"Bring the Duke and the demon-bride downstairs—together."
The thin-faced priest's voice rang through the corridor like a bell at a funeral.
Temple knights stepped out from behind Kael, one by one, closing the only exit with white cloaks and polished steel.
For a heartbeat, the world became too clear.
My father on his knees, hands bound, breath shallow.
The parchment in the priest's hand, ink bruised into a demon circle from my father's blood.
Prince Adrian watching as if this were a play he'd paid for.
Liora trembling prettily beside him, eyes bright with the kind of excitement she hid behind tears.
And Kael—black steel, winter eyes—standing between them and me like a wall that could bleed.
He didn't turn to look at the knights behind him.
He didn't need to.
He'd already felt them.
"I was summoned," Kael said, voice low as a grave. "Not ambushed."
The priest lifted his chin, ring gleaming. "It is not an ambush. It is purification."
Kael's gaze slid over the ring as if it disgusted him. "Purification doesn't require blocking exits."
One of the temple knights behind Kael shifted, boot scraping stone.
The sound cut through my skin.
Mara moved closer to me, blade half-hidden beneath her cloak, posture relaxed in a way that meant she was ready to kill.
I forced my breathing to slow.
Panic was what they wanted.
If I panicked, I'd run.
If I ran, they'd call it guilt.
If I fought, they'd call it demon rage.
They'd written every path so it ended in chains.
So I created a new one.
I stepped to Kael's side, letting my ring catch the lamplight again.
The priest's eyes flicked to it—just once.
Good. He was afraid of symbols.
"Captain," I called, turning toward the palace guard commander who still held the church-marked bolt. "This corridor is palace jurisdiction. Are you allowing armed temple knights to seize nobles without a registry warrant?"
The captain's face was damp with sweat. His eyes darted to Adrian. Then to Kael. Then to the priest's ring.
He opened his mouth—
Adrian cut in smoothly. "Captain. You will obey the crown."
The words dropped like a collar.
Adrian lifted the red-wax scroll again, letting the imperial seal gleam. "The church acts with my authority in matters of corruption."
Kael finally turned his head slightly.
Not toward the priest.
Toward Adrian.
The temperature in the corridor seemed to drop.
"You don't have authority here," Kael said.
Adrian smiled like a man humoring a dog. "I'm the crown prince."
"And this is the palace," Kael replied, voice flat. "Not your toy."
Adrian's smile tightened. "Duke Rivenhart, do you intend to commit treason in a dungeon corridor?"
Kael didn't blink. "Do you?"
Silence slammed down.
Even the temple knights stilled, as if they could feel the edge sharpening between the two men.
My heart hammered.
This wasn't just about me anymore. It never had been.
This was crown versus weapon. Church versus blade. Adrian trying to wrap a leash around the only man who didn't kneel.
The priest stepped forward, trying to reclaim the air. "Duke Rivenhart, you were ordered to come alone. Your guards are an affront to sacred—"
Kael's gaze flicked to him.
The priest's words thinned, but he forced them out anyway. "—to sacred authority."
Kael's gloved hand lifted.
Not toward his sword.
Toward his coat.
He produced a folded document sealed in black wax and held it up.
Rivenhart seal. Wolf and crown.
"My protection writ," Kael said.
Adrian's eyes narrowed. "You can't override the crown."
Kael's voice didn't change. "I'm not overriding it. I'm documenting your abuse of it."
He tossed the document to the captain.
The captain fumbled it like it might burn his hands.
Kael's eyes stayed on Adrian. "Read it."
The captain's throat bobbed as he read, lips moving silently. His face paled.
He looked up, voice strained. "This… this grants Duke Rivenhart authority to remove Lady Vale from unlawful detention attempts pending formal hearing—"
"Correct," Kael said.
Adrian's smile sharpened. "Unlawful? I have an imperial order."
Kael's gaze was ice. "An imperial order written by your hand and hidden behind church wax is not the same as an imperial warrant filed through procedure."
His eyes flicked to the gray-robed clerk. "Ledger."
The clerk flinched like he'd been struck. "M-my lord?"
"Write it," Kael said. "Prince Adrian attempted seizure of a protected noble in palace jurisdiction without registry filing."
The clerk's hand shook so badly the pen rattled against the page.
Adrian's eyes snapped to the clerk, and for one terrifying moment I thought Adrian would simply have him killed.
But Kael's guards were now fully in the corridor, black shadows at every angle. Their presence made murder less convenient.
The clerk began to write.
The priest hissed, anger slipping through his holy mask. "You cannot reduce purification to ink and bureaucracy!"
