Heat.
Cold.
Something in between.
Not the kind Seraphina controlled—the elegant, deliberate warmth she carried like a crown—but raw heat, the kind that seared beneath the skin, pulsing like a second heartbeat. He sat up abruptly, clutching his forearm.
The mark burned.
Not sharply. Not painfully.
No — worse.
It pulsed. Like something inside it was waking.
Golden light flickered beneath the skin for a moment before dying down again, leaving him breathless. He stared at it, willing it to settle.
It didn't.
"Still glowing, are we?"
Seraphina's voice drifted from the doorway, smooth as velvet. Too smooth. Liam knew better now — her calm always meant she was hiding something.
He lifted his arm. "It's getting worse."
"It's getting louder," she corrected, stepping in, her robes whispering against the stone floor. "Magic this old doesn't burn…it speaks."
"That's supposed to make me feel better?"
Seraphina smiled — the kind of smile that didn't reach her eyes.
"No. But truth rarely comforts."
She came closer, her gaze fixed on the mark with an intensity that made Liam swallow. For the first time, he realized:
She wasn't observing.
She was studying.
Her fingers hovered above his skin. "How long has it been reacting like this?"
"Since the Ember Rite."
"Mmm." She tilted her head. "I suspected the moment your flames devoured mine."
He stiffened. "Is that why you've barely let me leave this room?"
Seraphina met his eyes — and didn't deny it.
"It isn't confinement," she said softly. "It's protection."
"That's definitely the exact thing someone who's confining me would say."
Her expression didn't flicker. But something in her eyes sharpened, if only for a breath.
It was gone just as quickly.
She sat across from him, folding her hands in her lap. "Do you want the answer, Liam?"
He hesitated. His pulse thudded in his ears. "Answer to what?"
"To the thing you've been afraid to ask."
Her tone went quiet, almost tender.
"Where your power comes from."
Something cold settled in Liam's stomach.
He'd wondered his whole life.
He'd hated the mark.
He'd hidden it.
He'd feared it.
But now…
Now it felt like something trapped under his skin was pushing back, clawing to get out.
Liam swallowed. "Tell me."
Seraphina lifted her gaze to his — and for once, she looked genuinely conflicted.
"That mark of yours," she began slowly, "is not human. Not vampiric. Not witchbound. It doesn't belong to any lineage surviving today."
She paused.
"It predates us, Liam. All of us."
The room felt suddenly too small.
"What do you mean, predates us? Vampires have existed longer than—"
"Than kingdoms? Than mortal history?" She shook her head. "Your mark predates the sun as you know it."
His breath caught. "That's not possible."
"Oh, it's very possible."
Her gaze darts briefly to his arm.
"It is a sigil of the Sun Cult."
Liam stared at her. "I don't know what that is."
"You wouldn't." Her voice softened, almost regretful. "They were eradicated before you were born."
"By who?"
Seraphina didn't answer.
Her silence said enough.
Liam exhaled shakily. "So they…what? They marked me before they died?"
"No." Seraphina leaned in. "They marked your bloodline."
"My…my family?"
Her eyes softened, and it startled him.
"You were never meant to be ordinary, Liam."
He wanted to laugh. Or scream.
Instead he said, voice barely steady, "So what exactly does the Sun-Seed do?"
Seraphina's lashes lowered, hiding her expression.
"It opens things that should stay closed."
A cold shiver ran through him. "Like what?"
She smiled faintly — but he knew that smile now.
It was the smile she used when she was lying without speaking.
"You don't need to worry about that yet."
Liam stood abruptly. "No. I'm done with half-truths. What does it open?"
Seraphina rose with him, her movement fluid, predatory.
"Power," she murmured. "Doors. Paths. Gates long buried."
He caught the single slip.
Gates.
Plural.
His stomach tightened. "And you need me to open one."
Seraphina said nothing.
But her silence, again, said more than any confession.
Liam stepped back. "So I'm not a king to you." His chest tightened painfully. "I'm a key."
At that, Seraphina finally flinched.
Barely — a tightening of her jaw, a soft inhale.
But Liam saw it.
He wished he hadn't.
"Liam," she said quietly, "you are more important than you understand. The fate of magic—"
"Stop."
He didn't raise his voice.
He didn't need to.
Seraphina went still.
"Just tell me the truth," he said. "For once."
She looked torn, truly torn — like honesty hurt her. "If I tell you…you may hate me."
"I might already."
Her breath hitched.
