Seraphina's POV
"That's my mother."
My voice is barely a whisper, but in the sudden silence of the room, it sounds like a scream. I can't look away from the crystal in Silva's hand, from the face trapped inside, mouth open in an eternal scream.
"Your mother's soul, to be precise." Silva holds up the stone, admiring it like a precious jewel. "Beautiful, isn't it? The blood magic required to trap a soul is extremely difficult. It took us months to perfect the technique."
Us. She said us.
"Who helped you?" Caspian demands, stepping in front of me. His sword is raised, but his hand trembles slightly. "This kind of magic requires royal blood. Only the Aldric line—"
"Can perform it?" Silva's smile is vicious. "You're right. Which is why we needed an Aldric to help us."
No. Please, no.
"Lucian," I breathe.
"Smart girl." Silva tosses the crystal in the air and catches it. Inside, my mother's face contorts in agony. "Your baby brother has been very helpful. Very cooperative. Especially after we showed him what really happened the night his family died."
"What are you talking about?" My magic flares, red light crackling around my fists. "I was there. I saw everything."
"Did you?" Silva tilts her head. "Or did you see what you were meant to see?"
The resistance fighters spread out, surrounding us. There's no escape. But I don't care about that right now. I only care about the truth.
"Tell me," I demand.
"Why should I? You'll be dead in a few minutes anyway."
"Because you want me to know." I take a step forward, even though Caspian tries to hold me back. "You went through all this trouble to trap my mother's soul. To turn my brother against me. To make me suffer. You want me to understand before you kill me. So tell me."
Silva considers this, then laughs. "You're right. I do want you to know." She signals her fighters to hold their positions. "Five years ago, there was a spy in your palace. Someone close to your family. Someone who told us exactly when to attack, where to strike, how to bypass your defenses."
Ice floods my veins. "Who?"
"Someone who believed Aldoria needed new leadership. Someone tired of your father's weak policies, your mother's gentle rule. Someone who thought sacrificing the royal family was necessary for the kingdom's survival."
"That's a lie!" I shout. "My parents were good rulers. They were loved—"
"By peasants and fools, maybe." Silva's eyes gleam with malice. "But the nobles? The ones who wanted to expand Aldoria's power, to take back the territories we lost decades ago? They wanted strength. Your father gave them poetry and peace treaties."
Understanding crashes over me like a wave. "The nobles betrayed us. Aldorian nobles."
"Very good. And when your brother learned that his own people sold out his family..." Silva shakes her head mockingly. "Well, let's just say he was very angry. Very willing to help us finish what we started."
"By killing me?" Tears burn my eyes, but I won't let them fall. "I'm his sister!"
"You're the symbol of the old Aldoria. Weak. Submissive. Married to the enemy." Silva spits the last word. "Lucian wants to build a new kingdom. Stronger. United under his rule. And he can't do that with you alive."
Caspian's voice is deadly calm. "Where is he? Where is Lucian?"
"Closer than you think, Prince." Silva's smile widens. "In fact, he should be arriving any moment now. He wanted to watch his sister die. Wanted to see if she'd beg."
The window behind us shatters.
Three figures drop into the room, moving with inhuman speed. More resistance fighters, but these are different—their eyes glow with red light. Blood magic. They've been enhanced with blood magic.
"Caspian!" I scream as one lunges at him.
He parries, but barely. These fighters are faster than normal humans, stronger. His sword clashes against their blades, the sound ringing through the chamber.
I throw my magic at another fighter, red energy slamming into his chest. He stumbles back but doesn't fall. My power isn't strong enough against their enhanced bodies.
"You can't win," Silva taunts. "Your magic is wild, untrained. Mine is perfected over years of practice."
She raises the crystal, and my mother's trapped soul begins to glow brighter. Power flows from the stone into Silva, making her skin shimmer with crimson light.
She's using my mother's soul as a magical battery.
Rage explodes through me. "Let her go!"
"Come and make me, princess."
