Flamekeep - Private Study
Seraphina's hands wouldn't stop shaking.
The genealogical documents spread across the desk proved everything. Four generations of dead women following the same pattern. All Celestine.
The seals pulsed with magic under her fingertips, recognizing her blood.
Yona stood beside the door after bringing the chest from the bedroom, watching quietly.
Caelan moved closer, reading over her shoulder. His presence helped steady her when everything else felt wrong.
The first document unrolled across the desk.
The document contained official genealogical records with Imperial authentication seals and ancestral sigils that glowed when she touched them.
House Celestine.
The bloodline traced back through generations. Past her mother. Past her grandmother. Further into history than Seraphina had ever seen documented.
And there, in formal script with seals that couldn't be forged:
House Celestine descended directly from the Warden Empress line.
This wasn't legend or rumor. This was proof.
Her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother were all Celestine, carrying Warden Empress heritage that had been systematically suppressed and hidden.
"This isn't just about Flamebearers," Seraphina whispered. "This is proof. My bloodline was designated cosmic anchor. The specific heritage responsible for maintaining realm stability."
Caelan studied the documents with military precision. "And someone spent over a century making sure that heritage stayed dormant."
The Celestine bloodline had maintained these records for generations at the sanctums. Each woman preserved proof that couldn't be destroyed. When Lady Adrianne married Duke Lucien, his resources as Duke and strategic investigation helped her obtain additional Imperial records to complete the archive.
Then they'd hidden it where only Celestine blood could reach it.
The next documents showed marriage contracts spanning four generations. Each one had the same tactical pattern.
Her great-great-grandmother had been drugged at a court function and discovered in a lord's chambers. The scandal forced immediate marriage to a minor noble with no magical bloodline, and she died at eighteen from complications of childbirth.
The same happened to her great-grandmother through a compromised situation that led to forced marriage with a husband who had diluted magic. She died three years later giving birth.
Her grandmother followed the identical pattern when she married a powerless noble and died at nineteen.
Seraphina's hands clenched on the parchment. "They didn't just steal our power. They bred it out of us. Generation after generation, forcing marriages to men with weak or nonexistent magic so our daughters would inherit nothing."
"Strategic dilution," Caelan said. "Keep the Celestine name alive while making each generation weaker than the last."
"Every direct female line for over a century. All dead before twenty-five."
She looked at the documents. The coordinated elimination. The manipulation disguised as court romance and noble alliances.
"Except your mother," Caelan said quietly.
Seraphina opened her mother's personal diary. Not research notes. Personal entries. Memories.
The first entry was dated years before Seraphina's birth:
Day 47, Month of Harvest, Year 1263
My hands won't stop shaking. I'm writing this while my maid sits outside, still worried.
Someone drugged my wine tonight at the court function. I didn't realize it until everything started going fuzzy and wrong. A lord I barely know was suddenly guiding me away from the ballroom, his hand too tight on my arm, leading me toward the guest wing.
Then Duke Lucien was there. He didn't even ask questions, just removed the man's hand and told him he'd escort me to my chambers. His voice was so quiet but the lord backed away immediately.
Lucien got me here safely and made sure my maid was present before he left. Proper and appropriate.
But I heard the whispers already starting as we walked through the corridors. People saw us together. Saw me stumbling and drunk.
I'm ruined.
Day 48, Month of Harvest, Year 1263
The rumors spread overnight. Stepmother can barely look at me. Father is furious but helpless since no respectable house would want me now.
Then Duke Lucien came this afternoon. I thought he was visiting to make excuses for why he couldn't be associated with me anymore.
Instead he asked to speak with Father privately. When they emerged an hour later, we were betrothed. The announcement went out immediately.
Word is already spreading through court. I'm not ruined anymore. I'm his future duchess.
He chose me when no one else would.
Day 102, Month of Spring, Year 1266
We married today. I'm eighteen and this is my choice.
Three years since that night. He could have broken the betrothal quietly once the scandal died down. No one would have blamed him.
But he built a partnership with me instead.
This is different from what happened to my grandmother. This is real.
Seraphina's chest tightened. Her father hadn't known about conspiracies or suppression patterns. He'd just seen a woman in danger and had the power to stop it.
That simple act of decency had broken a century-long weapon.
"Your father proved genuine partnerships could protect Flamebearers," Caelan said, reading over her shoulder. "That made the pattern vulnerable. Made him dangerous to whoever orchestrated this."
Seraphina touched the diary pages. "He was proof their system could fail."
She turned to entries from years later:
Day 12, Month of Frost, Year 1278
The visions started tonight. I don't understand what I'm seeing.
Flashes of women I don't recognize. They have Celestine features though, and fire-scars like mine. I keep seeing them die in childbirth or burn on pyres or waste away in loveless marriages.
It's been a year since Lucien and I married. The fire-scars appearing felt like normal Flamebearer awakening. But these visions are different. Wrong.
Day 15, Month of Frost, Year 1278
The vision showed me what would have happened if Lucien hadn't intervened that night.
I saw myself in that lord's chambers, waking disoriented and violated. The scandal spreading. Forced marriage three days later to a man with dead eyes. Pregnant within months. Trapped.
Dead at nineteen from childbirth complications.
My Flamebearer awakening is showing me the pattern I escaped.
Day 23, Month of Frost, Year 1278
I've been researching. Every woman I saw in the visions, I'm finding their records.
