and wherever they held her, her skin went numb. The sensation was being pulled out of her, stolen away.

  Serena screamed, but the sound came out strangled. “No—stop—”

  They pressed in closer, shadow layered over her like tar, climbing her chest, swallowing her shoulders. It crept up her neck, slick and heavy.

  “Join… us…” they whispered, right against her ear. “Accept… us…”

  Serena’s eyes darted wildly, wet with panic. Above her, the ceiling darkened further, until the purple veins of light seemed to recede. As darkness swallowed the room, a pair of eyes bloomed overhead. Two vast, deep-purple irises, staring down. The pressure in the room doubled. Serena’s lungs refused to fill.

  The voice returned, the same old, cold rasp. “You are a broken failure. You always will be.”

  The hands tightened, holding her perfectly still, presenting her like an offering.

  “You have no place in this world,” the voice continued, “and you… will fade… alone.”

  Serena’s vision tunneled. The purple light smeared at the edges. Her heartbeat thudded loud enough to drown out everything, until even that began to sound distant. She shut her eyes, her head slumped, and she stopped struggling.

  As the shadows enveloped her completely, Serena clenched her eyes tighter. And just as that presence reached her, the hands stopped, the whispers cut off mid-breath. Silence slammed down so hard it felt like impact. Serena hung in it for a heartbeat, and everything turned black, like someone had snuffed out the world.

  Leif woke with a dull sense of unease, the kind that hit before his mind even caught up. For a heartbeat he just stared at the ceiling. When he turned to check on Serena, it only took him a second before he jolted up.

  Her bed was empty.

  Maybe she’d already gone to Edmund, he told himself, already moving. Leif pushed outside, the cold air biting his cheeks, and to his surprise, he found her almost at once. She wasn’t far. Just beyond the house, standing in front of a tree.

  Leif sprinted toward her, then slowed as he got close. The bark was scarred. A charred circle stained the trunk at about chest height, blackened and cracked, as if something had burned there over and over in the same exact spot. He stopped a few paces away. “What are you doing out here?”

  Serena didn’t look at him right away. Her shoulders were rigid, her hands held tight, like she was trying to keep herself from shaking. When she spoke, her voice was small, almost swallowed by the morning air. “I have to keep training,” she muttered.

  Leif’s chest tightened. “Serena…”

  Her gaze stayed fixed on the blackened mark, “I have to get stronger. I can’t stop… until I do.”

  Leif stepped in without thinking and wrapped his arms around her. For a second she didn’t move. Then her breath hitched, and the tension in her shoulders shifted. Not easing, not truly, but loosening just enough to show how hard she’d been holding herself together.

  “It’s not your fault,” he said into her hair, firm, like he could make the words real if he said them clearly enough.

  Serena’s fingers slid up to her own chest. She clenched her fist there, pressing it tight as if she could keep something from cracking open inside her. “The king asked me,” she said, voice thick. “He… trusted me. To protect the prince, once he is gone.” Her fist tightened again, harder. “I will get stronger,” she whispered. “I promise.”

  Leif didn’t have an answer that didn’t feel useless. So he held her a moment longer, like he could lend her steadiness through his arms.

  He went to Edmund later that morning after he left Serena. The decision came slowly, a weight that followed him from the yard. Serena’s face kept replaying in his mind. Her fixed stare on the charred circle, the way her shoulders held tension, the way her promise I will get stronger had sounded less like determination and more like desperation. He hated that look, hated how familiar it was becoming.

  Leif’s boots crunched softly over the thin crust of frost. The village was awake now, smoke rising from chimneys, children playing, people moving about and quietly tending their duties. It all looked normal, almost peaceful, but he kept seeing it. The monsters appearing so suddenly, the chaos, Serena thrown into danger she wasn’t built for yet. Leif had been proud, for a moment, that his instinct had been quick enough to get to her.

  But pride was a shallow thing. It didn’t last. Because once the rush faded, what remained was the image of what almost happened.

  Serena dying, and him, watching helplessly.

  If I’d been a second slower…

  He tried to shake it off. He’d done what he could, yet even that thought tasted wrong, because “helped” wasn’t the same as “protected.”

  Leif had always been good at saving moments—buying time, creating openings, pulling someone out at the last second. He could distract, give his companions time to move. But that morning, for the first time, he felt the shape of a future where that wouldn’t be enough. A future where his “last second” arrived too late.

  He reached the house where Orm had been tending to Edmund. Before going in, Leif paused at the threshold, breathing in, forcing his expression into something steadier. He didn’t want Edmund to see the worry dripping off him. The prince already carried enough.

  He stepped inside. Edmund was propped up and resting, looking far better than he had any right to after everything. Orm’s healing had done its work; the prince’s breathing was even, his color returned, and aside from a slight stiffness in his limbs, he looked almost… normal.

  Leif checked on him first, asked about his injuries, watched his posture, waited for the signs of strain.

  “Orm did most of it,” Edmund admitted. “Just… lingering aches.”

  Leif let out a breath of relief and loosened his chest. For a minute the mood was light. A few words exchanged. A small attempt at normalcy, but Leif hadn’t come here for lightness. The silence returned the moment he thought of Serena again. He hesitated, then said it anyway. “I’m worried about her. Something feels… different from when I saw her this morning.”

  Edmund’s face changed, not dramatically, but enough that Leif saw it. The ease slipped. Something tightened behind his eyes.

  “It’s the monster,” Edmund said. “It appeared so suddenly, and…”

  His words trailed off. He stared ahead, fixed on something Leif couldn’t see. A memory, probably. The same way Serena had stared at that burn mark on the tree. Leif waited, heart sinking in slow motion. Edmund was silent for a long moment, and when he finally spoke, his voice carried the same hard edge Leif had heard in Serena’s.

