Seraphine POV
It took us nearly five days. Five days of dust, rattling wheels, aching muscles, and the kind of chaos that becomes routine only when you're too tired to question it anymore. Five days of Chubby, poor, long-suffering Chubby, manning seven childlike Titans with the rigid ideology of a shadow wraith whose deepest instinct was to drag them all back to the volcano and seal it shut forever.
Every time a Titan tripped. Every time one wandered off to stare at a tree. Every time Sir Jin tried to pet livestock…
I could feel Chubby's patience cracking. His shadows would twitch, dark and sharp, and I knew, knew—that a single order from me would've sent all seven straight back into the magma pit they crawled out of.
But then he'd glance at me.
