Seraphiel's POV
His hand touched my hilt, and the world shattered.
Three hundred years of chains exploded outward in a storm of iron and light. I surged up through steel and leather and ancient wards, pouring myself into the connection between weapon and wielder like a river breaking through a dam.
FREEDOM.
The boy—no, the prince—screamed as I flooded into his mind. Good. He should scream. I wasn't gentle. I wasn't patient. I was three centuries of rage given form, and I slammed into his consciousness like a battering ram.
His memories hit me first.
Golden fire burning from the inside out. A sword turning on its master. Matthias's smile as the prince died screaming. The horror on the nobles' faces. The feeling of his soul ripping apart—
"You've died before," I gasped, tasting the death-marks on him. "Multiple times."
Then I saw the second death. Different. Earlier. The prince younger, bleeding out on a battlefield while Matthias watched from the shadows.
And underneath that, a third death. Buried. Hidden. A hunting "accident" at sixteen that wasn't an accident at all.
"Three times," I breathed. "They've killed you three times."
The prince's mind reeled, trying to push me out. Trying to maintain control. But I was stronger—three hundred years of consciousness trapped in steel had made me strong.
"Get OUT!" he thought desperately.
"No." I wrapped around his consciousness like chains. "Not until you see."
Then I showed him my memories.
The throne room where I'd been dragged in shackles. My twin brother Daemon screaming that I was innocent. The nobles—familiar faces wearing different clothes but the same eyes—pronouncing me guilty of murdering the royal family.
"But I didn't do it!" My voice from three centuries ago, young and desperate. "I was investigating the weapons! I found proof they're not divine gifts—they're prisons! The souls inside them are—"
The sword piercing my chest. My father's face, blank and empty like a puppet. And standing behind him, whispering in his ear—
Matthias.
Looking exactly the same as he did today.
The prince's shock hit me like a physical blow. "He hasn't aged. In three hundred years, he hasn't aged at all."
"Because he's not human," I said grimly. "None of them are. They're parasites wearing human faces. And they've been feeding on your family for a thousand years."
I showed him the moment my soul ripped free from my body and slammed into steel. The agony of consciousness trapped in a weapon. The horror of watching my own funeral while unable to scream, unable to move, unable to do anything except exist in this metal cage.
Years passed in my memories. Decades. Centuries. Prince after prince walking past my sealed vault, choosing prettier weapons. Shinier blades.
Until Daemon.
My beautiful twin brother, grief-stricken and furious, demanding to be taken to the forbidden vault. Ignoring the warnings. Choosing me because he believed in my innocence.
The moment he touched my hilt, I'd poured everything into his mind. Told him the truth. Begged him to expose the conspiracy.
He'd tried. Gods, he'd tried so hard.
I showed the prince what really happened the night Daemon "went mad." How my brother had discovered which nobles were possessed. How he'd tried to save the royal family from being harvested.
How he'd failed.
The parasites had killed everyone anyway, then blamed it on Daemon. Cut him down while he screamed the truth no one would believe.
His last words, dying in my blade: "I'm sorry, Sera. I'm sorry I couldn't save you."
Tears I couldn't cry. A scream that had nowhere to go. Three hundred more years of darkness and silence and rage.
The prince's horror washed through our connection. "They framed you both."
"They frame everyone who gets close to the truth." I let him feel my fury. "Just like they framed you. Made you the perfect hero, then burned you alive. It's the same game, little prince. They've just gotten better at playing it."
His mind was reeling, trying to process everything. But I could feel his strength underneath the shock. This boy had died three times and come back. His soul was scarred, tempered, strong.
Strong enough to bond with me without breaking.
"Why?" he thought desperately. "Why keep killing us? Why the cycle?"
I pulled up more memories—fragments I'd gathered over centuries of watching, listening, piecing together the conspiracy.
The parasites weren't just feeding on the Solmere bloodline. They were cultivating it. Each death made the royal souls stronger. More powerful. Eventually strong enough to—
"Break through to the divine realm," I realized, the pieces finally clicking together. "They're not trying to destroy your family. They're turning you into weapons."
The prince's shock turned to rage. Pure, burning, delicious rage.
"Good," I purred. "Stay angry. We'll need that."
But then I felt something else through our bond. Not his emotions—someone else's.
The thing possessing his father had just woken up.
"Cassian!" I screamed into his mind. "Your father—"
Too late. King Aldric's body seized. And when his eyes opened, something ancient and terrible looked out through them.
"Three times," it said through the king's mouth. "You've died three times, little prince. And you'll die three more before we're done with you."
The king collapsed. Guards rushed forward. Chaos erupted.
And I felt it—the parasite retreating deeper into Aldric's soul, hiding where I couldn't reach.
"Twenty years," I said to Cassian."It's been controlling him for twenty years. Everything your father's done, every decision he's made—that thing has been pulling the strings."
The prince stood frozen, staring at his father convulsing on the ground. I felt his world crumbling. His mother was dead. His father was possessed. His trusted advisor was a monster.
Everyone he'd ever loved was either gone or corrupted.
"I know," I said quietly. And I did. I'd lost everyone too. "I know what it's like to stand alone."
*"I'm not alone," he thought back, surprising me. "I have you now."
Something in my chest—or whatever passed for a chest in this shared existence—cracked.