Court scandal reports. Marriage contracts. Death certificates.
Every Celestine woman for over a century. Drugged at functions. Trapped. Married to powerless bloodlines so their daughters would inherit nothing but diluted magic.
Dead before twenty-five.
The Celestine name would disappear through marriage customs anyway. But they ensured the bloodline itself became worthless. Strategic dilution across generations until the awakening became impossible.
Someone has been doing this deliberately. Lucien and I broke it through simple decency.
But who benefits from making Celestine bloodlines powerless?
Day 3, Month of Sun, Year 1291
Seraphina turned twelve today.
Tonight I saw her execution. Twenty years old, chained to a pyre. Duke Alaric Vessant gave the order. Family stood beside him as executioners. A woman who looked like Lucien's younger sister, Seraphina's cousin Evelyne.
This was future, not past.
Day 6, Month of Sun, Year 1291
I've tried everything.
Protective wards that failed within hours. Counter-prophecy spells that fizzled before completion. Binding magic that wouldn't hold. Blood rituals that promised alteration of fate but delivered nothing.
Days blur together. Ancient texts spread across every surface. Scrolls torn in frustration. Candles burned to nothing.
I consulted practitioners who backed away when they heard what I'd seen. Read forbidden texts that offered no solutions. Tried impossible combinations of light magic, fire magic, desperate magic.
Nothing works. Nothing changes the future I witnessed.
Day 8, Month of Sun, Year 1291
Lucien and I are investigating. Who gains from Flamebearer suppression? Who controls narratives about dangerous magic? Who orchestrated four generations of forced marriages?
We're finding connections. Noble houses with consistent votes. Officials holding power for decades. Money flowing to families profiting from every Celestine death.
But the trails go cold. The real architects hide behind proxies and purchased loyalty. We can identify tools but not the hand wielding them.
Day 9, Month of Sun, Year 1291
"There has to be another way," I keep saying to empty rooms. But there isn't.
I've collapsed at my desk three times today, surrounded by failures. Lucien found me weeping over research notes and thought I was ill. I let him believe it.
I can't save her from dying. But maybe I can give her another chance after.
Day 11, Month of Sun, Year 1291
Lucien continues investigating while I'm barely functional. Who gains from Flamebearer suppression? Who controls narratives about dangerous magic?
We're finding connections. Noble houses with consistent votes. Officials holding power for decades. Money flowing to families profiting from every Celestine death.
But the trails go cold. The real architects hide behind proxies and purchased loyalty. We can identify tools but not the hand wielding them.
Day 17, Month of Sun, Year 1291
Lucien found records today through his military contacts.
Methodical elimination of bloodlines with imperial succession claims. Not just Celestine. Seventeen families over twenty years.
Made to look like accidents or scandals.
Someone powerful enough to manipulate court records and purchase noble loyalty has been reshaping succession law for decades.
The Celestine suppression is just one piece of something larger.
Day 20, Month of Sun, Year 1291
Lucien discovered financial connections. Funds moving through holding companies and charitable foundations. Payments disguised as legitimate transactions.
The money connects to families holding key positions for generations. Court advisors. Temple officials. Imperial archivists.
Whoever is behind this has influence at every level. They can alter genealogical records. Erase bloodlines. Make entire family histories disappear.
We can't identify them directly. They're too careful. Too patient. Operating across generations with resources beyond any single house.
But we know they exist. And we know what they want: Keep the Warden Empress bloodline suppressed. Prevent Celestine women from completing awakening. Maintain whatever power structure depends on our silence.
Day 22, Month of Sun, Year 1291
I found the regression spell in grandmother's forbidden archives.
It requires a life. The caster's life.
If I cast it and Seraphina dies in that future, the spell activates. Her consciousness goes back with all memories intact.
She'll have a second chance.
I'm casting it tonight. Lucien can't know.
Day 23, Month of Sun, Year 1291
I cast the spell. I can feel it consuming me.
Like cold fire burning through my life force.
I have weeks, maybe months.
I need to hide everything at Whitehall. Blood-locked for Seraphina.
She needs to know about the marriage pattern. The systematic suppression. The elusive architects hiding behind nobility.
She needs to know that completing the Warden Empress awakening isn't just about power. It's about breaking whatever hold they have over the realm.
When a Celestine woman completes awakening properly, something changes. The cosmic protection degrading for over a century starts repairing.
That's why they suppress us. Not just political control. Something deeper. Something they need kept broken.
Day 11, Month of Storms, Year 1292
Six months since casting the spell. I'm dying and doctors can't figure out why.
Lucien knows something's wrong but not why. I can't tell him.
I'm adding final pieces to the sanctum archives. Everything we discovered. The genealogical proof. Marriage patterns. Financial connections. Seventeen eliminated families.
The unknown architects who orchestrate from shadows. I couldn't identify them. I can only document their methods.
The conspiracy is older and deeper than any single house. It operates through proxies. Purchases loyalty across generations. Has resources suggesting influence at highest power levels.
But it's not invincible. Lucien and I broke the marriage pattern through choice. I survived what should have trapped me.
Only her blood opens these archives.
I won't know if the spell works. I'll be dead years before the vision comes true.
But maybe this gives her a chance.
The ink blurred. Seraphina blinked hard, dragging her sleeve across her eyes before tears could fall onto the parchment.
Her mother had died slowly over six months. The regression spell consuming her piece by piece. And her father never knew why.
"There's more," Yona said quietly.