Seris woke the way she always woke from bad spells.
Not with clarity.
With weight.
Her lungs dragged air like they were hauling it up a hill. Every breath felt borrowed, stamped with someone else's authority. The inside of her chest burned—not pain exactly, but the aftermath of something that had tried to turn her off and failed by a margin so thin it made her nauseous.
Voices came first. Blurred. Layered. Like the world was speaking through cloth.
"…don't—" Aiden, raw and cracked.
"…hold still," Liora, shaking but determined.
"…if she moves too much—" Inkaris, calm in the way only terrifying people could be calm.
Seris tried to speak.
Her throat offered a rasp that barely counted as sound.
Everything froze.
Aiden's face slammed into view above her, too close, eyes bloodshot, expression torn between terror and relief. He looked like he'd been drowning and she was the first air he'd found.
"Seris?" His voice broke on her name.
Seris blinked slowly. Each blink felt like pushing a boulder uphill.
She tried again. "You—"
It came out as a whisper made of sand.
Aiden made a sound that was half sob, half laugh and didn't fit in any language Seris knew. He grabbed her hand with both of his like it was the only real thing left in the city.
"You—" he started, then couldn't finish.
Seris's fingers twitched, then tightened around his. It took everything she had. The simple act was a battle.
Aiden bowed his head against her knuckles like prayer.
Liora made a noise—laughter strangled by tears—somewhere beside them.
Inkaris exhaled once, controlled. His relief was the kind he'd never admit to.
Seris forced her eyes to track, taking inventory like she always did when she woke up wounded. Stone ceiling. Undercity damp. Aiden kneeling. Liora hovering. Inkaris standing a step back, arms folded, posture rigid like he could hold the world together by refusing to bend.
Her mind, annoyingly, worked even while her body didn't.
I stepped in front of him.
Memory flashed—an empty street, a suppressed bolt, the moment her chest turned to ice.
She swallowed, and it hurt.
"Aiden," she managed. "Breathe."
He jerked like she'd slapped him, then sucked in air shakily.
Seris tried to sit up. Her body responded with immediate protest—black spots at the edges of her vision, the world tilting.
Liora pushed her back down gently. "No. Don't you dare be heroic right now."
Seris gave her a look that would've been withering if she could've mustered it.
"Aiden," Seris whispered again, forcing focus. "What happened?"
Aiden's gaze flinched away.
Inkaris answered instead, which told Seris more than the words did.
"Varros attempted to seize you," Inkaris said. "His people ambushed us. You took the suppression bolt meant for Aiden."
Seris closed her eyes briefly. That part felt familiar. The next part didn't.
"And?" she rasped, already knowing.
Silence.
Aiden's hand tightened like a confession.
Seris opened her eyes and looked at him until he couldn't avoid her.
"Aiden," she said softly. "What did you do?"
His voice came out strangled. "I thought you died."
Seris' stomach dropped, not from the statement, but from what sat behind it. She'd seen Ardent's worst through rumor and aftermath. She'd seen what wish-combat did to people. She hadn't seen Aiden do it.
Not like that.
Not with rage.
Aiden's expression twisted. "I— I didn't mean— I just—"
Seris squeezed his hand as hard as she could manage. "Look at me."
He did. Slowly.
Seris swallowed pain and forced steadiness into her voice.
"You didn't become Ardent," she said. "You did something frightening because you were terrified."
Aiden flinched as if that was somehow worse.
Seris turned her head slightly toward Inkaris. "The city?"
Inkaris' gaze sharpened. "Worse."
Seris exhaled shallowly. "Varros."
Inkaris nodded once. "He isn't playing anymore."
Seris stared at the ceiling for a long moment.
Then she said the first honest thing that came to mind.
"Of course he isn't."
---
They moved Seris anyway.
She argued. Weakly. Ineffectively. She tried to insist she was fine, and Liora made a face that suggested Seris had always been offensively bad at lying.
Inkaris, for his part, simply produced a cloak and a plan as if plans were objects you could pull from a pocket.
"We're going above," he said.
Seris' pulse spiked. "To Aureline?"
"Yes."
Aiden's voice cracked. "We can't— they'll—"
"They already are," Inkaris replied.
Seris felt Aiden's hand tremble around hers. His guilt was a physical thing now, clinging to him like smoke.
She forced herself to speak through the weakness. "We go. She's buying time for us whether she wants to or not."
Inkaris' eyes flicked to her. "You assume she wants to."
Seris managed a faint, humorless smile. "She hates being forced into any role she didn't choose."
Liora's jaw tightened. "Including victim."
"Especially victim," Seris agreed.
---
The palace was not under siege in the dramatic way stories loved.
No flaming barricades. No screaming mobs battering gates.
It was worse than that.
It was legal.
