POV: Seraphina
The palace looked wrong in the morning light.
Seraphina noticed it the moment her carriage passed through the outer gates. Nothing obvious and nothing she could name, but the wrongness settled deep in her chest. Guards stood at their posts with eyes that darted too quickly. Servants crossed the courtyard in hurried clusters.
"Something is off," Caelan said from the seat across from her.
She met his gaze and saw her own unease reflected back. No magic connected them anymore because the place where the bond used to live remained hollow and aching, an absence that had not faded since Whitehall.
"I feel it too."
Eleanor's summons had arrived yesterday for Flamebearer matters and investigation updates. Routine follow-up, the message said. But routine did not explain the prickle at the back of her neck.
The carriage stopped. Seraphina stepped out into air that felt heavier than it should. Caelan followed close behind.
A palace steward led them through corridors that buzzed with suppressed tension. Twice they passed servants who moved too quickly, heads down, faces pale.
"Has something happened?" Seraphina asked.
"Nothing of concern, my lady." But his voice came out too high.
They reached the private audience chamber where Eleanor waited. The Empress stood at the window with her posture rigid.
"Your Majesty."
Eleanor turned and the lines around her eyes had deepened since their last meeting. "Duchess. Duke Vorenthal. Thank you for coming so quickly."
Before Eleanor could continue, the door opened behind them. Yona slipped inside, her hair escaping its pins and her chest heaving from exertion. The guards knew her as Seraphina's aide. She had ridden hard to catch up.
She saw the Empress and hesitated, but only for a moment. Then she crossed the room and pressed a folded message into Seraphina's hand.
"Forgive the interruption, Your Majesty." Yona's voice came out breathless but steady. "This arrived moments after the carriage left. I rode ahead to ensure my lady knew first."
She stepped back to wait by the door, still catching her breath.
Eleanor's expression flickered with something between irritation and grudging respect. She said nothing.
Seraphina broke the seal. The message was coded in her network's standard practice. Three names stared back at her.
Her stomach dropped.
"The witnesses." She looked up at Eleanor, searching the Empress's face for confirmation. "The three witnesses your investigation was tracking. All three are dead?"
Eleanor's jaw tightened. "Yes. All three died last night. The Imperial Archivist was found at dawn. The retired investigator an hour later. The court clerk by midmorning. All listed as suicides in the official reports."
"All three killed on the same night." Seraphina's voice came out flat. "Within hours of each other."
"No alarms and no warnings through any channel."
"Why were we not informed immediately?" Caelan's voice carried an edge. His hand found Seraphina's shoulder, brief and grounding. "We could have helped secure the remaining witnesses before they were reached."
Eleanor met his gaze without flinching. "Because there are those in my court who believe the Flamebearer may be responsible for these deaths. Until I knew more, I could not risk compromising the investigation by alerting potential suspects."
The words hit Seraphina hard.
"You suspected us."
"I suspected nothing. But protocol demanded caution." Eleanor's expression softened slightly. "I summoned you here to tell you personally and to hear your response before deciding how to proceed."
"Too clean," Caelan said, pushing past the accusation to focus on what mattered. "This was not damage control. This was removal, professional and coordinated and fast."
Seraphina forced herself to think past the fear tightening in her chest. Those witnesses had evidence connecting seventeen noble family deaths. The Imperial Archivist had found the pattern. The investigator had proof linking eliminations to court manipulation. The court clerk had sealed letters bearing suspicious correspondence.
All of it was gone, erased overnight.
"We need a war council," she said. "Everyone we can trust."
Eleanor held up a hand. "Before that." Her voice carried imperial authority. "Duchess, you will remain in the palace until this matter is resolved. Temporary quarters in the East Wing."
Seraphina felt the trap close around her. Soft detention dressed as hospitality.
"For my protection?"
"For many reasons." Eleanor's gaze did not waver. "The accusations require me to demonstrate caution. Your presence here allows me to observe and to protect."
"And Duke Vorenthal?"
"Free to come and go. He is not under suspicion." Eleanor turned to Caelan. "Though I expect you will choose to remain close."
