Seraphine hadn’t thought of him in years.
Her “brother.”
Not by blood, but by circumstance. A boy with soft eyes and a crooked smile. He was older by a few years, quiet, kind—until he wasn’t. Until the day he vanished.
She remembered the way he used to sneak her sweets when their “parents” weren’t looking. The way he’d whisper stories to her at night, when the bruises were fresh and the house was too quiet. He was the only warmth in that cold place.
And then, one day, he was gone.
They told her he’d run away. But now, with the truth unraveling, she wondered: had he been taken? Had he been silenced?
Or had he tried to protect her—and paid the price?
The vision came in a dream, triggered by the journal’s pulse.
Her real mother stood in a grove of silver trees, her hair like moonlight, her eyes the same lavender as Seraphine’s. Her father towered beside her, antlered and fierce, his tattoos glowing with firelight.
“She will not be safe in the Courts,” her mother whispered, cradling the infant Seraphine. “They will twist her. Use her.”
“We’ll bind her scent. Cloak her magic,” her father said. “Hide her where they’ll never look.”
Her mother kissed Seraphine’s brow. “Forgive us, little star. One day, you’ll shine brighter than all of us.”
And then they vanished into the mist—leaving her behind.
Lucien found her in the Temple’s inner sanctum, where the shadows clung to the walls like smoke.
“You’re not afraid of it,” Seraphine said, watching him.
“I was born in it,” he replied, stepping into the gloom. “Shadow magic isn’t evil. It’s misunderstood. Like you.”
He taught her to breathe through it. To listen. To let the darkness in without letting it consume her. The shadow responded to her emotions—rage sharpened it, sorrow deepened it, love… complicated it.
“You’re not just Fae,” Lucien said one night. “You’re something older. Something that remembers the first silence.”
Seraphine shivered. “What if I lose myself to it?”
Lucien’s eyes glowed. “Then I’ll find you.”
The Temple had become a battleground of tension.
Ronan paced like a caged beast, his heat warping the air. Kael watched from the shadows, silent and brooding. Thorne lounged near the fountain, his smile a mask for the storm in his eyes. Lucien stood apart, always watching, always calculating.
“She’s growing too fast,” Kael said. “She needs time.”
“She needs control,” Lucien countered. “Power without mastery is a blade without a hilt.”
Ronan growled. “She needs protection. Not lectures.”
Thorne sighed. “She needs space. And trust.”
They all wanted to help. They just couldn’t agree on how.
Eventually, they compromised.
The Temple would be their base. Each of them would take a wing—separate, but close. Bound by the Pact, but not by force.
Seraphine set the rules.
“No fighting in the halls. No decisions without me. And no… claiming.”
They blinked.
“I know the prophecy says we’re bound,” she said, arms crossed. “But I’m seventeen. You’re all… ancient. I need time. I need to know you. Not just your magic.”
Kael nodded first. “Fair.”
Thorne smiled. “Slow can be sweet.”
Ronan grunted. “I’ll try.”
Lucien only bowed. “As you wish, little star.”
That night, the journal reappeared on her bed—its cover warm, its pages new.
She opened it with trembling hands.
The ink shimmered.
You’ve awakened the first four elements. The fifth waits in the Hollow Vale. Go there, but not alone. The Pact must walk with you.
Your mother was a Seer. Your father, a Warden of Flame. You are both—and more.
Beware the Sixth. It watches. It waits.
Seraphine closed the book, heart pounding.
The journey was only beginning.
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