Then she stepped closer. Slowly. Carefully. As if approaching something fragile.
"The truth is this," she whispered. "Your power is ancient. Untamed. Dangerous. But I am not using you."
She placed her hand over his mark.
"I am saving you."
Her voice shook.
"You cannot control this alone."
Liam searched her face. For the first time, she wasn't cold. She wasn't regal. She wasn't the untouchable vampire queen.
She looked…afraid.
Not of him.
For him.
He hated how much that shook him.
Before he could speak, the mark flared — burning gold beneath her palm.
Liam cried out, stumbling back as light exploded across the room.
Seraphina swore under her breath — something primal, ancient.
"Damn it—! Liam, breathe!"
"I—I can't—!"
Heat surged through his veins, fire racing under his skin like living lightning. His vision blurred, his body convulsing as the mark expanded, glowing brighter, brighter—
Seraphina grabbed his jaw, forcing his eyes open.
"Listen to me," she hissed, voice trembling. "Do NOT let it break loose!"
"I can't—!"
"You MUST!"
He collapsed to his knees, gasping as golden fire erupted along his arms.
Seraphina cursed again — and for the first time, Liam saw panic in her eyes.
Real, unmasked panic.
"Liam—Liam, look at me!"
He couldn't.
The fire was too strong.
The mark pulsed again — harder — and the room exploded into light—
...
Seraphina's fingers tightened around Liam's, almost imperceptibly, as though she feared he might disappear between one heartbeat and the next.
"You are not cursed," she whispered again, softer this time, the fire in her voice dimming into something fragile. "You were never cursed."
Liam swallowed hard, his pulse unsteady. "Then why does it feel like I'm losing pieces of myself? Why does the light…watch me?"
Seraphina hesitated — and that alone frightened him more than the truth might have.
"Because it remembers you," she said at last. "And memory is a dangerous thing."
A shiver crawled up his spine.
He tried to look away, but Seraphina lifted his chin gently, guiding his gaze back to hers. Her touch was warm — warmer than her flames had ever been. Not blistering. Not claiming.
Just…human.
"Liam," she breathed, "listen to me. Whatever you saw — whatever spoke to you — it is not the world's truth. It is its truth. And you must learn to tell the difference."
Liam's jaw tightened. "How am I supposed to do that?"
"By staying alive long enough to learn."
Her lips curved into something tired, sad, and unbearably tender.
"And by staying close to me."
He didn't answer.
Because he didn't know if "close" meant safety…
or something far more dangerous.
Seraphina seemed to sense the conflict flickering through him. Her expression shuttered, but not out of anger — out of restraint. She took a slow step back, releasing his hand with a care that felt strangely like reverence.
"You should rest," she said quietly. "Your mind is still…too open. The Sun-Seed left marks. Not all of them are visible."
Liam stared at his palm where her warmth lingered.
"Will it happen again?" he asked.
"The visions?"
A long silence.
Then—
"Yes. And worse."
He exhaled, unsteady. "You aren't sugarcoating this."
"I can lie if it comforts you."
"No," Liam said, shaking his head. "I'd rather choke on the truth."
Something in her softened, almost imperceptibly.
She turned away first, stepping into the dim gold glow of the chamber. Her silhouette flickered against the walls — tall, regal, cracked at the edges where even her fire couldn't hide the exhaustion.
"Sleep," she murmured. "Tomorrow we start again. Your power is changing too quickly. If you lose control now, the light inside you will take…what it wants."
He felt the implication like a stone dropping into his stomach.
"And what does it want?" he asked.
Seraphina didn't turn around.
She only said, voice low and grim:
"Once, long ago, it wanted the world."
The torches hummed softly.
The room seemed to shrink around him.
Liam sat slowly on the edge of the stone bed, the heat finally settling in his bones like cooling embers.
"…And now?" he whispered.
Seraphina paused at the doorway, her back still to him. Her shoulders rose and fell once, as if every word she hadn't spoken weighed her down like chains.
Then, without looking back:
"Now?"
Her voice trembled.
"It wants you."
She stepped out, the door closing behind her with a soft, final sound.
Liam stared into the quiet that followed.
His heartbeat echoed in his ears.
Steady.
Human.
Mortal.
Yet beneath it — deeper, older — another pulse stirred, slow and patient, like something ancient shifting in its sleep.
Chosen, she had said.
Liam didn't know if that made him a savior…
or the fuse to a catastrophe waiting to ignite.
But one thing was certain:
Whatever was inside him was awake now.
And it was listening.