POV: Seraphina
Dawn came gray and cold.
Seraphina stood at her window watching the courtyard below. Servants hurried between buildings. Guards changed shifts. Somewhere in the palace, Lady Delmonte was gathering allies for the petition that would determine whether the ritual could proceed.
The fire-scars burned beneath her sleeves. Days of pain had become her constant companion. She pressed her palm against her chest and felt the heat spreading toward her heart.
"You should sit." Yona's voice came from behind her. "Conserve your strength for tonight."
"I want to see them arrive."
Liora stood at her usual post by the door, silent and watchful.
A carriage pulled into the courtyard. Lady Delmonte emerged in formal court dress, her expression rigid with disapproval. Two minor lords followed, then a woman Seraphina did not recognize.
"Four of them," Liora said quietly. "Plus Harwick makes five."
"Thalion will handle it." Seraphina turned from the window. Heat flared through her chest at the movement, and she gripped the windowsill until it passed. "He knows what they will argue."
She crossed to her chair near the hearth. The ritual components sat arranged on the table. Volcanic glass. Herbs ground to precise ratios. Binding cloth woven in patterns older than the empire.
Everything she needed. If they let her use it.
A knock at the door. Liora opened it.
Thalion entered wearing formal court attire, the imperial crest gleaming at his collar.
"The Empress has convened a closed session," he said without preamble. "Delmonte and Harwick will present their case. I will present yours."
"Closed session." Not a public tribunal. Not a spectacle. "That was your doing."
"The Empress agreed that matters of realm security should not become entertainment." His expression stayed neutral. "She is not unsympathetic to your situation."
"But she must weigh my situation against their fears."
"Yes. Delmonte lost her nephew to the curse. Harwick lost three cousins. They genuinely believe you are dangerous."
"I am dangerous." Seraphina met his eyes. "That does not mean I am wrong."
Thalion studied her for a moment. Whatever he saw seemed to satisfy him.
"I will send word when we have a ruling." He paused at the door. "Lucien has been summoned as well. The Senior Archivist intends to make an example of him."
"Can you protect him?"
"I can try."
The morning stretched into afternoon. Seraphina waited while the fire-scars pulsed. Yona reviewed the preparations. Liora paced.
The knock came just past midday.
Thalion entered, still in formal court attire. He closed the door behind him.
"It's done. Eleanor ruled in your favor. The ritual may proceed under imperial observation."
Seraphina let out a breath she had not realized she was holding.
"Delmonte and Harwick argued you were a danger to the realm." Thalion moved toward the window. "Eleanor reminded them that the curse was destroyed by your fire, not caused by it."
"We proceed tonight." Yona's relief was audible.
"There is more." Thalion turned back. "The Senior Archivist ordered Lucien to cease all assistance. Invoked full archive authority."
"And?"
"Lucien removed his robes in front of the Empress. Told the Senior Archivist that some things matter more than titles." Something flickered across Thalion's face. "He was prepared to walk away from everything."
"Was prepared to?"
"I overrode the order. Crown authority supersedes archive protocol in matters of realm security. Lucien has been reinstated."
The door opened again.
Lucien entered still wearing his gray archivist robes. His spectacles sat crooked, strands of dark hair escaping their tie. He looked exhausted but intact.
Seraphina stared at him. "I thought you resigned."
"I was prepared to." He glanced at Thalion. "His Highness had other ideas."
Lucien moved to the table, checking components with practiced efficiency.
"Thank you," Seraphina said. To both of them. "For what you risked."
"Some things are worth the risk." Lucien looked up at her. "The realm needs you to succeed. And my mother would have wanted me to choose correctly when the moment came."
She did not know what to say to that.
Yona cleared her throat. "We should begin preparations. The ritual requires specific timing."
The interruption broke the moment. Lucien nodded and turned his attention to the components, checking each one against his mental notes. Professional again. Focused.
Seraphina watched him work and tried to reconcile the man who had been willing to sacrifice everything with the scholar she had met three days ago. Something had shifted between them. She was not certain what it meant.
