A hush had fallen over Ravenhold. A hush more terrifying than the roar of battle.
Smoke lay heavy as a funeral shroud across the broken city, wrapping its towers and battlements in a choking veil. Cinders drifted through the air like dying stars, and the once-proud banners of the royal keep hung in tatters, whispering the dirge of a kingdom on the brink.
Seraphina stood at the edge of the shattered throne room, where the stained-glass windows had been reduced to teeth of colored glass jutting from stone. The iron scent of old blood still clung to the floor, a testament to the slaughter that had swept through these halls.
In the center of it all lay the throne—no longer adorned with gold, no longer glinting with the promise of power. It was bare, battered, scorched by flame and streaked with ash. A crownless throne for a crownless realm.
She could almost see echoes of the past in that empty seat. Her father, regal and cold. Her mother, fierce and grieving. The ghosts of everyone who had tried to own her future.
She stepped forward, boots grinding against broken stone. Her shadow stretched out before her like the wings of a fallen angel. And in that ruined hall, something inside her crystallized.
No one would take her destiny again.
No one would tell her how to rule.
No one would decide how her story ended.
Behind her, the doors creaked on battered hinges, and Mira emerged from the gloom, her sword drawn but pointed toward the ground in exhausted truce. Her armor was scorched, the crest barely visible under grime and blood, but she stood straight, unbent.
"Seraphina," she called softly, "the men are waiting for your orders."
Seraphina did not look away from the broken throne. "Then let them wait," she murmured.
Mira's brow furrowed. "The Nightborn could regroup any hour—"
"I said, let them wait."
Her voice rang like a bell of iron. Final. Undeniable.
She stepped closer to the throne, laying a hand on its scorched armrest. The heat of old fires seemed to pulse through the metal, reminding her how close she had come to losing everything.
The only way forward was through blood.
Through pain.
Through choice.
Her choice.
She turned back to Mira with eyes that gleamed obsidian, catching the last dying rays of a sun that had given up shining. "No one sits this throne but me," she said. "And no one wears a crown until this war is finished."
Mira bowed her head, a flicker of pride breaking through the war-weariness. "Then we stand behind you. Always."
For a moment, Seraphina's heart almost ached at the loyalty there, so hard-won, so fragile. But there was no room left for softness.
Not here. Not now.
Meanwhile – Valen's POV
The sea wind cut like knives along the ragged cliffs of the northern coast, where Valen stood with his blade half-buried in the rocky ground. Waves crashed far below, white and furious, their endless rage an echo of the battle still pounding inside his mind.
He had fled Ravenhold not because he was weak, but because he was too strong. Too dangerous. Too intertwined with Seraphina's magic.
If he had stayed, he would have destroyed her.
So he had come here, to the edge of the world, where the night bled into the ocean, to remember who he was. A soldier. A son. A killer.
The distant roar of seabirds barely reached him over the pounding surf. Salt stung his wounds, making him hiss through his teeth, but he welcomed the sting. Pain meant he was still human.
He knelt down, touching the cold earth with fingers that trembled. The bond was gone, but the memory of her fire still burned in his veins. A reminder of what he had given up—and what he might yet have to reclaim.
For even now, in the farthest corners of the realm, whispers had begun to spread. Whispers of a crown reborn in blood. Of a queen who would rule not by prophecy, but by blade and will alone.
Valen bowed his head, a prayer on his lips though he had no gods left.
Let her live.
Let her thrive.
Let her forgive me one day.
The wind screamed around him like a chorus of lost souls, but he did not move.
He would stand vigil until dawn.