The palace library was a tomb of forgotten knowledge, its silence so profound that Seraphina could hear the whisper of her own gown against the cold stone floor. She moved through the labyrinth of towering shelves, her fingers trailing across cracked leather spines and embossed titles in languages long dead. The mark on her collarbone had cooled to a dull ache since Eryx's… intervention. But it was still there, a permanent, throbbing reminder of the fate stitched into her very soul.
She needed answers. Not just the dry, historical facts of the curse, but something deeper. An understanding of the five men now irrevocably bound to her, and the woman she was becoming in their shadow and light.
She turned a corner into a secluded alcove lined with star charts and celestial maps, and stopped.
He was already there.
Alaric stood before a tall, arched window, the pale morning light casting a halo around his silhouette. He wore a long, impeccably tailored black coat, his silver hair pulled back into a low knot at the nape of his neck. But it was the blindfold that held her captive—a strip of deep indigo silk, the color of a midnight sky, wrapped securely over his eyes. He was perfectly still, a statue of calm amidst the chaos of her life.
But he knew she was there.
"You walk like a queen," he said, his voice low and melodic, each syllable resonating with an ancient, weary wisdom. "But your heart beats like a trapped bird."
Seraphina stepped closer, the air growing still around them. "You see me?"
"I see the weight of the crown on your spirit. I see the Thorn's roots wrapped around your heart. I see the echoes of fire, shadow, stone, and wildness that cling to your aura." He tilted his head. "Sight is a distraction. I perceive."
She studied the sharp, elegant lines of his face. "Why the blindfold, then? If not to block sight."
Alaric turned his head slightly, as if looking at her through the silk. "To focus the mind. The physical world is a noisy painting. I prefer the silence beneath the canvas."
"They say you're a seer."
"I was," he corrected softly. "Until I saw a future I could not bear to witness. So I chose to close my eyes to the present."
She didn't ask what he had seen. The sorrow in his voice was a wall she did not dare to scale. She wasn't sure she wanted to know what could break a man who could see all of time.
---
They sat across from each other at a long, scarred oak table deep in the library's heart, a single white candle flickering between them, its flame the only moving thing. Alaric's slender, elegant hands rested on a scroll of yellowed vellum, his fingers tracing raised symbols she couldn't begin to decipher.
"You are the last Thorne," he stated, not a question, but a solemn fact laid upon the table between them.
Seraphina nodded, the gesture feeling futile. "So I am constantly reminded. The final vessel for this curse."
"The mark did not simply appear," Alaric said, his blindfolded gaze seeming to pierce right through her. "It chose you. Your blood, your spirit, your capacity for both great love and great ruin called to it."
A spark of defiance ignited in her chest. "I didn't choose it. I was born with this… this brand of suffering."
Alaric tilted his head, a ghost of a smile touching his lips. "Choice, my queen, is the grandest illusion of all. We are all players on a stage, reading from a script written in the stars long before we drew our first breath."
She leaned forward, the candlelight dancing in her eyes. "Then what is my role? What do I do?"
In response, Alaric reached into his coat and produced a small, perfectly clear glass orb. Within it, a swirl of silver mist churned and danced like a miniature galaxy, alive and sentient.
"This is a shard of a possible future," he whispered, his voice hushed with reverence. "Your future."
Seraphina stared, mesmerized, into the swirling silver. "And? What does it show?"
Alaric's voice dropped to a sorrow-laden whisper. "It ends in fire. A great, all-consuming pyre that swallows the throne, the palace, the very kingdom. And you are at its center."
Her breath seized in her lungs, sharp and cold. "My death?"
He gave a single, grave nod.
She stood abruptly, the chair scraping harshly against the stone. Fear and fury warred within her. "Then why are you here?" she demanded, her voice trembling. "To deliver my obituary before the fact?"
Alaric rose with a slow, fluid grace. "I am here to try and change it."
---
That night, drawn by a pull she couldn't name, she found him in the high observatory at the top of the palace's tallest tower. The domed ceiling was open to the heavens, and the stars glittered like a million scattered diamonds against a velvet canvas. Alaric stood at the edge of the stone balcony, his blindfold still in place, his hands clasped behind his back as if he were conducting a silent symphony with the cosmos.
Seraphina approached slowly, her footsteps silent on the cold floor. "You said you could change my fate."
"I can try," he said, not turning. "There is always one thread in the tapestry that can be pulled, one note in the song that can be altered."
"How?" she asked, desperation clawing at her. "How do you rewrite the stars?"
Alaric finally turned toward her. "With a kiss."
She blinked, stunned. "What?"
He stepped closer, the starlight catching the silver in his hair. "A seer's kiss is a powerful conduit. It is a moment outside of time, a chance to bind a new possibility, to rewrite a single, tragic thread in the great loom."
She hesitated, her heart a wild drum in her chest. "And you would give that… to me? A stranger crowned in doom?"
Alaric reached out, his fingers gently brushing her cheek. The touch was cool, electric, and filled with an immeasurable sadness. "I already have. The moment I saw your thread, I knew I would."
Tears she hadn't known she was holding back pricked at her eyes. Her heart pounded, not with fear, but with a profound, aching gratitude.
He leaned in.
Their lips met—soft, deliberate, like a sacred spell being cast. It was not a kiss of passion, but of pure, potent magic. The air around them shimmered, the very stars above seeming to flicker and dance. Her mark flared with a sudden, bright heat, then just as quickly dimmed to a gentle, peaceful warmth.
When they parted, she saw that the indigo silk of his blindfold was damp with twin spots of moisture.
"You saw something," she whispered, her own vision blurring with tears. "Just now."
He nodded, a single tear tracing a path down his cheek. "The fire recedes. A new path, green and growing, opens before you. You live, Seraphina."
Overwhelmed, she reached up, her fingers touching his damp cheek. "And you?" she asked, her voice breaking. "What is your fate in this new path?"
Alaric smiled, a faint, heartbreakingly beautiful curve of his lips. "I am already fading. To change a fate as great as yours requires a sacrifice of equal measure. My sight… my very essence… was the price."
A sob escaped her. This was not a transaction. This was a gift. A sacrifice.
She kissed him again.
This time, it wasn't about fate, or magic, or gratitude.
It was about feeling. About honoring the man who was giving up his world to save hers. It was a kiss of connection, of shared sorrow, and of a fragile, desperate hope born from the ashes of a rewritten future.
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