The afternoon passed in careful preparation. Yona directed while Lucien assisted, their movements synchronized after days of working together. Seraphina sat in her chair and conserved her strength for what was coming. Thalion remained by the window, watching the courtyard below, though his attention kept returning to the ritual components on the table.
The Empress sent an observer as promised. A woman in formal robes who positioned herself near the door and said nothing. Her presence was a reminder that this ritual happened with imperial permission, not despite it.
As evening fell, Yona lit candles around the room. The volcanic glass caught their light, dark red and pulsing with residual heat. The herbs released their scent as she arranged them in the patterns the old texts prescribed.
"It's time." Yona gestured toward the center of the room where she had cleared a space. "My lady."
Seraphina's heart slammed against her ribs. She had faced execution, faced demons, faced a marriage that had stripped her of everything. None of it had prepared her for this moment. For willingly stepping into fire that might consume her.
She rose from her chair. The fire-scars flared at the movement, heat spreading through her chest. Her legs trembled. She locked her knees and forced herself forward.
Thalion moved from the window. "Seraphina."
She looked at him.
"If something goes wrong." His voice was low enough that only she could hear. "I will get you out."
She wanted to tell him there would be no getting out. That if this failed, she would burn from the inside before anyone could reach her. Instead she nodded once and took her position in the center of the ritual space.
Lucien placed the volcanic glass at her feet. His hands were steady, but his jaw was tight. Yona began the invocation, words in a language older than the empire, syllables that resonated in Seraphina's bones.
The fire-scars responded.
Heat bloomed beneath her skin, spreading outward from her heart. The candles around the room flared twice their normal height. The volcanic glass at her feet began to glow, dark red shifting to orange. The temperature in the chamber spiked. Sweat beaded on the imperial observer's forehead. Liora stepped back from her post, hand rising to shield her face.
Seraphina gasped. The fire inside her was waking, and it was angry. It surged through her veins, fighting against the ritual's pull. Her vision blurred. Her knees buckled.
"Seraphina!" Thalion started forward.
"Stay back!" Yona's voice cracked through the chaos. "If you break the circle, you will kill her."
Thalion froze mid-step. His face had gone pale, his hands clenched at his sides.
The fire inside Seraphina surged out of control. The air itself ignited. Golden light poured from her skin, bright enough to cast sharp shadows across the walls. The herbs arranged in their ancient patterns caught fire, burning in colors that should not exist. Blue. Green. Violet so intense it hurt to look at.
Yona's voice faltered. The invocation stuttered.
"Keep going." Seraphina forced the words through gritted teeth. Every nerve in her body was screaming. The fire was tearing at something inside her, ripping at chains she had not known existed. "Do not stop."
"My lady, this is not what the texts described." Yona's voice shook. "The reaction is too strong. If I continue and the ritual fails, you could die."
"I am already dying." Seraphina's voice broke on the words. Tears streamed down her face, evaporating before they could fall. "This is the only chance I have. Keep going. Please."
Yona's hands trembled. Her face had gone white. But she resumed the invocation, her voice shaking on syllables that had been steady moments before.
The volcanic glass blazed white-hot at Seraphina's feet. She could feel it now, the pull of ancient stone calling to the fire in her blood. Energy began to flow, threads of gold light streaming from her chest into the glass. The pressure that had been building for weeks found a channel, a path that led somewhere other than destruction.
The glass absorbed it. Contained it. Fire that should have consumed the room poured into stone instead.
Seraphina screamed. Not from pain this time, but from release. The poison that had been creeping toward her heart for weeks was being drawn out, pulled through her skin and into the volcanic glass. Her entire body shook with the force of it. Everything she had been holding back for weeks poured out of her at once.
The glass began to crack. Fractures spread across its surface, white light bleeding through the breaks. It was taking too much. Holding more than it was ever meant to hold.
"It is going to shatter!" Lucien dove forward, adjusting components with his robes already singed. "Yona, the binding cloth!"
The binding cloth he had woven caught fire and burned to ash in seconds, channeling the overflow. The volcanic glass cracked again, then again, then exploded into a dozen fragments that scattered across the floor, each one glowing white-hot, still containing pieces of the fire they had drawn from her blood.
