Seraphine finally met his eyes.
“We don’t. We bleed for it. We trap it in a ritual circle, offer it one memory for every line of power. Seven lines. Seven truths. It drinks them. Then, if we survive… it gives us the blood.”
He studied her face. “And how many people walk out of something like that?”
She didn’t answer. Which was answer enough.
That night, while the others slept, Cassian sat beside her at the edge of camp, watching the coals burn low.
“You ever done one of these before?” he asked.
Her jaw ticked. “I’ve studied the rite. We all do. But no. Not like this.”
“And you were just gonna go through with it alone?”
“I’ve always gone through with it alone.”
Cassian shook his head. “You say that like it’s a badge of honor.”
She looked over, face softer than he expected in the firelight.
“It’s not.”
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “You don’t have to prove anything, you know. Not to them. Not to me.”
Seraphine’s laugh was dry. “I have to prove it to the dead.”
That sat heavy between them.
He didn’t say more.
They reachedthe edge of the marsh the following afternoon.
It was worse than he expected—choked with fog and bones, the water slick with decay. The trees here were dead but watching, somehow. Their twisted trunks arched toward the sky like they’d died screaming.
Cassian had seen war, but this place? This was rot soaked into the bones of the world. A place the gods had clearly abandoned.
Seraphine didn’t hesitate.
She stepped close to the brackish water, drew her dagger—a curved blade made from bleached dragonbone—and sliced opena thin line across her palm. Whitefire flickered along the wound as she dipped her fingers in her blood, then the ink.
She knelt and began carving the first of seven ritual lines into the ground.
The marsh sizzled at the touch of it.
“Seven truths,” she murmured. “Seven lies turned honest. That’s the cost.”
Cassian knelt beside her. “You sure you want to do this?”
“No.”
But she met his gaze, fierce and unyielding.
“I’m still doing it.”
Gods help him— He respected the hell out of that.
He offered his hand.
