Kael's POV
Orin moved faster than a man his age should.
He grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the hole in the floor—the same hole Seraphine had just come through.
"DOWN!" he roared.
We dropped into the tunnel as Seraphine's magic scorched the air above us. The underground passage was dark, tight, and smelled like three hundred years of decay.
"You said these tunnels were sealed!" I shouted.
"I said they were SUPPOSED to be sealed!" Orin was already running. "Keep moving!"
Behind us, Seraphine's voice echoed down. "You can't run forever, husband! I know these tunnels better than you do!"
"Why does everyone know things better than me?" I muttered.
"Because you're twenty-eight and everyone else is either ancient or evil," Elara said. "Now stop complaining and run faster!"
The tunnel branched. Orin went left without hesitation. I followed, trusting that a three-hundred-year-old weaponsmith knew what he was doing.
"Nyx betrayed us," I said between gasps. "How did we not see that?"
"Because she was good," Orin answered grimly. "Seraphine's been planting spies in the Resistance for years. Nyx was just the most successful."
"How many others are there?"
"I don't know. That's what makes them effective."
Perfect. Just perfect.
The tunnel opened into a larger chamber. Old weapons lined the walls—swords, spears, shields, all covered in dust and rust.
"This was the original royal armory," Orin explained, lighting a torch. "Built during the First Empire. I've been using it to—"
The wall exploded.
Not the wall behind us. The wall to our RIGHT.
Seraphine stepped through the rubble, casual as if she'd just knocked on a door. "Did you really think I wouldn't know about the old armory? I've studied this palace's history since I was ten."
Of course she had.
Guards poured in behind her. At least twenty. All armed. All ready to kill.
"Orin," Seraphine said pleasantly. "I'm disappointed. I expected better from my father's old teacher."
"Your father was a decent man," Orin replied coldly. "You're nothing like him."
"Thank goodness. He was boring." She turned to me. "Last chance, Kael. Put down the sword and I'll make your death quick."
"And if I don't?"
"Then I'll make it interesting."
"Kael," Elara whispered urgently. "The old weapons on the walls—they're not rust. That's dried blood. This was a execution chamber, not an armory."
Ice flooded through me. "Orin—"
"I know what it was," Orin said quietly. "I'm the one who stopped using it." He pulled two daggers from his belt. "But desperate times."
He moved.
I'd never seen anyone fight like that. Orin was ancient, supposedly weak, definitely outnumbered.
He destroyed three guards in seconds.
"Help him!" I lunged forward, Elara singing in my hand.
"Wait!" Elara shouted. "The floor is—"
My foot hit a trigger plate.
The ceiling collapsed.
Not all of it—just enough to separate me from Orin, trapping me on one side with Seraphine and half the guards.
"Oops," Seraphine said. "Looks like you're alone now."
"He's not alone," Elara snapped. "He has me."
"A sword. How terrifying." Seraphine gestured, and her guards attacked.
I fought. Elara guided me—block, parry, strike—but there were too many. A blade got through my defense, cutting deep into my shoulder.
"DUCK!" Elara screamed.
I ducked. Another sword whistled overhead.
"Stop hesitating!" Elara yelled. "They're trying to kill you! Stop treating them like sparring partners!"
"They're just following orders—"
"And you'll be DEAD! Fighting with honor is for people who have backup! You have ME and RAGE! Use both!"
She was right. I hated that she was right.
I stopped holding back.
The next guard died. Then another. Then three more.
It wasn't pretty. It wasn't honorable. It was survival.
When the last guard fell, I stood alone with Seraphine in a room full of bodies.
"Better," she acknowledged. "You're learning."
"Learning what? How to kill people who don't deserve it?"
"How to do what's necessary." She raised her hand, dark magic swirling. "But not fast enough."
The spell hit like a physical wall. I flew backward, crashing into the old weapons. They clattered down around me, centuries-old blades falling like deadly rain.
"Kael!" Elara's voice was panicked. "Get UP!"
I couldn't. My body wouldn't respond. Seraphine's magic had paralyzed me.
She walked closer, her smile victorious. "I've been practicing that spell for months. Complete paralysis. You can see, hear, think—but not move. Not even to breathe."
My lungs burned. She was right. I couldn't draw breath.
"This is where you die," Seraphine said. "Conscious. Aware. Helpless. Just like you made me feel when you rejected my first proposal years ago. Remember that? Before your father arranged our engagement? I asked you to marry me, and you laughed."