I don't think. I just move. My blood magic erupts in a wave of pure fury, slamming into Silva with enough force to crack the wall behind her. She flies backward, shocked.
The crystal tumbles from her hand.
"No!" Silva screams.
I dive for it, my fingers closing around the stone just as Silva recovers. The moment I touch it, visions flood my mind—my mother's last moments, her terror, her pain, her soul being ripped from her body and trapped in this prison.
And something else. A message, left in the magic itself.
Seraphina, if you can hear this... your brother lives. They took him. Save him. Save yourself. I love you.
"Mom," I sob, clutching the crystal to my chest.
"Give that back!" Silva lunges at me, her hands crackling with dark magic.
Caspian intercepts her, his blade meeting her power in an explosion of light. But he's outnumbered. The enhanced fighters are overwhelming him.
I have seconds to decide. I can try to free my mother's soul—a ritual I don't know how to perform. Or I can use the crystal's power to save us.
Both choices could destroy the crystal. Could destroy what's left of my mother.
"Seraphina, whatever you're thinking, do it fast!" Caspian grunts, blocking another attack.
Silva breaks away from him and charges at me, murder in her eyes.
I make my choice.
I slam the crystal against the floor with all my strength.
It shatters.
For a heartbeat, nothing happens. Then—
Crimson light explodes outward, a shockwave of pure magical energy. It throws everyone back, resistance fighters crashing into walls, Silva screaming as the power she stole burns out of her body.
And in the center of the explosion, a shape begins to form.
A woman's shape.
Translucent, glowing, more spirit than solid, but unmistakably real.
My mother's ghost hovers in the air, her eyes finding mine across the chaos.
"Run," she whispers, her voice like wind through leaves. "He's coming. Your brother. They've twisted him into something terrible. Run, my darling. RUN!"
Then she dissolves, her soul finally free, finally at peace.
"No!" Silva shrieks. "What have you done? Do you know how long it took to capture that soul? How much power—"
"I don't care," I say, and my voice is steel. "You'll never use her again."
Silva's face twists with rage. She raises both hands, dark magic swirling around her in a tornado of shadows and blood. "Then I'll trap YOUR soul instead!"
She releases the spell.
Caspian throws himself in front of me, raising his hand. His magic—that winter-cold power I felt before—explodes outward, meeting Silva's attack.
The two magics collide in mid-air, creating a barrier of ice and shadow between us and them.
"The door!" Caspian shouts. "Go!"
"Not without you—"
"GO! I'll hold them off!"
The barrier cracks. He won't last long.
I run to the door, then stop. I can't leave him. I won't.
Instead, I reach for my blood magic, deeper than I've ever gone before. I feel it respond, eager and wild and powerful. I think about my mother's sacrifice. About Caspian taking a dagger for me. About choosing to save instead of destroy.
And my magic changes.
It turns from angry red to brilliant gold, pure and bright and new.
"What—" Silva gasps.
I raise my hand and the golden light streams forward, wrapping around Caspian, pulling him back toward me. At the same time, it slams into Silva and her fighters, not destroying them but freezing them in place, locked in golden chains of pure magic.
"Impossible," Silva breathes. "Blood magic can't—"
"Run!" I grab Caspian's hand and we sprint for the door.
Behind us, I hear Silva screaming as the golden chains begin to break. We have minutes at most.
We race through the corridors, taking turn after turn. Finally, Caspian pulls me into a small room and locks the door.
"That was incredible," he pants. "I've never seen magic like that. What did you—"
A slow clap echoes through the room.
We both freeze.
Someone else is here.
A figure steps from the shadows in the corner. Young, maybe nineteen, with familiar green eyes and messy dark hair.
My baby brother. Alive. Real. Standing right in front of me.
"Hello, sister," Lucian says, and his smile is cold and cruel and nothing like the boy I remember. "Did you miss me?"
He raises his hand, and I see a crystal identical to the one I just shattered.
Inside it, trapped and screaming, i
s my father's soul.
"Let's have a family reunion," Lucian says. "Before I kill you both."