CHAPTER 6: The Mark

For several seconds after the crimson symbols faded, neither of us breathed.

​The garden had plunged into an unnatural, suffocating quiet. Water trickled softly from the marble basin behind Kael, and somewhere beyond the palace walls, a night bird called into the dark. My wrist still burned where his fingers had clamped down. The sensation wasn't painful, but it lingered beneath my skin like trapped heat—a smoldering coal buried deep in the muscle.

​Kael's gaze remained pinned to my sleeve.

​"What was that?" His voice was steady, but I caught the fine, dangerous coil of tension underneath it.

​I yanked my wrist free and tucked it against my side. "I don't know."

​For once, it wasn't a lie.

​His golden eyes narrowed, searching my face. "You expect me to believe that?"

​"I don't particularly care what you believe." The words cut through the damp night air sharper than I intended.

​For a fraction of a second, genuine shock flickered across his features. It almost made me smile.

​Good. Let him be thrown off.

​The Seraphina he remembered would have apologized instantly. She would have panicked over offending him, spent the night replaying the conversation, and agonized over how to crawl back into his good graces.

​That version of me had died on the executioner's block. The fire had taken more than my life that night; it had scorched away every last bit of my desperate, foolish hope.

​Kael studied me, his focus heavy and tactile, like light focused through glass. It made the small hairs on the back of my neck prickle.

​"You've changed," he said softly.

​A bitter laugh nearly tore out of my throat. If only you knew. "You keep saying that."

​"Because it's true." His expression hardened back into the unreadable mask of an Alpha heir. "Three days ago, you could barely hold my gaze. Tonight, you've lied to my face, challenged me twice, and somehow predicted an assassin's stroke before his blade even cleared his cloak."

​The knot in my stomach tightened.

​This was precisely why I needed to stay away from him. People focused on Kael's brute physical dominance and forgot how terrifyingly sharp he was. Once an anomaly caught his interest, he hunted it relentlessly. He noticed the micro-expressions, the fraction-of-a-second delays, the subtle patterns others missed.

​If he kept digging, he would eventually unearth the one truth I had to protect with my life: that I had already lived through five years of this hell, and I remembered every single betrayal, every drop of blood, and every fatal mistake.

​"Maybe you simply never bothered to pay attention before," I murmured.

​The blow landed before I could stop it.

​Kael flinched. The reaction was microscopic—a slight drop of his eyelids, a sudden rigidity in his jaw—so subtle anyone else would have missed it.

​Guilt.

​It flashed across his eyes and vanished, but I saw it.

​Before I could process what that meant, a sharp, searing pain shot up my right arm.

​I sucked in a harsh breath as heat erupted beneath my flesh, radiating outward to my elbow. The garden tilted on its axis, the dark marble walls blurring into streaks of grey.

​My vision snapped black, and an image slammed into my mind: a colossal stone gate rising from an abyss, its dark face carved with ancient, jagged runes. Crimson fire bled through hairline cracks in the rock, illuminating thousands of unfamiliar symbols that burned with a dull, suffocating light.

​The vision lasted less than a second before dissolving back into the moonlit garden.

​My knees buckled.

​Before I hit the flagstones, Kael caught my upper arm, hoisting me upright. "Seraphina!"

​"I'm fine," I rasped, pulling against his grip.

​"You don't look fine."

​The raw edge of concern in his voice threw me off balance.

​I forced my eyes up to meet his, and for a brief, dangerous second, another memory overlaid his face. Not the flames. Not the heat.

​The single second right before my execution, when I had looked up at the royal platform and thought I saw hesitation in his golden eyes. I had clung to that imagined hesitation like a fool. Even as the executioner raised the torch, a pathetic part of me had believed he would stop it—that he would choose me.

​He hadn't.

​The memory settled over my chest like a sheet of ice.

​I broke his grip and took a deliberate step backward. "I'm going home."

​His jaw worked, muscle flexing tight. "We're not finished here."

​"We are from where I'm standing." I turned toward the archway.

