POV: Seraphina
Sleep refused to come.
She sat at the desk in her temporary East Wing chambers, watching candle flames gutter in drafts that should not exist. The palace walls were thick and the windows sealed, yet something moved through the corridors tonight.
The kitchen boy's face haunted her. She could still see his glassy eyes and slack mouth, that single word falling from his lips before he crumpled to the floor.
Kneel.
Three times now she had heard distant shouts echo through the halls. Three times the sounds had faded before anyone could investigate. The palace was tearing itself apart from the inside, and no one understood why.
A soft knock came at her door. She knew it was Caelan before she opened it.
"You are not sleeping either," he said.
"Neither are you."
He stepped inside. His jaw carried the shadow of a beard he had not shaved, and the skin below his mask looked pale. They had both been running on exhaustion since yesterday.
"Seven more collapses overnight," he said. "Three violent arguments among staff. Two guards walked off their posts without explanation."
The information settled heavy. Her fingers curled against the desk. "What about the wards?"
"Flickering. The palace mages cannot explain it. Something is interfering with the protective barriers, but they cannot identify the source."
She turned back to her desk, where maps and intelligence reports covered every surface. The three witnesses Eleanor had gathered were dead, all killed the same night, too clean to be coincidence. And somewhere out there, Siran and Amara were tracking the courier trail she had told Eleanor about. What the Empress did not know was where that trail might lead, or what secrets waited at its end.
"We are missing something," she said. "The witness deaths, these disturbances, the accusation against me. They feel connected, but I cannot see the pattern."
Caelan moved to stand beside her, close enough that she felt his warmth without touching.
"We will find it," he said. "We always do."
The second dawn since the disturbances began brought worse news.
Lyria arrived with fresh intelligence, her face grim. Yona followed with field reports.
"The Flamebearer curse rumor is spreading," Lyria said. "Half the court believes you are responsible. Three noble families have requested permission to leave."
"News of your bloodline reached more ears than anticipated," Yona added. "Now every disturbance has a convenient explanation."
Her bloodline would become a weapon against her eventually. She had known that. She had not expected it this fast.
"Permission they will not receive. The Empress has locked down the palace."
"Which makes you look more guilty." Lyria spread reports across the table. "Advisors are whispering you should be contained. Two made the suggestion publicly."
The accusation burned, but Seraphina kept her composure. "Which advisors?"
"Lord Harwick and Lady Delmonte. Old families with long memories and short tolerance for anything that disrupts the order they prefer."
She filed the names away. Connected to whoever was behind the witness deaths, or simply opportunists using the chaos? In this court, both were likely.
A knock interrupted. A messenger entered bearing Eleanor's seal.
"Her Majesty requests your presence immediately."
Eleanor looked exhausted.
The Empress stood at her council table, surrounded by maps and reports. Guards flanked every door. Thalion stood at her right hand, expression carved from stone.
"I do not believe it," Eleanor said without preamble. "The accusation against you is convenient deflection. But I need you to understand the position this puts us in."
"I understand." She kept her voice level, though her nails pressed crescents into her palms. "My bloodline became public knowledge. Now I am a Flamebearer accused of magical attacks while unexplained phenomena tear through your palace. Even if you trust me, others will not."
"Others are afraid. Fear makes people stupid." Eleanor gestured to the reports. "Twenty-three incidents overnight. Collapses, arguments, wards failing. And half my court thinks you are responsible."
Beside her, Caelan tensed. His hand twitched toward his sword.
"What do you need from me?" she asked.
"Cooperation. Visibility. I need you seen working to solve this, not confined to your chambers." Eleanor's voice softened. "The restrictions remain. You do not leave these walls. But I need you present, not hidden."
Her confinement had just tightened, dressed in softer language. She accepted it.
"I have people following a lead. A courier trail. If I cannot leave, I need assurance they will not be interfered with."
"Granted. Your network operates with my blessing, as long as they report to this council."
A small victory. Seraphina would take it.
The message from Siran arrived an hour later.
