That stillness. That silence.
It was the worst answer of all.
“You knew,” she whispered. “Gods. You knew.”
Her father finally moved—only to tilt his chin.
“Vaela was doing what needed to be done,” he said, his tone as matter-of-fact as if he were discussing trade routes. “To ensure Drakar’s supremacy.”
“You let her speak with Mirael?” Her voice rose. “You let her open the gate?”
“I guided her,” Vaela interjected coolly, stepping closer. “Mirael offered knowledge. A way to wield the Hollow. Not fear it.”
“You didn’t wield it,” Seraphine snapped. “You fed it.”
Her hands trembled, not from fear. But fury.
From her fingers, sparks flared—Whitefire.
The ancient flame licked up her arms, pure and bright and searing, unlike anything she’d ever summoned before.
The world seemed to freeze.
Her father’s eyes narrowed. “You can’t control that.”
“No,” she whispered, voice breaking with something deeper. “But maybe it’s time I stop trying.”
The flame surged—up her shoulders, her spine, blazing into a corona around her. It didn’t hurt. It remembered.
So did she.
Every queen before her. Every betrayal. Every secret buried by her House to preserve a legacy built on blood and lies.
Whitefire bloomed from her back like wings.
“Seraphine—” her father warned, his voice cutting now, his hand reaching for the hilt at his side.
But he was already too late.
She screamed, and the Whitefire answered.
It erupted from her like a star collapsing—brilliant, endless, devouring. It scorched the dais, the air, the very breath in her throat. Wind howled. The sky cracked.
Her father flew backward, smashing into a stone column with a sickening crunch.
Vaela screamed—caught in the blast, her body thrown to the floor, fire wrapping around her wrists and throat like shackles.
She writhed, clawed, tried to shift. But her shadow twitched wrong, peeled from her form like rot from skin.
“You let it in,” Seraphine growled, advancing on her. Whitefire seared the floor with every step. “You let Mirael inside you.”
Vaela’s body jerked. She clawed at her face, her throat. “No—she said—she said she’d help us?—”
“She lied. And you believed her.” Seraphine’s voice shook with grief and rage. “You betrayed me. You betrayed all of us.”
The Whitefire around Vaela pulsed—then lashed. A final strike wrenched something black and hissing from her chest. A memory—no, a fragment of something worse. It screamed as it was pulled free, flailing in the firelight before it was consumed.
Silence.
