The return to the imperial palace came beneath the full light of late morning.
Carriages rolled through the outer gates in ordered sequence, wheels humming over white stone as banners of Astoria stirred above the walls. Palace guards snapped to attention along the approach, spears striking the ground in practiced salute while servants and attendants moved quickly to receive the returning imperial escort.
At the center of it all rode the Emperor's carriage.
Its lacquered black frame bore the crest of the crown in silver and gold, though today it had drawn less attention for its grandeur than for where it had been. Word traveled quickly in Aeloria City, and half the palace likely already knew their ruler had personally appeared at Celestara Academy that morning.
The carriage came to a smooth halt beneath the grand portico.
The door opened.
Valerius Crestwood stepped out first.
He wore the same formal attire from the ceremony, dark fabric still immaculate despite the journey, though something in his expression had changed since dawn. The hard distance that so often shadowed him was lighter now, tempered by thoughts he had not expected the day to bring.
Behind him, attendants moved to take cloaks, relay schedules, and present waiting reports. None were acknowledged immediately.
Valerius paused at the top of the palace steps and looked back once toward the distant skyline where the academy towers rose above the city.
For a brief moment, pride overtook protocol.
Then the Emperor of Astoria turned and walked inside.
The great doors had barely closed behind him when hurried footsteps broke the palace calm.
Selene Crestwood appeared at the far end of the hall, moving with far less ceremony than an empress was expected to allow herself. Silk skirts gathered in one hand, composure abandoned in favor of speed, she crossed the marble floor directly toward him.
"Thank goodness you're here."
The relief in her voice erased the last of the warmth lingering from the academy ceremony.
Valerius's expression sharpened at once.
He stepped forward to meet her, already reading the worry in her face.
"What's wrong?"
Selene caught her breath, one hand pressing lightly to her chest.
Then she looked up at him, eyes wide with urgency.
"Seraphel Dawnveil has awakened."
For a single heartbeat, Valerius stood still.
Then he moved.
The shift was immediate and absolute. The father who had returned from the academy vanished beneath the ruler forged by war and crisis.
He strode past Selene in a rush of dark fabric and controlled fury, boots striking the marble hard enough to echo through the corridor. Attendants flattened themselves against the walls to clear his path. Guards at each junction snapped to attention and opened doors before he reached them.
"The infirmary," he ordered without slowing.
No one needed to be told twice.
Selene turned and followed as quickly as she could, gathering her skirts again while servants hurried in her wake.
Valerius did not wait for escort or announcement. He cut through the palace halls like a storm given shape, descending staircases two at a time, turning corners with the certainty of a man who knew every passage by instinct.
Word traveled ahead of him faster than footsteps. By the time he reached the lower medical wing, healers were already clearing corridors and bowing out of the way.
The doors to the royal infirmary stood open.
Valerius crossed the threshold without pause.
The royal infirmary had gone quiet by the time he entered.
Healers stood back along the walls, their tools lowered, speaking only in hushed tones. The scent of herbs, clean linen, and restorative tonics filled the chamber. Sunlight filtered through narrow windows and fell across rows of beds separated by drawn curtains.
At the center of the room, behind a half-parted screen, lay Seraphel Dawnveil.
She looked like someone who had fought death and refused to lose cleanly.
Bandages wrapped one shoulder and much of her side. Bruising darkened the visible skin along her neck and jaw. Her usually immaculate hair was loose and uneven against the pillow. The strength that so often defined her had been stripped down to survival.
One eye was barely open.
The other remained swollen shut.
Even breathing seemed to cost effort.
Valerius slowed as he approached the bedside.
The storm he had carried through the corridors faded at once.
He stepped beside her and looked down for a long moment, taking in every wound, every sign that she was still here.
Then he spoke—not as emperor to subordinate, but as one old warrior to another.
"Well."
His voice was low, almost dry.
"You look terrible."
The corner of his mouth moved faintly.
He reached down and adjusted the blanket where it had slipped from her shoulder, a small practical gesture that carried years of trust behind it.
"How are you holding together, old friend?"
Seraphel's half-open eye shifted toward him.
For a moment, it seemed she might drift back under before the effort of speech found her.
Then her lips moved.
Her voice came out rough, thin, and scraped raw by pain.
"Other than feeling like I got hit by a falling star…"
She paused to breathe, wincing faintly.
"I could do worse."
A few healers in the room visibly relaxed at hearing humor from her at all.
Valerius let out a quiet breath that might have been the ghost of a laugh.
"There she is," he said softly.
The tension in the chamber eased by degrees.
Even broken and half-conscious, Seraphel Dawnveil was still herself.
Valerius pulled a chair closer to the bedside and sat, lowering himself into it with unusual care.
He leaned forward, forearms resting on his knees, voice quiet enough that only she and the nearest healers could hear.
"What happened to you?"
There was no command in the question. No imperial weight.
Only concern.
"And if you can remember anything… tell me."
Seraphel's good eye closed for a moment as she gathered herself. Pain moved across her features in small, involuntary waves, but when she spoke again, her voice was steadier.
"The marsh," she said.
The word alone seemed to chill the room.
"We pushed deeper after Magnus held the line. I confirmed enough to know it was worse than we thought. Organized. Adaptive. Something in there was directing them."
Valerius's expression hardened, but he did not interrupt.
"So I turned back."
She swallowed, breath catching once before continuing.
"I rode for the capital to warn you myself. No delays. No intermediaries."
A healer moved to offer water, but she gave the faintest shake of her head and pressed on.
"I made good time through the Fenwild… until the ascent."
Valerius's eyes narrowed. He knew the road well—the Fenwild Ascent, the ridge path that rose above the plains and overlooked the distant marshes. The only reliable route out of that region for miles.
