POV: Seraphina
The pyre faded.
Seraphina's lungs seized. Her hands clawed at cold stone, and someone was gripping her shoulders, shaking her hard enough to hurt.
"Seraphina."
The voice was not Yona's, and not Liora's. It was lower and harder, and she recognized it immediately.
"Seraphina!"
His hands tightened on her arms, and something flared where his skin touched hers. That resonance again. Warm and insistent, pulling her back from flames that existed only in memory.
She gasped. The corridor came back slowly. Torchlight flickering against stone walls. The smell of torch smoke, real smoke, not memory. Thalion crouched in front of her with his hands still locked on her arms and his jaw clenched tight. He felt it too. She could see it in his face, the way his grip faltered for just a second before he locked it down again.
Yona knelt at her side, two fingers pressed against her wrist, counting. Liora stood with her back flat to the wall, eyes on the corridor.
The pamphlet lay crumpled on the floor between them. That crude drawing of a woman tied to a stake, flames climbing her body.
"Get rid of it," Seraphina said.
Liora picked it up and tucked it into her belt.
Thalion released her arms and stepped back. The resonance faded the moment he broke contact, leaving only the cold corridor and her own ragged breathing.
"Can you stand?" Yona asked.
"Yes."
She tried. Her legs buckled. Thalion caught her before she hit the stone again, and the resonance sparked between them a second time. His jaw went tight and he passed her to Yona the moment she was stable.
"Slowly," Yona said. "Take your time."
She did not have time. The seventh moon was coming. The Ember Sanctum waited. She had preparations to finish and a realm to save and she could not afford to fall apart in a corridor because of a piece of paper.
Her body was not cooperating.
Her hands were shaking and her breath came too fast. The smell of smoke still clung to the inside of her throat even though there was no smoke, had been no smoke, it was just a memory, just a flashback, she knew that.
"Breathe." Yona's hand pressed flat against her back. "In through your nose. Out through your mouth. Slowly."
Seraphina closed her eyes and tried. The first breath shuddered. The second was easier. The third almost felt normal.
Cold stone under her palms, torchlight on the walls, and three people watching her with careful expressions.
She hated that they had seen this. Hated that the pamphlet had this power over her. Hated that somewhere, whoever had drawn that crude picture was winning.
And she hated that Thalion had felt it too. That he was standing three feet away now, arms crossed, refusing to look at her. Whatever that connection meant, he was not going to talk about it.
Neither was she.
"Help me up," she said.
This time, with Yona's hand under her elbow, she managed to stand. Her legs shook but held.
"You should rest," Yona said quietly.
"We leave before dawn." Her voice came out steadier than she felt. "Eleanor's orders. I can rest when we're on the road."
Dawn arrived gray and cold.
Seraphina dressed in traveling clothes and gathered the last of her things. The fire-scars on her forearms glowed faint gold, stable and contained.
She pulled Caelan's letter from the drawer. The paper was soft from handling.
I love you. I'll keep saying it until you believe me.
Wait for me.
She tucked the letter into her traveling clothes. Whatever happened today, she would carry him with her.
She stepped into the corridor. Yona was waiting. Liora stood behind her, arms crossed, jaw tight.
"The supplies are loaded," Yona said. "Thalion's detail is at the gates."
"Then we leave."
They walked through corridors she had once hated. Past servants who avoided her eyes, who made warding signs when they thought she was not looking. The palace had confined her for months. Now it was just a place she was leaving.
The courtyard opened before them. Thalion sat mounted at the head of his detail, morning light catching the imperial crest on his cloak. He had requested to extend his protection assignment personally. She still did not know why.
He caught her eye and gave the smallest nod.
Seraphina crossed the cobblestones toward her horse. Less than three weeks until the seventh moon. A day's hard ride through D'Lorien territory to reach the Ember Sanctum. Every hour counted.
She reached for the saddle.
"Wait!"
The shout came from the palace steps. A figure in gray archivist robes was running toward them, papers clutched against his chest, spectacles askew.