  “If you hadn’t come,” Edmund said quietly, “she might have died.”

  “Highness?” Leif managed.

  Edmund turned slightly, jaw tight. “I couldn’t protect her on my own.”

  Leif’s stomach dropped. He watched Edmund’s hands, calm on the surface, resting, controlled. But the fingers flexed once, subtle, like they remembered the helplessness of not having enough strength when it mattered.

  “I have to get stronger,” Edmund continued, almost to himself, the words sounding less like ambition and more like a sentence handed down. “I can’t defend her… or anyone, if I don’t.”

  Something flickered in his eyes then, an old memory, sharp and ugly. Leif didn’t need to ask which one.

  Varhathor.

  The demon. The slaughter. The moment Edmund learned what it meant to watch men die faster than you could save them.

  Edmund’s voice dropped. “I can’t let that happen again.”

  Leif swallowed. He’d come here intending to speak about Serena, to name the fear he couldn’t shake, that she was forcing herself toward something that would break her. But now Edmund was saying the same thing she had said.

  I have to get stronger.

  Both of them were turning the same pain into the same vow. And Leif felt something inside him shift, reluctantly, like a door he didn’t want to open but could no longer pretend wasn’t there. Because if Serena and Edmund were both thinking of strength as the only answer, then what did that make him, if he stayed as he was?

  The rest of the thought was too honest.

  What about me?

  What should I do for them?

  His vine whip had saved them more than once, yes. It had grabbed ankles, pulled enemies off balance, bought breath and seconds and space. It had made clever little victories possible.

  But against real monsters, against real killing intent, he’d felt it, the gap between what he could do and what he needed to be able to do. It could not carry the weight of someone’s life if the world decided to take it. And worst of all, it could not fix the feeling of standing there, heart pounding, knowing you were trying your hardest… and still not being enough.

  Leif’s throat tightened. He didn’t want to admit it. Not to Edmund. Not to himself, but the words came anyway, raw and simple.

  “Me too,” Leif said, and the vow slipped out before he could soften it into something lighter. “I have to.”

  He hesitated, then added, honest and grim, “I don’t want to be the one standing there again, watching, unable to stop it.”

  Edmund didn’t answer right away. He didn’t need to. That day, it felt like the three of them were trapped in the same promise—each wanting to become someone strong enough to keep the others alive.

  Back in Danuville, Paul was in the church, fingers clasped tight around the pendant at his throat, as if the cold metal could steady his breathing.

  The sanctuary was dim at this hour, lit only by a few candles along the altar. Their flames shivered in the draft, painting the mural of the twin goddesses in slow, wavering light, and at the center, a balanced scale rendered in gold and ash, perfectly poised. Footsteps sounded in the nave, and Paul looked up.

  A man entered with the unhurried confidence of someone who had never been made to doubt his welcome. He wore a black tailcoat that looked too fine for Danuville’s mud, and a single monocle sat neatly over his left eye, catching candlelight as he stepped forward.

  Paul stood at once, his expression smoothing into warmth. He walked to greet the man with open arms. “Minos, a pleasure to see you on this fine evening.”

  “The pleasure is mine,” Minos said. His gaze drifted past Paul instead, settling on the mural, the goddesses, then on the balanced scale at the center. “I’m only here to bid you farewell, and to hand you this purse.”

  He procured a small bag and loosened its cord. Candlelight flashed over gold. Dozens of coins, bright and clean. “From your patron. She sends her regards, and says she look forward to finally be able to come here at last.”

  “Ah, yes,” Paul replied, smile still in place, though his fingers tightened around the pendant again. “I, too, would like to meet her one day. Once everything is ready, of course.”

  “That day will come soon, I believe,” Minos said, already turning. “Until we meet again.”

  “Safe travels, Minos,” Paul said with a bow.

  Minos left as quietly as he’d arrived, his steps swallowed by the church’s old stone. Paul remained standing a moment longer, the weight of the purse heavy in his hands, the painted scale watching him in perfect, indifferent balance. Then he returned to his place, fingers finding the pendant again.

  Outside the church’s gates, Minos’s carriage waited, lanterns glowing against the falling dusk. It wasn’t alone. Beyond it, half-swallowed by the dim, a line of carriages stretched down the road. Dark lacquer, unmarked doors, drivers sitting stiff as statues. Men lingered beside the wheels and in the gaps between lanternlight, coats pulled high, hands tucked where weapons would be.

  A boy stood by the carriage’s door, posture relaxed, his smile as unfaltering as ever. Minos spoke as he approached. “Where did we leave off, Kleitos. The prince, wasn’t it?”

  “Meh, not bad,” Kleitos responded. “Still alive, as I was saying, but he seriously needs to learn more skills. Watching him fire lightning bolts gets dull after the first three strikes.”

  “He’s still young,” Minos replied. “He will grow, and so will his power, in time.”

  Kleitos shrugged. “Anyway, is our business done here, sir?” he asked. “Laurent’s men will lie low for a while, so there isn’t much to do here anymore.”

  Minos stepped up into the carriage. He settled inside with measured ease, smoothing his glove. “Yes, my dear assistant. Let us head to our next destination.”

  Kleitos’s smile widened just a fraction as he climbed in after him. The carriage door clicked shut. A moment later, the driver snapped the reins, and the wheels began to turn, rolling away from the church, away from Danuville. Behind them, the rest of the line moved too, one after another, lanterns bobbing in sequence as the Syndicate’s procession slid into the road and vanished into the dark.