Kael's gaze flicked to the parchment in the priest's hand—the demon sigil revealed in "holy proof."
Then to my father, bound and shaking.
Kael's voice went quieter. "You used blood."
The priest lifted the parchment higher, eager now. "The ink awakened. Corruption confirmed. You see it with your own eyes—"
"I see a trick," I said, my voice sharp enough to cut.
Everyone's gaze snapped to me.
Good.
Let them look.
I stepped forward and pointed at the parchment. "Reactive ink. You don't need my blood. You used my father's because you needed a spectacle."
The priest's lips curled. "Listen to her. She knows the methods of darkness."
"I know your methods," I snapped back. "Because you use them on everyone."
Adrian sighed, as if I bored him. "Seraphina, enough. You're only making your guilt louder."
I turned my head slowly and met his eyes.
"I died once already because of you," I said, quietly enough that only he and Liora could hear.
Liora's breath caught.
Adrian's expression didn't change, but his eyes did—just for a heartbeat. A flicker of calculation.
Then he smiled again, careful. "You're unwell."
Liora whispered, "Sera… please…"
Her voice was honey.
Her eyes were knives.
Kael's presence at my side was cold, heavy, anchoring.
He didn't look at me, but I felt him shift slightly—placing himself between Adrian's sightline and mine.
Possession disguised as protection.
It made my skin prickle.
The priest's voice rose, desperate to reclaim the narrative. "Captain! Seize the demon-bride. Seize the Duke as an accomplice. Bring them downstairs!"
The temple knights took a step forward.
Mara moved.
A flick of her wrist, a blade flashing into view.
Not a swing. Not an attack.
A promise.
The nearest knight hesitated.
Kael's voice cut through, calm and deadly. "If you draw steel in palace jurisdiction, you die here."
The knights behind him shifted, uncertain. They hadn't expected a standoff. They'd expected Kael to be isolated.
But he wasn't.
Because I'd blown the whistle.
Because his writ existed.
Because the corridor had witnesses.
For the first time tonight, the trap didn't close smoothly.
The priest's jaw clenched. He turned to Adrian. "Your Highness—"
Adrian's smile was thin. "Proceed."
That single word was the moment I understood something sickening.
Adrian didn't care if this became messy.
He wanted it messy.
Because if blood spilled, he could blame it on me. On Kael. On corruption.
He could drown procedure in chaos.
Kael's gaze slid to the captain again. "Captain. Arrest the priest."
The corridor went still.
The captain's eyes went wide. "My lord, I—"
Kael's voice sharpened by one degree. "He conducted an unauthorized blood rite in palace jurisdiction and attempted to seize nobles without filing a warrant. If you can't enforce your own laws in your own corridor, then the palace is weaker than a temple."
The captain swallowed hard.
Pride flared in his eyes—then fear, because pride didn't stop princes.
Adrian stepped closer, voice soft as velvet. "Captain. Don't embarrass yourself."
Kael didn't raise his voice. "Do your duty."
The captain's hands tightened on the church-marked bolt.
His gaze flickered to the dying knight's corpse still sprawled on the stone. To the ledger. To Kael's ring on my hand. To the black guards filling the corridor.
Then—slowly—he lifted his hand.
"Seize the priest," he ordered.
For a heartbeat, no one moved.
Then two palace guards stepped forward.
The priest's eyes widened with real panic. "You—You cannot—!"
The temple knights surged, trying to block the palace guards.
And the corridor detonated.
Steel scraped. Boots slammed. Shouts ricocheted off stone.
Mara pulled me back instinctively, blade up.
My father cried out as someone jostled him.
I snapped my gaze to him.
A temple knight's hand had reached for my father's bound arms.
Not to protect him.
To drag him.
Downstairs.
My blood went cold.
They didn't need me to confess if they could take my father out of the corridor and break him where no one could witness.
I moved.
Training or not, my body reacted faster than my fear.
I dropped to my knees beside my father and grabbed the rope binding his wrists.
My fingers shook.
The knot was tight, soaked with sweat and panic.
I fumbled.
My father's eyes flew to mine, desperate. "Seraphina—don't—"
"Be quiet," I hissed, not cruel—urgent. "Let me work."
He choked a broken sound.
I yanked at the knot until my nails tore.
The rope wouldn't give.
I had no blade—Mara kept hers, and I'd been stripped of everything but my cloak and my ring.
I glanced up sharply.
Kael.
He was still near the corridor center, one hand on his sword hilt, the other slightly lifted as if controlling the entire space by sheer will. His guards kept the temple knights from flanking.
His eyes met mine.
Just a fraction.
He understood immediately.
He reached into his coat and tossed something toward me without looking away from Adrian.