Trail confirmed. Courier headed east toward Cerwyn villages. Following now. Road is not empty. Someone else moving the same direction. Will report when we know more.
She read the words twice. The courier had a destination, and Siran was closing in. That last line troubled her. Someone else on the same road could mean travelers or merchants or simple coincidence. Or it could mean competition.
She could not leave. The lockdown trapped her here, visible and cooperative, while the real answers moved further into the countryside.
"Send word back," she said to the messenger waiting at her door. "Tell them to be careful. And to send updates as often as they can."
The messenger vanished.
Caelan had read over her shoulder. "Someone else on the road."
"Could be nothing."
"Could be everything." His jaw tightened. "Whoever killed those witnesses moved fast and clean. If they have people tracking the same lead..."
He did not finish. He did not have to.
The day worsened by the hour.
The palace corridors stretched endless beneath her feet. She forced herself to be visible, to be seen cooperating. But everywhere she went, the wrongness followed. The air tasted metallic and stale.
A servant attacked another in the kitchens. Screaming about stolen bread that did not exist. Guards pulled them apart. Both kept shouting until their voices gave out.
In the east wing, a chandelier crashed without warning. No one was hurt. The chains that held it had been reinforced last month, and the metal remained intact and undamaged. Yet the fixture had still failed.
Near the barracks, she heard shouting and steel. Two guards who had served together for a decade were fighting with drawn swords. Real blades. Real intent. One had already opened a gash across the other's arm before their companions pulled them apart. Neither could explain why they had drawn weapons. Neither remembered starting the fight.
A court mage stopped her near the library, his face pale with exhaustion. "My lady, I do not know what is happening. Every divination comes back corrupted. Every protective barrier wavers. Something is inside the palace wards and consuming them from within."
"Can you identify it?"
"I have tried. We all have." He shook his head. "The magic slides away before we can grasp it."
She thanked him and continued walking.
More incidents found her before she reached the great hall. A noblewoman had tried to push her handmaiden down a staircase. A cook had attacked the head steward with a carving knife, ranting about poison. Three fights had broken out among the stable hands.
But it was not just violence against others.
A young scribe had been found clawing at his own arm until the skin hung in ribbons, saying there was something crawling underneath. A lady's maid had torn at her own face, screaming about worms behind her eyes. They restrained her before she could blind herself.
And then, near midday, a scream from the north tower.
The courtyard was already crowded when she arrived. The smell of copper hung in the air. A broken body lay at the center. A minor lord's son. Barely twenty. He had climbed to the top and thrown himself off, screaming about shadows with teeth.
There were no shadows. There was only whatever sickness had taken hold of the palace, spreading through every mind it touched.
The whispers were spreading. She caught fragments as she passed clusters of frightened servants.
"...heard it again last night..."
"...said kneel, just kneel, over and over..."
"...my sister will not wake up, she just lies there with her eyes open..."
The pattern was there, just beyond her reach. Witnesses dying, wards failing, minds shattering throughout the palace. And at the center of it all, that single word turning sanity to ash.
Kneel.
Thalion fell into step beside her near the great hall.
She did not slow down. He matched her pace anyway.
"Two more advisors publicly called for your containment," he said without greeting. "The council is fracturing."
"Have you decided yet whether I am responsible?"
He caught her arm and pulled her to a stop. The contact sent something sharp through her chest, something that felt nothing like anger and everything like it at the same time. She saw him register it too. His grip tightened before he released her, stepping back with disgust on his face.
"Do not walk away when I am speaking to you."
"Then say something worth hearing."
"I am assigned to observe you." His voice dropped low. "Officially, it is surveillance. Making sure you do not cause more incidents."
"You recommended my imprisonment. You do not need to pretend this is anyone's decision but yours."
"I am not pretending anything." He stepped closer. "I think you are dangerous. I think your bloodline has destabilized empires before and will do so again. Keeping you confined is the smartest decision anyone has made since the disturbances began."
"And yet here you are. Following me through corridors instead of letting the guards do their job." She held his gaze. "Why is that?"
"Because I do not trust anyone else to watch you closely enough."
