POV: Seraphina
The servants were unloading supplies from horses that would not be making any journey today. Seraphina stood in the courtyard watching them work, her mind still catching up to what Lucien had told her. Eight months until the Warden Moon. Eight months until the Sanctum opened. The deadline she had nearly killed herself racing toward had never existed in the first place.
She should feel relieved. The fire-scars were stable, she had time now, more time than she had ever let herself hope for. But something cold had settled behind her ribs the moment Lucien finished speaking, and she could not shake it loose no matter how many times she reminded herself this was good news.
Thalion's guards carried crates back toward palace storage while a groom led her horse to the stables. Yona had already disappeared inside to deal with the Celestine texts and research documents they had packed for a trip that was no longer happening. All those hours of frantic preparation, all that fear about running out of time, and none of it had mattered.
She could write to Caelan now. The letter she had sent days ago told him the fire-scars were stable and he did not need to rush back, but she had not known about the eight months when she wrote those words. Now she could tell him they had even more time than she had thought. She wanted to tell him about visiting his lands when this was over, standing on his cliffs with the wind coming off the sea, knowing they had actually made it through.
"My lady." Liora appeared at her elbow. "You should go inside. Standing out here staring at luggage is not accomplishing anything."
Seraphina almost smiled at that. She turned toward the palace and made herself start walking, one foot in front of the other, trying to shake the cold feeling that would not leave her alone.
She made it three steps before the shouting started.
A rider was coming through the main gate at a dead gallop, his horse lathered and stumbling with exhaustion. He wore imperial colors but his uniform was filthy, caked with road dust and something darker that Seraphina did not want to look at too closely. Guards scrambled to clear his path as he barreled into the courtyard.
"Crisis dispatch!" His voice cracked on the words. "Crisis dispatch for His Highness!"
Thalion was already moving toward the rider before Seraphina's feet unfroze. She watched the man half-fall from his saddle, watched one of the guards catch him before he collapsed completely. His whole body was trembling and his face had the gray look of someone who had gone days without sleep.
"Thornwall has fallen." The words tumbled out of him in a rush. "Three days ago. The fortress was overrun."
Everything in the courtyard stopped. The servants froze mid-motion. The horses went still. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
Seraphina found herself walking forward without deciding to move, her feet carrying her close enough to hear everything while her mind screamed at her to stay back, to not listen, to turn around and go inside before the rider said anything else.
"Report." Thalion's voice had gone flat and hard.
"Duke Vorenthal's unit was holding the southern approach, Your Highness. The heaviest fighting." The rider was trying to stand straight but his legs kept threatening to buckle. "They were overrun. The Duke held the line for six hours after retreat orders came. He would not fall back. Bought enough time for three hundred civilians to make it to the evacuation corridor." The rider's throat worked as he swallowed. "The southern approach is demon territory now. Command cannot send retrieval teams. What they found of the unit..." He trailed off, then forced himself to continue. "The remains were not identifiable."
Seraphina heard her own voice before she realized she was speaking. "Gravenor?"
The rider glanced at her, then looked to Thalion with uncertainty on his face.
"Answer her," Thalion said.
"Commander Gravenor was leading the advance force separately, my lady. He tried to break through to the Duke's position when retreat orders came. Could not make it through."
"Delca?"
"Rode out with the Duke's unit."
The cold feeling in her chest was spreading now, crawling up into her throat and down into her stomach. She made herself ask the next question even though part of her already knew what was coming.
"What else?"
The rider looked at Thalion again, and something passed between them that made Seraphina want to turn and run.
"Tell her," Thalion said quietly.
"Some horses made it back to the forward camp, my lady. Without their riders. Wounded, most of them." The rider's voice dropped low. "One was flayed down to the muscle on its left side. It kept running until it collapsed at the camp perimeter. The Duke's horse was among the others. Blood in the stirrup. The saddle strap had been cut, not broken."
Seraphina stood completely still. Her heartbeat was too loud in her ears, drowning out everything else.
"He would not have let her go." Her voice sounded strange, like it belonged to someone else. "Not while he could still hold the reins."
Nobody said anything. The rider would not meet her eyes.
"The reports could be wrong." She was grasping now, she knew she was grasping, but she could not stop herself. "Communication has been compromised for weeks. The information could be incomplete."
Thalion turned to face her, and the expression on his face was the worst thing she had ever seen.
"Seraphina." His voice came out rough. "I want to believe that more than you know. But the southern approach is gone. His unit was at the center of it. His horse came back without him."
"Stop."
He stopped.
She stood in the courtyard where ten minutes ago she had been thinking about letters and cliffs and futures. Eight months, Lucien had told her. Eight months she had thought meant she finally had time to breathe.
She had time. Caelan did not.
The world went quiet. Not silent, but muffled, like her head had been shoved underwater. She could see Liora's mouth moving but could not hear what she was saying. She could see the servants frozen in place, staring at her, waiting for something to happen. She could see Thalion take a step toward her and then stop, unsure.
No one touched her. No one moved.
She was completely alone in the middle of a crowded courtyard.
"I need to go inside."
The words came out steady even though nothing inside her was steady anymore. Liora took her arm and started guiding her toward the palace, and Seraphina let herself be led because her legs were moving but she had stopped being the one controlling them. Somewhere behind her the servants had started whispering, and she could feel everyone staring, but none of it reached her through the ringing in her ears.
Yona met them in the corridor and fell into step without asking questions. One look at Seraphina's face must have told her everything she needed to know.