A small black-handled knife.
It landed near my knee with a soft clink.
My breath caught.
I snatched it up and saw the thin blade—sharp, practical, meant for cutting rope and throats.
My fingers tightened.
I cut the bindings on my father's wrists in one trembling stroke.
The rope fell away.
My father's hands flew up, rubbing raw skin.
He stared at me like I was someone new.
Maybe I was.
"Stand," I whispered, gripping his arm. "Stand. Now."
He tried.
His knees buckled.
He was weak. Drugged, maybe. Or simply crushed by fear.
A temple knight shoved through the chaos toward us.
Mara stepped in front of me.
Her blade flashed once.
Not a killing strike—just enough to draw a thin line of blood across the knight's forearm.
He hissed and stumbled back, shocked that a "guard dog" dared bite.
"Touch her," Mara said flatly, "and you lose the arm."
The knight's eyes flickered toward Adrian.
Permission.
He needed permission.
I saw the mechanism with horrible clarity: everyone here was waiting for someone above them to say "yes."
Adrian stepped forward, voice rising over the chaos. "Enough! Seize them!"
The temple knights surged again.
Kael's guards met them, black against white.
The corridor became a storm of bodies.
And then the door behind Adrian creaked open.
A slow sound.
A deliberate sound.
Every head turned.
Even Kael's guards paused.
A man in white entered—not a thin priest, not a simple knight.
He wore layered robes edged with silver thread, and the air seemed to shift around him as if the corridor itself recognized authority.
The High Inquisitor.
My stomach dropped.
His eyes were pale and empty, like candle wax.
He smiled gently, as if he'd walked into a family argument.
"What a pity," he murmured. "So much noise. So much pride."
The temple knights immediately lowered their blades, heads bowing.
The priest went stiff, then bowed too, relief and triumph twisting together.
Adrian's expression smoothed instantly into respectful control. "Inquisitor."
Liora's lashes fluttered. She looked up at the man like he was salvation.
My skin crawled.
Because in my last life, that gentle voice had sentenced me to die cleanly.
The High Inquisitor's gaze drifted across the corridor. He looked at the corpse of the foaming knight, at the bolt in the captain's hand, at the ledger on the clerk's desk.
Then he looked at me.
His eyes lingered on my ring.
On my bandaged palm.
On my father's bruised face.
"Lady Vale," he said softly, like we were old friends. "You bring calamity wherever you go."
My throat tightened. I forced my voice out. "You bring tools and call them holy."
The High Inquisitor chuckled. "Bold."
His gaze slid to Kael.
And I felt it—the true focus of the trap snapping into place.
"Duke Rivenhart," the High Inquisitor said, warmth in his tone that made my blood run cold. "You were summoned alone. Yet you arrive with your wolves."
Kael's expression didn't change. "Your men tried to seize my intended in palace jurisdiction."
The High Inquisitor's smile widened. "Your intended."
He stepped closer, robes whispering over stone. "How… sudden."
Kael didn't move.
He didn't step back.
He didn't bow.
The High Inquisitor stopped a few paces away and lifted a hand.
Two temple knights behind him produced something that made my stomach lurch.
Chains.
Not ordinary iron.
Silver-threaded, etched with small sunbursts, glowing faintly in the lamplight.
Sanctified chains.
The kind you didn't break with strength.
The kind you broke with permission.
My pulse spiked.
Kael's gaze flicked once to the chains.
Then back to the High Inquisitor.
"You plan to shackle me in a palace corridor," Kael said, voice low. "How brave."
The High Inquisitor's smile didn't falter. "How necessary."
He turned his head slightly, as if addressing the corridor itself.
"By sacred authority recognized by imperial accord," he announced, "Duke Kael Rivenhart is to be detained for immediate purification, for interference with the cleansing of corruption."
My blood turned to ice.
Detained.
Purified.
They were doing it.
Here.
In front of witnesses, yes—but witnesses could be silenced.
Or persuaded.
Or buried.
The captain's face went white. "Inquisitor, this—this is palace—"
The High Inquisitor looked at him once.
The captain shut his mouth like a man who'd remembered his family existed.
Adrian's smile returned, slow and satisfied.
Liora clasped her hands, trembling with relief.
The priest's eyes gleamed like a starving man seeing meat.
Kael's guards shifted, tense, ready to die.
Kael's voice cut through, colder than steel. "Touch me, and the palace will flood with blood."
The High Inquisitor's smile softened, almost pitying. "So dramatic. Duke Rivenhart, you've killed many men. But you will not kill your way out of holiness."
He lifted his hand again.
The sanctified chains moved toward Kael.
I didn't think.