Seris felt it the moment they crossed into the upper city: the way Watch patrols moved like they'd been issued too many contradictory orders. The way people whispered names without understanding why those names mattered. The way the protections Aureline invoked had turned the city into a machine—efficient, corrective, and dangerously easy to hijack if you could wedge your hand into the right gears.
At the palace gates, no one recognized Seris.
That was also worse.
The guards looked past her, past Aiden, as if their minds slid off anything that didn't match the newest definition of "authorized."
Inkaris stepped forward and spoke quietly—words Seris didn't catch, not spells, but something sharper: law, phrased with infernal precision. The guard's posture shifted as if a clause had been inserted into his spine.
"Proceed," the guard said, voice faintly puzzled, and opened the gate.
Seris didn't like that.
Inkaris caught her look. "Later," he murmured.
Seris didn't ask what he meant. She knew.
The demon in him didn't need power to win doors.
He needed wording.
Inside, the palace halls were full of people moving too quickly and speaking too carefully. Advisors, clerks, minor nobles with pale faces and desperate eyes—everyone orbiting the same center.
Aureline.
They found her not in her private chamber, not hidden away, but in the public council hall—standing at the head of the long table like a blade planted upright.
She looked exhausted.
Not disheveled. Not fragile.
Exhausted in the way only people who refused to collapse were exhausted.
Across from her stood three councilors and a cluster of Watch officers Seris did not recognize.
And Varros' influence was all over them.
Not visible as banners.
Visible as confidence.
Aureline's gaze flicked toward Seris as Seris entered supported by Liora. For a fraction of a second, something like relief flashed in Aureline's eyes.
Then it vanished.
Aureline's chin lifted.
Her voice carried, controlled and sharp.
"Lady Seris," she said evenly, as if Seris had simply arrived for a meeting she'd always been expected to attend. "You're alive."
Seris forced herself upright. "Unfortunately for my enemies."
Aureline's mouth twitched—almost a smile.
Almost.
Then Aureline's gaze moved to Aiden.
Seris felt Aiden stiffen beside her, like a hunted animal bracing for a cage.
Aureline did not soften.
Good.
Softness could be used.
Aureline's tone remained formal. "Aiden. You should not be here."
Aiden swallowed. "You're buying time for us."
Aureline's eyes narrowed slightly. "I am buying time for my city."
Seris recognized the difference, and also recognized it as a lie told for the sake of survival.
One of the councilors—an older man with the posture of someone who'd never been told no—spoke sharply.
"Your Grace," he said, "this is inappropriate. These individuals are tied to the disturbances. The city's protections have flagged them as irregular factors."
Aureline turned her head slowly.
"And yet," she said, "the protections have not removed them."
The councilor bristled. "The protections do not have hands."
Aureline's voice cooled. "Then do not pretend they do."
Varros was not present.
That, Seris realized, was the trick.
He didn't need to be here to win.
He had set the pieces and let the machine grind.
A Watch officer spoke next, tone careful. "Your Grace. The council has voted for emergency containment measures."
Aureline's eyes flicked. "The council does not vote without quorum."
The officer hesitated.
Aureline pressed, merciless. "Do you have quorum?"
Silence.
Because half the council was missing.
Because Varros had engineered it.
Because absence, again, was the weapon.
Aureline leaned forward slightly, her palms resting on the table. "Then you have nothing."
The officer's jaw tightened. "We have authority from—"
"From where?" Aureline interrupted. "From who?"
The officer's gaze flicked toward the councilor.
And Seris saw it: the wedge. The uncertainty. The way the city's protections enforced legitimate chains and punished improvisation.
Aureline wasn't a damsel.
She was a lawyer with a crown.
And she was stalling.
Buying time.
Not by hiding, but by forcing every attempted grab to show its paperwork.
Seris felt a sick admiration twist in her chest.
Aureline despised being cornered.
So she'd turned the corner into a choke point for her enemies instead.
---
The coup sharpened.
Not with blades—yet.
With declarations.
A clerk stepped forward with a sealed document.
"By interim council authority—"
Aureline didn't even look at it. "Denied."
The clerk blinked. "Your Grace, you must review—"
"No," Aureline said, voice crisp. "You must learn the difference between presenting paper and holding power."
The clerk flushed.
Another officer stepped forward, less patient. "Your Grace, you are delaying necessary action."
Aureline met his gaze. "No. I am preventing unlawful action."
Seris saw the officer's fingers twitch toward his sword.
Liora shifted tensely.
Aiden's breath hitched.
Inkaris' eyes narrowed as if he were counting angles and exits.
Seris, weak as she was, forced herself forward one step.
"You're not going to draw steel in her hall," Seris rasped.
The officer looked at her as if noticing her for the first time. "And you are—"
"A problem you failed to finish," Seris replied.
A ripple went through the room.