The imperial observer had pressed herself against the wall, her formal robes scorched, her eyes wide with terror. Liora had drawn her blade without thinking, though steel could do nothing here. Thalion stood frozen at the edge of the circle, his face a mask of barely controlled fear.
This was what Delmonte and Harwick had feared. This was why they had tried to stop her.
Yona's voice continued through it all, hoarse now, barely audible. The final words of the invocation scraped past her throat.
Seraphina felt something deep inside her chest shift and settle. The constant pressure eased. The heat that had been creeping toward her heart did not just slow.
It reversed.
She felt it happening and sobbed with relief. The golden marks retreating down her arms, pulling back from her shoulders, withdrawing from her upper arms. The fire inside her was not just stabilizing. It was healing.
When Yona finally fell silent, the room was destroyed. Scorch marks blackened the floor. The candles had melted to stumps. The volcanic glass lay in glowing fragments, their residual energy spent. Smoke hung in the air, thick enough to taste.
Seraphina's legs gave out. She collapsed to her knees in the center of the ruined ritual space, trembling, alive.
Thalion was beside her in an instant. His hands gripped her shoulders, steadying her, and she realized he was shaking too.
"You terrified me." His voice was rough. "Do not ever do that again."
She almost laughed. Almost. "I cannot promise that."
He helped her to her feet. His hands stayed on her arms longer than necessary, confirming she was still solid, still real.
She pressed her palm against her chest. The fire-scars still burned, but distantly now. The urgency was gone. The countdown that had been racing toward her death had not just slowed.
It had turned back.
"How do you feel?" Yona's voice was hoarse from the invocation.
"Different." Seraphina pulled back her sleeve.
The golden marks had retreated. Where they had spread past her elbows and branched toward her shoulders just hours ago, they now stopped at her forearms. The veins that had been creeping toward her heart were gone. The scars remained, golden and permanent, but contained now to where they had been weeks ago.
"Gods above." Yona grabbed her arm, pushing the sleeve higher. Her fingers traced the boundary where the marks ended, now well below the elbow. "The progression did not just stop. It reversed. I have never seen anything do this."
Thalion stared at her arm. His expression shifted through disbelief, then something that looked almost like hope.
"The ritual was not just stabilization." Lucien stood near the table, his robes ruined, ash in his hair. "It was purification. The volcanic glass drew out excess fire energy and grounded it. The binding cloth channeled the overflow. The herbs burned as fuel for the reversal."
He looked at Seraphina with something unreadable in his expression.
"You are not just stable, my lady. You have months now. Perhaps longer."
Months. Seraphina stared at the golden marks on her forearms. Where she had been counting hours, she now had months. Time to reach the Ember Sanctum properly. Time to prepare. Time to breathe.
"Thank you," she said. To all of them. Yona who had kept chanting through terror. Lucien who had sacrificed his career. Thalion who had stood frozen at the edge of the circle, unable to help, forced to watch. "I would not have survived this without you."
"Rest now." Yona began gathering the spent components, stepping carefully around the scorch marks on the floor. "Your body needs time to adjust. Sleep if you can."
Sleep. The word triggered a wave of exhaustion she had been holding at bay for days. The constant pain, the endless tension, the fear that every moment might be her last. All of it had been draining her reserves without her realizing how depleted she had become.
She let Yona guide her to the bed. Let Liora draw the curtains against the evening light. Let herself sink into softness that felt almost foreign after so many nights of restless agony.
The last thing she saw before her eyes closed was Lucien sitting in the chair by the window, keeping watch. His face was turned toward her, though the shadows made his expression difficult to read.
Caelan. The thought surfaced through exhaustion. She needed to write to him. Tell him what had happened. That she had months now instead of days. That he did not need to race back from the border, did not need to choose between her and the realm.
She would write first thing in the morning. Let him know she was safe. Let him breathe the way she finally could.
But sleep claimed her before she could hold the thought any longer.
For the first time in weeks, she rested without pain.