LOGINLADY SERAPHINE'S POVI refuse to be undone like this.Not by a story.Not by sentiment.Not by a girl who should have been erased the moment she stepped out of this palace.If they want truth, then I will give them truth.The kind that poisons.The kind that burns everything clean.I draw in a breath.And when I speak, my voice cuts through the chaos like a blade.“Enough.”It’s not louder than before.But it’s sharper.And this time, It works.The noise falters, stumbles then stills.Not completely.But enough.Enough for me to take it back.All of it.“You want to know who she is?” I say, my gaze sweeping across the crowd.Curiosity flickers.I turn slowly and for the first time since this began, I look directly at her.Saphra.Standing behind Marcus, still, silent watching and waiting.There’s no fear in her face.No panic.No scrambling for escape.And that, that almost irritates me more than anything else.Because she should be afraid.She should be desperate.But she isn’t.Whic
LADY SERAPHINE'S POVForce and threats should have worked.It always does.That’s how order is maintained.That’s how power functions.But as I stand in the center of the courtyard, watching Marcus refuse to yield, watching the guards hesitate, watching the servants linger instead of scattering.I feel it.Power slipping, breaking.No.I won’t let it.If brute command won’t bend them, then I will remind them why they should kneel.I straighten slowly, drawing in a breath, forcing the rage back beneath the surface where it belongs.Control.Always control.“Guards, stop.”My voice cuts through the noise, sharper and carrying across the courtyard with practiced precision.It works, partially.The murmurs quiet not fully but enough.I take a step forward, lifting my chin, letting them all see me clearly. Letting them remember who I am.“You forget yourselves,” I say, my tone measured now, deliberate. “All of you.”My gaze sweeps across the gathered crowd.“I am not some passing authority
LADY SERAPHINE'S POVThe moment the door slams open, I know something is wrong. I don’t need the breathless servant stumbling over her words to tell me.“My Lady.....” she gasps, bowing too quickly, too messily. “She....she’s back....”The words don’t fully register at first.My mind rejects them because they don’t make sense. They can not be true.“Say that again,” I tell her, my voice soft.The servant swallows hard, trembling.“Saphra,” she whispers. “She’s inside the palace.”For a moment everything goes very, very still.Then the world snaps.The crystal vase in my hand leaves my fingers before I even realize I’ve moved.It shatters against the far wall in a violent explosion of glass and sound, shards scattering across the polished floor like fragments of something far more fragile.The servant flinches, dropping to her knees with a choked cry.I don’t look at her.I can’t.Because something hot and vicious is rising inside me, clawing its way up my throat.“She what?” I breathe
SAPHRA’S POV When we reach the palace Mara leaves us and heads to the servant quaters to create a distraction for us. We wait in the darkness. Every step echoes faintly, a reminder of how exposed we are despite the darkness wrapping around us. Then, a voice cuts through the silence above us. Sharp and loud. Familiar. “I told you I left it there!” Mara. I freeze for half a second, my heart jumping into my throat. Her voice rises again, louder this time, edged with frustration. “Don’t lie to me! I know it was here!” The sound carries through the stone above us, distorted but clear enough. Marcus doesn’t stop. If anything, he moves faster. “It’s working,” he murmurs. Above us, more voices join in. Confused, arguing. “What are you talking about?” “I didn’t take anything.” “You’re accusing me now?” The noise builds quickly, overlapping shouts echoing faintly down through the tunnels. Servants. Guards. Exactly what we need. My chest tightens, I know Mara is up there
SAPHRA'S POVDawn comes without warmth.The sky is a dull, lifeless grey. The mist hangs low over the forest floor, thick enough to swallow shapes and blur edges, turning everything into shadows.It feels wrong.Like the world itself knows what waits ahead.I pull my cloak tighter around my shoulders as we move, the fabric brushing softly against my legs with each step. The cold seeps through anyway, settling deep into my bones but I barely notice it.My focus is fixed ahead, on the path to the palace.Marcus leads us, his movements sharp and precise despite the exhaustion etched into every line of his body. He knows these woods better than anyone, guiding us through narrow, winding trails that twist away from the main roads.Every sound feels too loud in the quiet morning, the crunch of leaves beneath our boots, the faint rustle of branches as we pass and the steady rhythm of our breathing.Mara walks close to my right, her presence a steady anchor. I can feel the tension in her, the
SAPHRA'S POVSleep won’t come.I try.I lie on the thin bedroll, staring up at the rough wooden ceiling of the hideout, listening to the quiet sounds of the forest outside. I listen to the wind threading through branches, the faint crackle of the dying fire, the soft shift of movement from the others.But my mind won’t stop.It keeps circling the same thoughts.The same images.Lucien.The palace.Tomorrow.Every time I close my eyes, I see him. Not just the monster he’s becoming but the man he was.The man he still is somewhere beneath all of it. And the thought that I might be too late. It drags me back awake every time.I exhale slowly, turning onto my side.This is useless.I’m not going to sleep.Not like this.Carefully, I push myself up, ignoring the dull pull in my stomach where the wound still hasn’t fully healed. It’s better than it was, but not enough to forget.Nothing about this lets me forget.The hideout is dim, lit only by the fading glow of embers. Marcus sits near th
SAPHRA'S POV One moment I am sitting on the cold dungeon floor, back against stone, counting the slow drips of water somewhere beyond the corridor. The next— The world shatters. Moonlight floods my vision so violently I gasp, clawing at the ground beneath me. But there is no stone now. No iron
SAPHRA'S POV Darkness has weight. I did not understand that before the dungeon. Here, it presses against my skin like damp cloth, sinks into my lungs when I breathe, coils behind my eyes when I try to sleep. The torches in the corridor burn low and uneven, their light never quite reaching the co
SAPHRA'S POV Darkness stops being frightening after the first day. After that, it becomes a companion. Three days pass in the bowels of the palace, measured only by the sound of footsteps and the ache in my body. There is no light in my cell. No window....No crack in the stone. Time dissolves in
SAPHRA'S POV The rage fills me up white-hot and blinding. For a heartbeat after his confession, I can’t breathe. The dungeon seems to tilt, stone walls warping as if reality itself recoils from what he’s said. My mother begged him in dreams. Her murderer remembers her face. He remembers her dyi