I stepped forward.
"No," I snapped, voice sharp enough to cut the corridor in half. "You can't take him."
The High Inquisitor's eyes returned to me, amused. "And why not, child?"
"Because—" My mouth dried. Because I needed him. Because without him I'd die. Because the moment he's chained, Adrian will crush me like a bug.
I swallowed and forced strategy into my voice.
"Because this is what you wanted," I said. "You manufactured a scene to trap him. You planted evidence to tie him to me. You fired a church-marked bolt in a palace corridor. This isn't purification. It's politics."
The High Inquisitor tilted his head. "Politics is merely sin with paperwork."
Kael's gaze slid to me, just once.
A warning.
Don't talk too much.
Don't give them more rope.
But my father was right here. Bleeding. Shaking. And the chains were inches from Kael's wrists.
I couldn't stay silent.
I lifted my ringed hand. "Then let's do paperwork, Inquisitor. File your warrant. Sign it in the ledger. Put your name to it."
The High Inquisitor's smile sharpened. "You think names protect you?"
"No," I said, voice trembling but steady. "I think names hang you."
A beat of silence.
Then the High Inquisitor laughed softly.
He turned away from me as if I'd entertained him.
And he looked at my father.
"Lord Vale," he said gently, "you look unwell."
My father stiffened.
The temple knight behind him tightened a grip on his shoulder again, fingers pressing pain into flesh.
My father's face twisted, helpless.
The High Inquisitor's voice was mild. "Tell your daughter to come quietly. Return the ring. Renounce the Duke's protection."
My father's lips trembled.
He looked at me like he was drowning.
"Seraphina…" he whispered.
Adrian stepped closer, voice soft, poisonous. "Do it, Seraphina. Save him."
Liora's tears slid down her cheeks. "Sera, please… please… just stop fighting."
Their voices blended into a familiar nightmare.
Confess.
Submit.
Make it easy.
I felt my chest tighten, rage and fear twisting together.
Kael's voice cut through it, low, controlled. "Don't."
Just that.
Not a plea.
An order.
It anchored me harder than any prayer.
The High Inquisitor watched Kael, eyes empty. "So you choose defiance."
He nodded once.
The sanctified chains snapped forward.
They clamped around Kael's wrists with a soft, final click.
For the first time, Kael's posture shifted—just a fraction.
Not pain.
Resistance.
Like something in the chains pulled against him from the inside.
His jaw tightened.
His guards took one step forward—
Kael didn't look at them, but his voice dropped. "Hold."
They froze instantly.
My stomach dropped.
He was… letting it happen.
He was choosing not to spill blood here.
Because he knew what Adrian wanted.
I stared at him, breath shaking. "Kael—"
His eyes met mine.
Winter-dark.
Unreadable.
And then, for the briefest moment, something else flickered underneath.
Recognition.
Like he'd seen this scene before too.
His mouth barely moved.
"Live," he said.
The word hit me like a slap.
Because it wasn't just strategy.
It was personal.
The High Inquisitor gestured toward the stairwell at the far end of the corridor—dark, descending.
"Downstairs," he said kindly. "Where we can cleanse you without interruption."
The priest's smile returned, hungry.
Adrian's eyes gleamed with satisfaction.
And then the High Inquisitor turned his head slightly, speaking as if he were commenting on the weather.
"Prince Adrian," he said, "show the empire your devotion."
Adrian's brows lifted. "Inquisitor?"
The High Inquisitor's smile stayed gentle.
"Execute the leverage," he said.
My blood went cold.
The temple knight at my father's side yanked him upright, dragging him toward the stairs.
My father stumbled, barely able to stand.
Adrian reached for his sword.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
Like he wanted me to see every inch of steel.
I lurched forward, grabbing at my father—
Mara caught my arm, tight. "My lady—!"
I shook her off.
Adrian drew the blade fully.
The metal sang softly in the dungeon air.
He took a step toward my father.
My father's eyes widened, pure terror.
"Seraphina!" he choked.
I felt something snap inside me.
Not sanity.
Not restraint.
Something colder.
Clearer.
I launched myself toward Adrian—
And the High Inquisitor's hand lifted, palm outward.
"Hold her," he said softly.
Temple knights grabbed me from both sides, iron grips crushing my arms.
I fought, twisting, kicking—useless against trained men.
Adrian raised his sword higher.
Liora watched, tears shining, mouth trembling like she was grieving.
But her eyes—
Her eyes were smiling.
Adrian's blade angled down toward my father's throat.
And the last thing I saw before the knights forced my head back was Kael—chained, still, watching with river-dark eyes—
as Adrian's sword began to fall.