"Or because you cannot stay away."
The silence that followed was sharp enough to cut.
"Careful, Duchess." His voice had gone cold, but heat burned beneath it. "You are already accused of one form of corruption. Do not add another."
"I am not the one who grabbed my arm. Whatever you feel when you look at me, that is your problem."
He stared at her. The pull between them hummed, unwanted and undeniable. She watched him fight it.
"I feel nothing," he said. "Except suspicion."
"Liar."
For a moment she thought he might grab her again, might do something neither of them could take back. Instead he stepped away and rebuilt every wall she had just watched crumble.
"I will be watching you," he said. "Every moment."
"Then watch. And when you accept I am not the cause of this, remember how long it took you to believe me."
"I will remember everything," he said. The words carried more threat than promise.
He walked away without looking back.
Caelan found her in the map room at sunset.
He closed the door behind him, checking for listeners before he spoke. "I have been thinking."
"That sounds dangerous."
The ghost of a smile crossed his face and disappeared just as quickly. "This started the night after the divorce signing. The same night Alaric was placed under house arrest."
She went still. "You think he is connected?"
"I think the timing is convenient." Caelan moved closer and lowered his voice. "Alaric has motive. He lost everything in that signing. His marriage, his political position, his access to your bloodline's legitimacy. And Evelyne has connections we have not fully mapped."
"He is under guard at the Vessant estate. He cannot leave."
"Can he not?" Caelan's eyes were hard. "The Vessant family has a history with dark artifacts, cursed objects, and blood magic. If anyone had access to something that could do this..."
He trailed off, but she understood what he was not saying.
Alaric's rage in those final days came back to her. The way he had looked at her when the divorce was signed. He was capable of revenge. She had never doubted that.
But a curse that spread through an entire palace, that killed witnesses and corrupted wards and whispered commands to servants? She struggled to believe even Alaric capable of something this devastating.
"We have no proof," she said.
"No, but we have instinct." Caelan's hand covered hers on the table. "And my instincts are screaming that this started with him."
She turned her hand beneath his, lacing their fingers together. For a moment she let herself stop thinking about witnesses and accusations. She let herself feel his warmth, solid and steady, the one constant in a world tearing itself apart.
"I do not know what I would do without you," she said quietly.
He lifted their joined hands and pressed his lips to her knuckles. "You would survive. You are the strongest person I know." He met her eyes, and beneath the exhaustion she saw something fierce. "But you will never have to find out. I am not going anywhere, Sera."
She leaned into him, forehead against his shoulder. He pulled her close, and for a moment the world outside did not exist.
"When this is over," she murmured, "I want a week where nothing tries to kill us."
"Only a week?" She could hear the smile in his voice. "I was thinking a month."
"Greedy."
"Always." He pressed a kiss to her hair. "When it comes to you. Always."
They stayed like that until the light faded, holding onto each other in the gathering dark.
Night came and Eleanor's lockdown held.
No one entered or left the palace grounds. Guards doubled at every gate, every door, every window. The court huddled in their chambers, afraid of disturbances they could not explain.
She returned to her temporary quarters with more questions than answers. The curse and the witnesses and Alaric's timing all circled in her mind. The pattern was there and she could feel it, yet the shape refused to resolve.
She stood at her window, watching torchlight flicker across the courtyard below. Somewhere out there, Siran and Amara were hunting a lead that might change everything. Somewhere in this palace, the source of the corruption waited to be found.
Sleep would not come easy tonight. She would try anyway.
She did not know what stirred in the levels below.
Deep beneath the palace, the morgue lay silent.
No guards stood watch here. No servants came at this hour. The dead needed no company.
Cold seeped through the stone floor. The air carried preservation herbs and something older underneath, something no incense could mask. Three slabs held three bodies beneath white linens, waiting for burial rites. The Imperial Archivist. The retired investigator. The court clerk. Witnesses who would never testify.
The torches along the walls flickered once, then twice, then guttered low until their flames turned a dim, sickly blue.
On the nearest slab, a finger twitched.