I didn't remember. Couldn't remember through the panic of suffocating.
"You said I was 'too ambitious for a wife.' That you needed someone gentler." Her magic tightened. "So I became gentle. Soft. Everything you wanted. And you fell for it completely. The great Crown Prince Kael, fooled by a girl he'd already rejected."
Through our bond, I felt Elara's fury. Her desperation. Her absolute refusal to let me die.
"I won't watch another person I care about get murdered," she said. Not to me. To herself. "Not again. Not ever again."
Power exploded from the blade.
Not the Empress's power. Elara's own.
The paralysis shattered. I gasped, air flooding my lungs.
"Impossible!" Seraphine stumbled back. "You're just a sword spirit! You can't—"
"I'm not JUST anything!" Elara's voice rang with fury. "I'm Elara Thornwood, and I survived three hundred years of silence because I refused to break! You think your little paralysis spell scares me?"
I felt her power flooding through our bond. Strength. Speed. Awareness. Everything she'd learned in three centuries, given to me in seconds.
I moved before Seraphine could react. One strike. Perfect. Precise.
Her barrier spell deflected it, but barely.
"Kael," Elara said. "I can give you more power. Enough to beat her. But there's a cost."
"What cost?"
"The more power I give you, the more of yourself you lose. Your memories. Your personality. Your humanity. Eventually, you'd become just a weapon wielder—nothing more."
"How much time do I have?"
"I don't know. Minutes? Hours? It depends on how much you use."
Seraphine attacked again. I dodged, but barely.
"We need the power," I said.
"I know. I just wanted you to understand what you're choosing."
I looked at Seraphine. The woman who'd destroyed my life, betrayed my trust, and was trying to become a god.
"Do it," I said.
Power flooded through me. Everything sharpened. I could see the magic flowing around Seraphine, see exactly where her defenses were weak.
I struck.
She blocked, but I'd expected that. Elara guided my next strike to where Seraphine's guard would drop.
Blood bloomed on Seraphine's arm.
"You cut me," she said, shocked.
"I'm just getting started."
We fought. Really fought. Not the desperate struggle from before, but a true battle between matched opponents.
And I was winning.
Seraphine's eyes widened with real fear. "This isn't possible. You're not this good—"
"I'm not," I agreed. "She is."
I drove Elara's blade toward Seraphine's heart.
She teleported at the last second, appearing across the chamber. "You've made your choice then. Full power. Full corruption. You'll lose yourself completely."
"Worth it to stop you."
"We'll see." She gestured, and the entire chamber shook. "But first, you'll have to survive THIS."
The old weapons on the walls—hundreds of them—began to glow. Dark magic animated them, lifting them into the air.
"These blades executed thousands of prisoners," Seraphine said. "Each one carries the hatred of everyone who died by it. Enjoy."
The weapons attacked.
Not guided by hands. Guided by pure malice.
"KAEL!" Elara screamed. "I can't fight this many! Even with my power, we can't—"
The wall exploded.
Not from Seraphine's magic. From outside.
Orin crashed through, covered in blood and fury. "You want to use cursed weapons, little girl? Let me show you how it's done."
He raised his hands, and every cursed blade in the room stopped moving.
Then turned toward Seraphine.
"I forged half these weapons," Orin said coldly. "They answer to me, not your stolen magic."
The blades attacked Seraphine. She screamed, teleporting away barely in time.
Her voice echoed from somewhere distant. "This isn't over! I'll have that sword and your corpse, Kael! Count on it!"
Then silence.
We'd survived. Barely.
I collapsed, Elara's power draining away, leaving me exhausted and shaking.
"How much did I lose?" I asked.
"Not much," Elara said quietly. "But Kael... we can't do that again. Next time, you might not come back."
Orin helped me stand. "The safe houses are compromised. The Resistance is scattered. We need a new plan."
"I have one," a voice said from the shadows.
A woman stepped forward. Not Nyx. Not Seraphine. Someone else.
Someone whose face I recognized from portraits.
Someone who'd been dead for three hundred years.
"Hello, Crown Prince," Empress Morgana said, her ghostly form flickering. "I think it's time we discussed what Soulrend really is."
She pointed at Elara.
"And why your sword isn't just a weapon."
"It's a prison."
"And I'm one of seven souls trapped inside it."