Chapter 8: Questions Without Answers

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said. My voice came out weaker than I wanted.

Kael’s gaze stayed fixed on my wrist. “The symbol.”

I looked down. My skin was bare. No glow. No mark. Nothing. For a second I wondered if I had imagined it. The warmth. The light. The strange pull beneath my skin. But I knew I hadn’t.

“It disappeared,” I said quietly.

The narrow hallway seemed to close in around me. Dust drifted through the shafts of afternoon light. Somewhere deeper in the Citadel, a door slammed shut.

His eyes lifted from my wrist to my face. “Has that happened before?”

I hesitated. The truth should have been simple. Yet something about the way he asked made me nervous. “A few times. Since I arrived.”

His expression hardened. Not anger. Concern. Real concern. My stomach tightened.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

The answer came too quickly.

I folded my arms. “That didn’t sound like nothing.”

For a moment neither of us spoke. Then Kael exhaled slowly. “There are parts of this Citadel you shouldn’t explore alone.”

I blinked. “Because of a symbol?”

His jaw tightened. “Because I said so.”

The words should have irritated me. Instead they left me with more questions than answers.

He turned and started walking. I followed a few steps behind. We moved through the quieter halls without another word. He had defended me more than once. Yet now, when I finally needed answers, he wouldn’t give me any. His silence bothered me more than it should have.

When we reached my rooms he stopped at the door. “Stay to the main areas for now.”

He didn’t wait for me to agree. He just turned and left.

Later that night I stood by the window. Snow drifted across the mountains outside. I brushed my fingers over my wrist. Nothing. No symbol. No glow. Yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that something had started the moment I touched that mural. Something I wasn’t supposed to understand yet.

Kael’s POV>>>>>>>

Later that night I met with Thorne in the private study. The old scholar had served my father before me and knew more about the Citadel’s hidden history than anyone still living. Fire crackled in the hearth while I described exactly what I had seen on Seraphina’s wrist.

Thorne listened without interrupting, his wrinkled hands folded on the table. When I finished he leaned forward, eyes sharp in the firelight. “If the mark truly appeared, then the bloodline survived.”

I stared into the fire. The logs shifted and sent sparks upward. “No one is to speak of this.”

Thorne looked away first. “Does she know?”

“No.”

“And you intend to keep it that way?”

I didn’t answer right away. The room felt heavier than usual. The moment others learned what Seraphina carried, she would stop being a woman trying to rebuild her life. She would become a target.

And I couldn’t let that happen. Not while she was still raw from everything Black Hollow had done to her. Not while I was still figuring out how to protect her without breaking what little trust she had started to build.