Raymond’s POVI woke choking on smoke.No—there was no smoke. There was no fire. Only the image seared into my skull, hot as iron pressed to flesh: the tree burning.Its branches stretched like arms toward a black sky, every limb clawed by flame. Leaves fell in sparks, ash rising like snow into the void. And beneath it, standing in the red glow, was the woman. White-robed, untouched by fire, her hair long and pale as frost. Her lips moved, whispering words I couldn’t hear until the last syllable curled into my ear like a knife.You are the last Seraphin.I sat up with a gasp, heart hammering against my ribs, my sheets tangled around me like restraints. My skin burned. My veins felt alive, crawling under the surface, each pulse dragging whispers with it. A thousand voices, just under hearing, like the echo of a choir in an empty cathedral.I pressed my palms to my temples. It was just a dream. Just a dream. Just—The
Jude’s POVThe pit was still in my lungs when his hand closed around my shoulder.I hadn’t even heard him approach—though in truth, Xalor could never be silent. His presence was a weight of its own.“Still brooding over ghosts, my Lord?” His voice was low, half-mocking, but not unkind.I turned, and there he was: Xalor, broad as a mountain, scar cutting across his jaw, eyes sharp but steady. The same boy who’d once bloodied his knuckles on another fledgling’s face because they’d spat the word half-breed at me. The same man who now stood as my right hand, my only anchor.“You move too quietly,” I said, my voice rough.“You think too loudly,” he shot back. “Come. Enough staring at dead sand. You’ll drive yourself mad.”I should have resisted. I wanted to. But his grip tightened, and the weight of his presence tugged me from the arena like gravity itself.We walked the archway corridors together, torches hissi
Jude’s POVThe silence after the roar was the loudest sound I had ever heard.I was on my knees in the sand, my claws still buried in my father’s chest, his body pinned beneath mine. My breath came in ragged bursts, each one tasting of copper. Blood slicked my face, my arms, my tongue. My body was little more than shreds of muscle held together by will and venom.And yet—I lived.He did not.Calix of Thorns, my father, my Lord, the Supreme who had ruled a hundred years in shadow and terror, lay broken beneath me. Not dead—death was forbidden in the Culling. But immobilized. Defeated. Banished.The law was iron.And iron always rusts in blood.The crowd broke then. Some screamed my name, chanting it like a hymn. Others shrieked in horror, clawing at their throats, unable to bear the sight of their god stripped bare by his own son.But all eyes turned upward. To the Crimson Court.The Five Thrones sat above, their figures cloaked in scarlet shadow. When they rose, the very stones trembl
Jude’s POVHe lunged.This time I didn’t back away. I stepped into him, twisting, forcing his blade to graze past my shoulder instead of my heart. Pain screamed, but I ignored it, driving my elbow into his ribs. He staggered a fraction—enough.I slashed low, aiming for his leg. He parried, sparks flying. Our blades locked, our faces inches apart. His eyes were black mirrors, reflecting my own blood-streaked face back at me.“You’ve learned,” he murmured.“I had to,” I snarled, shoving with every shred of strength. “You don’t give second chances.”I forced his blade aside, lunged—my sword cutting across his chest. The first true wound I’d landed. Blood welled dark against his pale skin.The crowd erupted.But Akira only straightened, calm even as crimson soaked into his robes. He pressed a hand to the wound, then let it fall. His voice was quiet, almost approving.“Better.”And then he came at me harder than before.His strikes were faster now, sharper, his calm precision burning into
Jude’s POVThe horn split the air, jagged as a blade.The break was over.I stepped back into the arena, my boots dragging trenches in the blood-soaked sand. The roar of the crowd slammed into me like a wave. A thousand eyes tracked me, hungry, expectant. Some jeered, some screamed my name, but most were waiting to see me fall.The poison still burned in my veins, a fire crawling under my skin. My sword felt heavier than lead, but I lifted it all the same. Because if I walked back into the pit unarmed, it wasn’t just my life Calix would spit on—it was my will.Dante came for me first. Of course he did.He was a beast of a man, broad shoulders glistening with sweat and blood, his axe already raised. He didn’t hesitate, didn’t circle—he charged, a mountain of fury.“Die slow, boy!” he roared, his voice cracking the air.The axe fell, splitting the earth where I’d been standing a heartbeat before. I rolled, sand grinding into my open wound, my lungs burning. The impact sent shards of bon
Jude’s POVThe sand remembers.Even now, standing here again, I can see my blood soaking into it, hear my lungs rattling with dust and iron. I had been younger then, strong but not tempered, my arrogance sharper than my blade. The Culling had not spared me. It never spares anyone.There were five of us that year. Dante Mercier, with his wolfish grin and Northern fangs still slick from the warfronts. Selene Varda, the serpent of the East, her tongue as lethal as her daggers. Akira Sōma, the storm-born of the South, cold precision in every movement. And my father—Calix of Thorns, the Supreme Lord, whose shadow had swallowed my life long before we ever crossed blades.I remember the moment the gates opened.The crowd’s roar was deafening, shaking the obsidian walls, a thousand throats crying for blood. Above them loomed the Crimson Court, watching with jeweled eyes, weighing every step we took. The torches burned crimson-blue, and the bone-sand hissed underfoot as we entered the arena.D