Seraphel stared past him now, seeing it again.
"I was halfway up when the earth moved."
Her fingers tightened weakly against the blanket.
"The whole path collapsed beneath me."
The room went silent.
"Not age. Not weather. Not chance."
She turned her eye back to him, anger burning hotter than pain.
"They took it."
Valerius said nothing.
Seraphel's voice dropped to a rasp.
"Those creatures sank the only road out of the marshes for miles."
The weight of it settled over everyone present.
This had not been an outbreak.
It had been strategy.
Seraphel's breathing grew rougher, but she forced the words through.
"When I came back to my senses…"
Her gaze unfocused, drifting into memory.
"She was there."
Valerius did not need to ask who.
"The girl from the village."
A faint shudder passed through one of the healers.
Seraphel's jaw tightened.
"She was waiting for me in the wreckage like she knew exactly where I would fall."
The chamber seemed to contract around her words.
"We fought."
Two simple words. Heavy with everything they concealed.
"I gave her everything I had left."
Her hand twitched weakly against the sheets, as if remembering the motions of battle.
"Every ounce of energy. Every reserve of magic. Every strike I could still force through broken ribs and failing breath."
Valerius's expression darkened, but he remained silent, letting her finish.
"She kept coming."
The words were barely above a whisper now.
"Burned. Broken. Thrown apart."
A pause.
"She kept coming."
Even the healers looked shaken.
Then, through the pain, the faintest trace of pride touched Seraphel's battered face.
"I would not have made it out…" she murmured, "if not for my steed."
Her eye softened for the first time.
"Old fool used his light gift one last time. Blinded her. Carried me clear."
Valerius lowered his head slightly, understanding what one last time meant.
Seraphel's voice thinned to almost nothing.
"I don't remember anything after that," she whispered.
The words barely reached the space between them.
Her eye remained half-lidded, fixed somewhere beyond the room.
Valerius was quiet for a moment before answering.
"You were found miles outside the capital."
That drew the smallest flicker of attention back to him.
He spoke gently, as one soldier honoring another's fallen companion.
"Your steed carried you farther than any beast had a right to."
A pause.
"He rode to his last breath to save you."
Seraphel stared at him.
Pain shifted across her face—not from wounds this time, but from loss.
Her fingers curled weakly into the sheets.
Valerius lowered his gaze briefly.
"The best," Seraphel said hoarsely.
The words carried quiet certainty.
"He was one of the best."
Her breathing trembled once, grief and pride tangled together.
Then something changed.
Her eye unfocused sharply.
A flicker of memory cut through the haze.
The wrecked road. Broken stone. Blood in her mouth. The infected girl standing in the dust with black ooze running down her face.
And smiling.
Seraphel's body went rigid.
"She said something…"
Valerius looked up immediately.
Her pulse had quickened beneath the healer's monitoring sigils.
"She called me…"
A tremor ran through her voice.
"Little Pillar."
The room stilled.
Then the rest hit her all at once.
Those black, glassy eyes.
That impossible recognition.
The mocking familiarity.
Not random hunger. Not infection. Not mindless corruption.
Memory crashed over her in violent waves.
Another battlefield.
Another nightmare.
Six years ago.
Seraphel jerked upright with a strangled gasp, tearing half-free of the blankets as panic seized her whole body.
"Easy—!" a healer cried, rushing forward.
But she barely heard them.
Her breathing became sharp, ragged bursts. Too fast. Too shallow.
"It's him," she choked out.
Valerius was on his feet instantly.
"Seraphel—look at me."
But her good eye was wide with raw terror, fixed on something only she could see.
"Those eyes—" she gasped. "I remember those eyes."
Her hands shook violently.
"Just like six years ago."
Seraphel clawed weakly at the sheets, every breath coming faster than the last.
"That's why…" she choked out. "That's why the word sounded familiar."
Valerius's face hardened, though he kept his voice steady.
"What word?"
Her eye snapped to him, wide and terrified.
"Songweaver."
The name seemed to drain warmth from the room.
Seraphel shook her head frantically, struggling to force the memory into words.
"I knew it when they said it. I knew I'd heard it before, but I couldn't place it—"
Her voice broke.
Now she could.
And the realization shattered what little calm remained.
She stared at Valerius like she was trying to warn him before something already at the door stepped through.
When she spoke again, it was in a frightened whisper no one in the infirmary would ever forget.
"Chaos has come back."
The last word had barely left her lips when her body jerked violently.
Seraphel arched against the bed with a sharp, involuntary convulsion. The blanket tangled around her legs as her hands seized into rigid claws.
"Seraphel!" Valerius exclaimed as Seraphel's eyes rolled back white.
The monitors flared in alarm. Healing sigils around the bed burst into frantic light as her pulse spiked and scattered erratically.
Then the seizure truly took hold.
Her body tremored hard enough to shake the frame beneath her. Breath caught in broken gasps. Bandages pulled loose as the strain tore at half-healed wounds.
"Hold her!" a medic shouted.
The infirmary exploded into motion.
Healers rushed from every side—some restraining her shoulders and arms carefully, others reactivating stabilizing arrays beneath the mattress. One tore open a case of crystal ampoules while another slammed fresh sigils into the air above her chest.
"Contain the resonance surge!"
"Her core is destabilizing!"
"More lightward tonic—now!"
Valerius was forced back a step as three medics crowded the bedside. His hands curled into fists at his sides, helpless fury warring with the instinct to intervene.
Selene reached the doorway just in time to see the chaos inside.
The room filled with the sharp scent of burning herbs and activated magic. White light flashed in pulses over Seraphel's convulsing form as the healers fought to pull her back from whatever edge she had been driven to.
Above it all, what had once been feared as mere speculation was now a confirmed reality.
Chaos has come back.