"I will."
"Then we understand each other. The war council can proceed. But Duchess, you do not leave these walls without my permission."
They gathered in a lesser-used study in the East Wing within the hour.
Thalion had arrived first with his expression unreadable. He took the seat at Eleanor's right hand without comment, though his eyes followed Seraphina with an intensity that made her skin prickle. Caelan positioned himself standing near the door.
Lyria arrived with documents already organized. Dorian brought security assessments.
"Three witnesses," Seraphina began. "All three confirmed dead. All within hours of each other, all on the same night."
"Suicides," Lyria added. "That is what the official reports say. Same language in every document. Someone copied from a template."
"Too clean." Dorian shook his head. "Professional execution made to look like despair."
"This limits our suspects," Thalion said. "Only someone with significant reach could coordinate three deaths across different locations in a single night."
Eleanor's gaze swept the room. "Someone wanted those witnesses silenced before they could testify about the seventeen families."
"Or before they could reveal who is really behind the pattern," Seraphina added.
"We find what they missed," Seraphina said. "There is always something."
Lyria nodded. "A courier was seen leaving the southern archive three nights ago. No house colors. Disappeared near the old roads."
"Ghost route," Caelan said. "Siran has mapped parts of it."
"Then that is where we start." Seraphina assigned tasks. "Siran and Amara will track the courier trail."
The team dispersed. But as the room emptied, Seraphina caught Caelan lingering.
"You should eat something," he said quietly.
"I am fine."
"You are not."
She wanted to argue, but he was not wrong.
"Later. After I walk the corridors. Something feels wrong."
He nodded and came with her anyway.
The wrongness grew worse as the day progressed.
Seraphina walked the palace corridors with Caelan at her side. A servant boy stumbled near the kitchens, his eyes going glassy for a moment before he shook himself and continued on.
"Are you well?" she asked.
"Yes, my lady." But his voice came out strange and hollow.
She watched him go. His gait was wrong, too stiff and mechanical.
In another corridor, a maid scrubbing floors paused mid-motion. Her lips moved soundlessly. Then she returned to her work with no sign anything had happened.
"Third one today," Caelan said. "The guard at the east stairwell did the same thing an hour ago."
"Something is affecting the staff."
"Something is affecting everyone." He gestured toward a pair of guards arguing at the end of the hall. "Those two have served together for years."
Seraphina caught fragments.
"I SAW what I saw!"
"The shadows were MOVING. In my blade's reflection."
The argument dissolved and the guards separated without looking back.
"Shadows in reflections, servants freezing mid-task, guards turning on each other." Caelan's voice was low.
"And three witnesses dead on the same night." Seraphina searched for connections. "It cannot be coincidence."
But she could not see the pattern yet.
She filed it away and kept walking.
Thalion found her near sunset.
She had returned to her temporary chambers to review Lyria's latest intelligence reports when the knock came. She knew it was him before she opened the door. Hard knock. No pause. Demanding entry rather than requesting it.
"Crown Prince."
"Duchess." He pushed past her without waiting for an invitation. His expression was cold, closed off in a way that reminded her exactly who he was. What he represented.
"If you have come to accuse me yourself, save your breath."
"I have come to warn you." He turned to face her, and the hostility in his eyes made her take a step back before she could stop herself. "Not because I believe you deserve warning. Because my mother asked me to deliver the message personally."
Seraphina closed the door behind him. The air between them shifted as it always did when they were alone. That strange magnetic pull neither of them wanted. She saw him register it too, saw the flash of irritation cross his face before he smothered it.
It made him angrier. Good. It made her angrier too.
"What message?"
"There is a theory circulating about the witness deaths." His voice was clipped, military. "Some of my advisors believe Flamebearer magic killed them. Your bloodline's abilities turning on anyone who threatens you."
"And you believe them."
"I believe you are dangerous." He moved closer, and she refused to retreat again. "I believe your bloodline has destabilized empires. I believe three witnesses are dead and you had the most to gain from their silence."