​"Seraphina."

​I stopped. Not because he used an Alpha command, but because of the soft, unfamiliar cadence in his voice.

​Careful. Almost cautious.

​The tone unnerved me far more than his anger ever could.

​When I glanced back, he was still standing by the fountain, silver moonlight catching the hard line of his profile.

​"I don't know what kind of game you've gotten yourself pulled into," he said, his voice dropping low, "but it's dangerous."

​A cold, humorless smile touched my lips. "I am well aware."

​This time, when I walked away, he didn't move to stop me.

​The trek back to the estate felt longer than it should have. The streets were deserted, but every shadow seemed thicker, stretching toward me from the alleyways. Every distant creak of a shutter had me reaching instinctively for the small blade at my belt.

​By the time I scaled the trellis and slipped through my bedroom window, bone-deep exhaustion had settled into my limbs. I kicked off my boots and collapsed onto the bed, fully clothed.

​Sleep claimed me before my head even hit the pillow.

​And with sleep came the nightmare.

​It began in absolute dark, followed by the roar of flames. The same crimson fire I'd seen in the vision spread across a vast, empty void. Beyond the heat stood the colossal gate, towering impossibly high, its dark stone face covered in thousands of glowing runes.

​The air vibrated with a low, agonizing hum that rattled inside my ribs.

​Find it, a voice echoed, bypassing my ears entirely to resonate in my marrow. Find the truth.

​I turned around in the heat.

​The dragon stood behind me, its ruby scales reflecting the inferno around us. Its golden eyes locked onto mine with terrifying intelligence.

​There was no sadness in its gaze this time. Only raw, frantic urgency.

​"The enemy awakens," the ancient beast rumbled.

​The words struck my chest like a physical weight. I opened my mouth to demand what enemy, to ask what the gate was—

​The dream shattered into fragments.

​I sat bolt upright before sunrise, my shirt soaked in sweat, my heart hammering violently against my ribs.

​I sat in the dark for several long minutes, waiting for my breathing to steady. The dream hadn't felt like a hallucination or a random night terror. It felt like a warning.

​A sudden, sharp knock sounded on my bedroom door.

​I flinched, my hand darting to the mattress where my dagger lay hidden beneath the pillow.

​"Seraphina?"

​My mother's voice.

​The air rushed out of my lungs in a wave of relief. "Come in."

​The door swung open, and she stepped inside carrying a wooden tray. The scent of hot tea and fresh bread filled the stale room.

​I stared at her for a moment, taking in her soft features. Alive. Healthy. Unharmed.

​The sight pulled painfully at my chest. In my first life, I had taken mornings like this for granted, assuming there would always be another tomorrow.

​I had been dead wrong.

​She took one look at me and frowned. "You look terrible, sweetheart."

​A dry laugh escaped my throat. "Thank you, Mother."

​"I aim for honesty." She offered a soft smile, but it didn't reach her eyes.

​As she set the tray on my bedside table, I caught the subtle tremor in her fingers.

​My pulse spiked again. "What happened?"

​She straightened, taking a slow breath before speaking. "We have an early visitor downstairs."

​Every muscle in my back went rigid. "From the palace?"

​"Yes." She nodded.

​I closed my eyes, Kael's sharp, questioning face immediately flashing in my mind. He didn't waste any time. "Is it Prince Kael?"

​"No," she said softly.

​I opened my eyes, caught off guard.

​"It's Lady Vivienne."

​The temperature in the room seemed to drop five degrees.

​In my first life, Vivienne hadn't set foot in our estate until weeks after the mating ceremony. Weeks. Not the morning after.

​The timeline wasn't just shifting anymore—it was accelerating.

​If Vivienne was standing in our foyer right now, it meant she had already started moving her pieces across the board. The slow, silent trap that had eventually led to my execution was being sprung early.

​I pulled back the covers and stood up, my eyes narrowing in the dim morning light.

​This time, she wasn't dealing with an unsuspecting girl. This time, I was going to break her board.