Her chambers. The door closing behind her. The click of the latch.
Seraphina stood in the middle of the room and tried to remember how to breathe.
She had been planning to write him a letter this morning. The words had been sitting in her chest since she woke up, waiting to be put down on paper. Come back to me. We have time now.
Had he received the letter she sent days ago? Had those words reached him before everything went wrong? She had told him not to rush back because the front needed him more than she did, and he had listened to her the way he always listened to her, even when she was wrong.
He read my letter and he stayed. He thought he had time because I told him he had time. He held that line for six hours because I told him not to rush.
While he was dying, she had been standing in a courtyard learning about the Warden Moon. While his blood soaked into foreign soil, she had been thinking about gardens and cliffs and a future they were never going to have.
Her knees buckled and she hit the stone floor hard enough to send pain shooting up through her thighs. The sound that came out of her throat did not sound human. It ripped loose from somewhere deep in her chest, raw and ragged and broken.
She slammed her fists against the stone. Once, twice, again, because the pain had to go somewhere and her chest was too full of it. Her forehead pressed against the cold floor and she screamed until her voice gave out and then kept screaming anyway, nothing but air and grief tearing out of her ruined throat.
Arms wrapped around her from behind, pulling her up off the stone. Yona held her the way she used to when Seraphina was small and the nightmares came, rocking her slowly back and forth without saying a word.
"I told him not to rush." The words scraped out of her, barely audible. "I told him we had time."
Yona just held on tighter.
"He always listened to me." The sobs were coming faster now, breaking up her words. "He always listened and I told him not to rush and now he's gone, Yona, he's gone and I told him..."
She could not finish. The grief swallowed the rest of the sentence and she buried her face against Yona's shoulder and let it take her.
Liora was standing at the door with her back to the room. Her shoulders were shaking. Liora, who never let anyone see her feel anything.
Thalion had stopped in the threshold, frozen there like he could not make himself step forward or back. His eyes were red and his jaw was clenched so tight she could see the muscle jumping.
The sobs slowed eventually, not because the grief had faded but because her body simply could not sustain them anymore. She slumped against Yona's shoulder and stared at nothing, feeling hollowed out, scraped clean.
A thought surfaced through the emptiness.
In the first timeline, she had died and he had lived.
She remembered the execution pyre, remembered Caelan standing in the crowd behind his mask. He had taken one step forward before catching himself. One man against a whole court of traitors. He could not save her then.
But he had lived.
Her mother's spell had changed that. It had pulled her back through death, given her a second chance at everything.
And now she was alive and he was gone. The universe had balanced itself out.
Six hours he had held that line after retreat orders. Three hundred people had made it to safety because he would not abandon his post. He had died the same way he had lived, protecting people who could not protect themselves.
She had told him not to rush. And he had not.
---
Night fell and Seraphina did not move from the floor.
Her throat was raw. Her eyes were so swollen she could barely see. Her knuckles throbbed where she had split them against the stone, wrapped now in cloth that Yona had tied around them at some point.
She had been going to write him a letter. She had been going to tell him about the eight months, about the Warden Moon, about all the time they had ahead of them. She had been going to tell him she wanted to see his lands when everything was over.
There was not going to be a "when everything was over." Not for them. Not ever.
The door opened and Thalion walked in, still wearing the same clothes from this morning. He looked like he had not slept in days even though only hours had passed. His eyes were red-rimmed and raw.
He had been somewhere private, she realized. Somewhere no one could see him fall apart.
He crossed the room and sat down on the floor beside her without saying a word.
They stayed like that for a long time, the silence stretching between them.
"Everyone I love dies." Her voice was wrecked, barely more than a whisper. "My mother. My father. Now him."
Thalion did not offer comfort. Did not try to tell her it would be all right.
"I watched him with you," he said finally. "The way he looked at you. The way he put himself between you and any threat before anyone even thought to ask." A pause. "Men do not do that for politics. He would have held that line whether your letter reached him or not. That was just who he was."
She wanted to believe it. She could not make herself.
"He left me a letter before he went." Her hands would not stop shaking. "Told me everything he could not say out loud. I was going to write him back. Tell him about the eight months. Tell him we had time."
"You did not know."
"I told him not to rush."
"You told him the truth. The scars were stable. The front needed him." Thalion's voice stayed steady. "He made his own choice. He always did."
Silence settled over them again.
Footsteps sounded in the corridor, slower and heavier than Yona's or Liora's.
Empress Eleanor appeared in the doorway, taking in the scene with eyes that had seen this kind of grief before. Seraphina on the floor with her wrapped hands and ruined voice. Thalion sitting beside her.
"Three days." Eleanor's voice left no room for negotiation. "You have three days."
Seraphina looked up at her.
"On the fourth day, council. The ward network is failing. You are the only one who can anchor the Sanctum." Eleanor did not blink. "The realm does not wait."
Three days to grieve the man she had only just let herself love. Then back to saving a world that kept taking everything from her.
"Do you understand?"
Seraphina looked at her wrapped hands. At the dried blood seeping through the cloth.
"Yes."
Eleanor left without another word.
Thalion did not get up. He stayed right where he was through the long hours of the night.
Seraphina did not sleep.
Sometime before dawn, Thalion finally rose and left without a word. The door closed softly behind him.
She sat alone on the cold stone floor, her wrapped hands open in her lap, palms up and empty. The first gray light of morning crept through the window and touched the place where she had not moved all night.
The room was silent.
He was not coming back.
END OF BOOK 1