The accusation hit her like a blade between the ribs.
"I did not kill them."
"So you say." His eyes searched her face, looking for the lie. That pull between them hummed, unwanted and infuriating. "My advisors say one thing. My observations say another. I find myself unable to reconcile the two, and I despise that uncertainty."
"How terrible for you." She let the venom into her voice. "To be uncertain about whether to destroy me."
Something flickered in his expression. Not softening. Something harder to name.
"The timing is too convenient," he said, as if the words were dragged from him unwillingly. "Someone wants me to believe you did this. That makes me suspicious of the accusation. Not of you. Of the accusation itself."
"Is that supposed to comfort me?"
"No." He stepped closer still, close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from him. Close enough that the pull between them became almost unbearable. His voice dropped low, rough with something that might have been anger or something worse. "I do not trust you. I may never trust you. Everything I was raised to believe says you are exactly the kind of threat who would kill witnesses and smile while doing it."
She held his gaze without flinching. "Then why warn me at all?"
"Because I cannot be certain." The admission seemed to cost him. "And I will not condemn anyone, even you, without certainty."
The tension between them crackled. He was her enemy. Shaped by advisors who taught him to fear her bloodline. Representing the very forces that had hunted her family for generations. And yet he stood here, warning her, hating himself for it.
"My mother's decision to keep you here." His voice went cold again, the moment of honesty shuttered. "I want you to know it was my recommendation. I told her to cage you until we know the truth."
That stung more than she expected.
"At least you are honest about wanting me imprisoned."
"I am honest about everything, Duchess. Including the fact that I find your presence in this palace deeply unsettling." His eyes dropped to her mouth for just a fraction of a second before snapping back up. The anger that followed was directed at himself as much as her. "For many reasons."
He turned and left without another word.
Seraphina stood alone in the chamber, her heart pounding with fury and something else she refused to name. Thalion had not defended her. He had recommended her imprisonment. He had looked at her like she was both a threat to be eliminated and something else entirely.
She hated him for all of it.
Caelan came to her an hour later.
He did not knock, just appeared in her doorway with anger visible in every line of his body.
"I heard about the accusation and the quarters." He crossed to her in three strides. "They are trying to frame you. Alaric and Evelyne have to be behind this."
"I know."
"We cannot prove it yet." His hands clenched at his sides. "But when we find evidence, we will destroy them."
"We will find it." She reached for him, her fingers covering his fist until his grip relaxed.
He stared at their hands. The silence where the bond used to be screamed between them.
"I keep reaching for you," she said quietly. "Through the bond. And there is nothing there."
"Same." His voice came rough. "Every moment. Feels wrong."
She did not say she would sacrifice it again. She would not have sacrificed it the first time if he had not made that choice for both of them. Caelan had been the noble one. Caelan had told the flame to take their bond while she stood frozen, unable to let go.
She had never forgiven the cosmos for making him right.
His free hand rose to her cheek.
"We figure it out," he said. "Together. Without the shortcuts we used to have."
She leaned into his palm for just a moment. Tried to read his emotions through touch alone.
Then she stepped back. Work remained.
"Stay close tonight," she said. "Something about this palace feels wrong."
Evening brought the first whisper.
Seraphina was returning to her chambers when she saw him. A kitchen boy, no more than twelve, standing frozen in the corridor ahead. Not stumbling like the others she had seen today. Not pausing mid-task. Completely still, as if something had reached inside him and stopped everything at once.
His lips moved. Shaping the same syllables over and over.
She approached slowly. The fire beneath her skin prickled in warning.
She leaned closer.
And finally, clear in the evening silence:
"Kneel."
The boy crumpled. His body folded to the floor like a puppet with cut strings, and he did not move again.
Guards came running from both directions, shouting for healers.
Seraphina stood over the boy's still form. Her fire flickered and surged, responding to something in the air she could not see but could feel pressing against her from all sides.
This was different. This was worse.
The stumbling servants. The glazed eyes. The arguments over shadows. Those had been symptoms.
This was the disease showing its face.
And the dead witnesses were only the beginning.