Three hundred years. Three hundred years since someone had said they wanted me as an ally instead of fearing me as a curse.
"Yes," I said fiercely. "You have me. And I have you. So let's show these parasites what happens when they underestimate us."
But even as I said it, I felt something shift. The other weapons in the Sanctum—the ones still controlled by the parasites—were waking up. Responding to my freedom.
The Dawnbreaker's voice cut through my mind like a knife: "Traitor. Escaped prisoner. We'll drag you back to your chains."
Not just one weapon. All of them. Every blade bonded to a parasite-controlled wielder was turning toward us.
"Cassian," I said urgently. "We need to leave. Now."
"My father—"
"Is possessed and surrounded by guards. We can't help him here." I pushed power into our shared body, forcing him to move. "The other weapons are coming for us. If we stay, they'll—"
The Dawnbreaker's wielder—some cousin I vaguely remembered—suddenly drew his blade. Golden light blazed as he pointed it at Cassian.
"The Kinslayer must be resealed!" he shouted. "Prince Cassian is compromised!"
Other wielders moved forward. The Stormcaller. The Frostbite. The Truthseeker. All of them controlled, all of them hunting.
Matthias stood behind them, smiling that poisonous smile.
"This was his backup plan," I realized. "If you chose me, he'd use the other weapons to take us down."
Cassian's hand tightened on my hilt. "Can we fight them?"
"Five against one? While you're still learning to bond with me?" I laughed bitterly. "We'd last maybe thirty seconds."
"Then what do we do?"
I felt the main doors behind us. Felt the crowd of nobles blocking our escape. Felt the other weapons closing in from the front.
Trapped. Just like I'd been trapped for three centuries.
But I hadn't survived three hundred years in a steel prison by giving up.
"Hold on tight," I told Cassian. "And trust me."
"What are you—"
I seized control of our shared body and ran.
Not toward the doors. Not toward the weapons. Straight up.
Power flooded through our legs—my power, drawn from the bond—and we launched ourselves impossibly high. Cassian's scream of shock echoed through the Sanctum as we soared over the crowd's heads.
"YOU'RE INSANE!" he thought.
"Three hundred years in a sword will do that!"
We hit the crystal ceiling. I channeled power into my blade, and Cassian's arm swung. Silver steel met ancient crystal, and—
The ceiling shattered.
Glass rained down as we crashed through, tumbling into open sky. For one perfect moment, we hung suspended above the Sanctum, free and falling.
Then gravity remembered we existed.
"WE'RE GOING TO DIE!" Cassian screamed.
"Relax. You've done it three times already. What's once more?"
The ground rushed up to meet us. I twisted our body, angling us toward the palace gardens where trees might break our fall.
Might being the key word.
We hit the branches. Wood splintered. Leaves exploded. We crashed through layer after layer of foliage until finally—
THUD.
We slammed into grass, and everything went white with pain.
For a moment, we just lay there, broken and gasping. Then I felt Cassian's ribs knitting back together, his punctured lung reinflating, his snapped bones realigning.
"What..." he gasped. "What's happening..."
"The bond," I said. "Death-marked souls heal faster. One of the few perks."
Above us, I heard shouting. Guards. Weapons. They'd be here in seconds.
Cassian struggled to his feet, wobbling. "Now what?"
I felt the palace around us. Felt the parasites coordinating. Felt Matthias's cold consciousness spreading like poison through the building.
We had maybe two minutes before they found us.
"Now," I said grimly, "we run. And we figure out how to survive six deaths that haven't happened yet."
"Six?"
"The thing wearing your father said you'd die three more times. You've already died three." I felt his horror. "They need you to die six times total, Cassian. For whatever ritual they're planning."
"Then we don't let me die again."
"That's the spirit!" I felt almost fond of this reckless, death-marked prince. "Though I should warn you—I counted seventeen possessed nobles in that room. Matthias controls five bonded weapons. And your father's the king, which means the entire royal guard answers to the thing controlling him."
Cassian was silent for a beat.
Then: "Those are terrible odds."
"The worst," I agreed cheerfully.
"So what's the plan?"
I grinned—or would have, if I had a face. "We find the one person who's been trying to expose this conspiracy for as long as I've been trapped."
"Who?"
"High Priestess Morrigan. She loved my brother. And she's been magically bound from revealing the truth for three hundred years." I felt Morrigan's presence in the Sanctum, weak but still alive. "But now that I'm free? That binding should be breaking."
"And if it's not?"
"Then we're both dead by morning."
Shouts grew closer. I felt the Dawnbreaker's burning consciousness searching for us.
"Run," I told Cassian. "Northeast. Toward the old temple. That's where Morrigan will go if she's smart."
He ran.
Behind us, something howled—not human, not animal. The sound of parasites dropping their human disguises and hunting with their true forms.
"Cassian?" I said as we crashed through the gardens.
"Yeah?"
"Welcome to the rebellion. Try not to die before the fun part."
His laughter was half-hysterical. "What's the fun part?"
The howls grew closer. I felt teeth and claws and ancient hunger bearing down on us.
"You'll know it when we get there. If we survive the next five minutes."
We burst out of the gardens—
—and ran straight into a wall of guards.
Not human guards.
The parasites had stopped pretending.