SERAPHINA’S POV
The chamber still trembled from Malachar’s fragment’s destruction, the air thick with residual silver light and dying black siphon threads curling like burnt nerves through stone.
Kieran stood at my side, his presence like a second heartbeat threaded into mine through the mate bond, steadying the storm inside me without muting it.
My initial shock waned, and I pulled my power back, not dissipating it entirely. Silver light gathered at my fingertips, waiting to identify this new variable before I attacked.
“Don’t,” she said, watching my hands warily. Her tone didn’t match the pattern of threat I expected.
There was also no fear or urgency in it. She sounded almost…conversational.
"Who are you?" Kieran barked.
She stepped fully into the fractured light.
She was younger than I expected—early twenties, maybe. Her auburn hair was pulled into a tight bun at the nape of her neck, and her sharp features gave her a severity that made it easy to misread her as older.