Aureline's gaze flicked to Seris—warning, approval, something in between.
Seris understood immediately.
Aureline was buying time, but she needed the room to believe she was not alone.
Not because she wanted saving.
Because perception was leverage.
The officer's patience snapped. "Enough," he said. "This is over."
He stepped forward.
So did two others.
And for the first time, the coup became physical.
Seris saw it before anyone moved: the moment where procedure ended and force began.
She tried to lift her hand for a spell and realized her body still wasn't listening properly.
Aiden moved.
Fast.
Too fast.
Seris grabbed his sleeve with what little strength she had left. "Don't."
Aiden froze, trembling. "They're going to—"
"I know," Seris whispered. "But if you do what you did out there, you'll give Varros exactly what he needs."
Aiden stared at her, breathing ragged.
Seris forced steadiness into her eyes. "Let her lead."
Aureline didn't wait for their private exchange to finish.
She lifted her hand—no magic, no flourish—and spoke into the room like a decree becoming reality.
"Guards," Aureline said.
And because the protections recognized her voice as legitimate authority, the doors opened.
Not dramatically.
Precisely.
A new squad entered—palace guard loyal to the crown, their commander pale-faced but resolute.
The coup officers hesitated.
Their paperwork didn't cover this.
Their chain of command didn't override hers.
Aureline's gaze hardened.
"Remove the interim council's agents from my hall," she ordered.
The word interim was a knife.
The officers stiffened.
One of them tried to argue. "Your Grace, this is—"
"Seduction by power," Aureline said quietly, and her voice cut through the room like cold water. "You will not dress it as duty."
The commander of the palace guard stepped forward.
"By decree," he said, and the coup officers were escorted out—not arrested, not executed, just displaced.
The coup wasn't defeated.
But it had been delayed.
By minutes.
By clauses.
By a woman refusing to play victim even as the city tried to push her into the shape.
As the doors shut, Aureline exhaled once.
Then she turned slightly—just enough for her eyes to meet Seris'.
The look was razor-sharp.
Move.
Seris understood.
Aureline was buying time.
For them.
For the city.
For whatever came next.
And she hated every second of it.
---
They left the hall under a veil of ordinary movement. No dramatic escape. No sprinting through secret corridors.
Aureline insisted on that.
If she made it look like she was protecting them, she'd be admitting they were the center.
If she made it look like routine, she bought them the only currency that mattered.
Normalcy.
In a side corridor, Aureline finally let her mask slip a fraction.
"I did not invoke protections to become a puppet," she said lowly, voice vibrating with restrained fury.
Seris, still half-dizzy, managed, "You're not."
Aureline's eyes flashed. "Not yet."
Aiden's voice was small. "Varros is close."
Aureline didn't deny it. "Yes."
Inkaris spoke quietly. "He will try again, but louder."
Aureline's mouth tightened. "Let him."
Seris heard it then—beneath the anger, beneath the exhaustion.
Fear.
Not fear for herself.
Fear that the city would decide its own enforcement required sacrificing something it couldn't afford to lose.
Fear that Aureline's protections would hold and still be too late.
Seris took a breath that hurt and said the thing Aureline needed someone to say.
"You're buying time," Seris whispered. "And you're doing it without collapsing."
Aureline's eyes narrowed. "Do not praise me like I'm fragile."
Seris' lips twitched. "I'm praising you like you're terrifying."
Aureline stared at her for a beat.
Then—finally—a real smile flickered, sharp and brief.
"Good," Aureline said. "That's the only version of me that survives this."
---
As they moved deeper into safer corridors, Seris felt her vision blur again. The potions were holding, but the suppression still clung to her like a damp cloak.
Liora tightened her grip around Seris' waist. "Don't you dare pass out. Not until we're out."
Seris managed a weak, stubborn sound. "Bossy."
Aiden hovered too close, guilt radiating off him.
Seris turned her head just enough to meet his eyes.
"Don't do it again," she whispered.
Aiden flinched. "I won't."
Seris' voice softened, but didn't forgive. Not yet. "You will want to."
Aiden's throat worked. "Yes."
Seris squeezed his hand. "Then when you want to, look at me."
Aiden nodded like it was a vow.
Behind them, the palace hummed with contained crisis.
Ahead of them, the city waited with new shapes of violence.
And somewhere above it all, Seris felt a pressure—like a gaze sliding across the skyline.
Caelum.
Watching.
Dismissive.
Unbothered by the city's attempt to reject him.
Because systems could only reject what they could define.
And Caelum, Seris was realizing with a cold twist in her stomach, did not live inside definitions.
He lived above them.
Like weather.
Like ruin.
Varros was close.
Aureline was stalling.
Seris was alive.
And the universe's ledger, freshly opened, was waiting to decide what it would take next.
Not from the guilty.
From the beloved.