Lucien.
He reached the courtyard breathless, his face flushed from exertion. "You cannot leave. Not yet."
Thalion dismounted. "What is this?"
"The timeline." Lucien bent double, gasping for air. "The seventh moon calculation. It's wrong."
Seraphina went still. The courtyard went quiet around her.
"Explain," Thalion said.
Lucien straightened, pushing his spectacles up his nose. His eyes found Seraphina's.
"The Soulfire Confluence. When did it happen?"
"Five moons ago." Her voice came out flat. "That's when my awakening began. That's what my mother's research said. Seven moons from awakening, or the barriers collapse."
"The Soulfire Confluence isn't a Warden Empress feature." Lucien shook his head. "That's Soulforging. Fusing elemental channels. Forbidden magic, dangerous magic, but it has nothing to do with Celestine bloodlines."
"But the fire-scars..."
"Are from surviving forbidden magic. Not from your heritage activating." He pulled documents from the bundle he carried. "I've been reviewing all the materials. Your mother's research, the evidence presented to the Empress, the ancient Celestine records His Highness authorized me to access."
Thalion's jaw tightened at the mention of his authorization, but he did not interrupt.
"Your mother's calculation was based on ancient records." Lucien spread the papers on a nearby crate, hands still trembling from his sprint across the palace. "Women whose awakenings remained incomplete. Their bodies burned out because they couldn't finish the trials. The seventh moon was when incomplete awakening became fatal."
"The seventh moon is when their bodies failed," Seraphina said slowly.
"Exactly. But those records were from centuries ago." Lucien's finger traced a line of faded text. "No Celestine woman has completed all three pretrials in over a century. The data your mother used only covers incomplete awakenings. Women who started but never finished."
The implications settled over her like cold water.
"I completed all three."
"You're the first in over a century." Lucien looked up at her. "The trials don't just prepare you for the Sanctum. They stabilize the awakening. Your connection to the ward network is complete. The seventh moon deadline was for women whose bodies were failing because they couldn't finish what they started."
"And mine isn't failing anymore."
"The ritual we performed. The one that stabilized your fire-scars." Lucien nodded. "That addressed the Soulforging complication. The completed trials addressed the awakening. You're not racing against your body anymore."
Yona stepped forward. "Then when does the Ember Sanctum actually open?"
"That's what I found in the ancient records." Lucien pulled out another document, older than the others, the parchment brittle and yellowed. "The Sanctum doesn't open on anyone's personal timeline. It opens on a fixed celestial cycle. The Warden Moon. The same alignment that occurred when the first Warden Empress anchored herself to the realm."
"When?" Seraphina's voice was barely a whisper.
Lucien met her eyes.
"Eight months from now."
The courtyard was silent. Even the horses had stopped shifting.
Eight months. Not three weeks. Eight months.
"My mother calculated my death," Seraphina said slowly. "Not the ritual window."
"She worked from the best information she had." Lucien's voice was gentle. "Ancient records about women who never finished. She couldn't know what happens after completing the trials. No one in over a century had done it."
Seraphina looked at the horse she had been about to mount. At the supplies loaded for a desperate journey. At Thalion, still standing with the dispatch, his face unreadable.
Eight months.
The urgency that had driven every decision for weeks, the race against time that had nearly killed her, the desperate calculations that had shaped every move she made. All of it based on numbers that did not apply to her.
"There's no reason to leave," she said quietly. "Not today."
Thalion spoke for the first time since Lucien's revelation. "The investigation into the conspiracy is ongoing. You're still under imperial protection until it concludes."
"I know."
She had been planning to leave anyway, racing against a deadline that would kill her if she missed it. Now that deadline had dissolved, and the reality of her situation reasserted itself.
She was stuck here. Under protection. Under watch.
"Unload the supplies," she said. "We're not leaving today."
She turned back toward the palace.
Eight months until the Warden Moon. She should feel relieved. The desperate race was over. She had time.
But something cold had settled in her chest, and she could not shake it.