POV: Seraphina
Seraphina set four generations of women on the desk. Four women who should have lived long enough to awaken. Four who didn't.
"Your Majesty," she said, "this is where the killings begin."
She spread the bundles across the desk in time order, each tied with ribbon that had faded from red to rust-brown over the years. Her voice stayed cold and businesslike. The only way to get through this without breaking.
She opened the first bundle.
"Great-great-grandmother. The infant princess who escaped with Sir Aldric Thorne and Lady Maren Ashwood. She grew up in hiding, raised by two people who sacrificed everything to protect her."
Documents showed a timeline pieced together from multiple sources, correspondence between safe houses, financial records of support networks, witness accounts from people who remembered the rescue.
"She was different from later generations. Stronger." Seraphina's voice was serious. "She completed two of the sacred flames before they moved against her. Learned to detect poison after early attempts. Secured her position through military alliances that made forced marriage impossible."
She set that report aside.
"So they changed tactics. Waited. Let her marry by choice. Let her bear an heir."
"From age eight to eighteen, she faced multiple attempts. Men who appeared in her life through seemingly natural ways. Traveling merchants. Distant cousins of neighbors. A scholar passing through."
Seraphina pulled out specific incident reports.
"Her guardians caught most of them. Recognized when their stories didn't match. Noticed they were being watched. Three attempts they stopped."
Those files went aside, making room for a different document.
"Age nineteen, a fourth attempt worked. Marcus Weaver. Minor merchant with weak earth magic. His background checked out better than the others, it had to, because the family had gotten better at catching fakes."
The marriage contract sat on top of this bundle, signed in two hands.
"They married. Later investigation shows Marcus got payments from an unknown source starting two years before they met. Regular money drops through a holding company that later fell apart, records destroyed."
Eleanor leaned forward, examining the financial documentation.
"Age twenty-one," Seraphina continued, her throat tight. "Riding accident. Expert rider according to all accounts. Gentle horse. Died from head injury. Her daughter was eighteen months old."
The death certificate listed it as accidental death with no investigation in the rural area with limited authority.
"Could have been genuine accident," Seraphina said quietly. "Could have been engineered. No way to prove either after 130 years."
The second bundle came next.
"Great-grandmother. Similar pattern. Age fifteen to eighteen, multiple men trying to court her. Family caught and avoided most."
She pulled out court records, her hands steady despite the content.
"Then she attended a court function. Was drugged. Woke in a lord's chambers with no memory of how she got there."
Seraphina's voice stayed flat, factual.
"Medical examiner's private notes show bruises on her wrists. The scandal required swift marriage within two weeks to preserve family honor."
Eleanor had gone very still.
"Marriage to a noble with weak magic bloodline. Background investigation shows... things didn't add up. Not proof he was planted, but questions that were never answered."
The death certificate listed sudden illness at age twenty-two.
"Three years after producing an heir. Rural area again. Limited medical resources. Could be natural. Could be poison. No way to confirm."
She opened the third bundle.
"Grandmother. Pattern continues. More watching after two generations of strange deaths. They caught several attempts. Investigation records show they moved twice when the watchers became too obvious."
Marriage contract to someone who appeared genuine.
"She died age twenty-three. Childbirth complications."
Seraphina's voice had gone flat, mechanical. The only way to present this without screaming.
"She bore a daughter. Lived two more years. Then died giving birth to a second child. Both mother and baby lost. The second child never drew breath."
She paused, letting the horror of it settle.
"Childbirth complications are common, especially in rural areas. But the timing follows the pattern. She died when her awakening trials should have begun."
She looked up at Eleanor, meeting the Empress's gaze directly.
"Three deaths. Three convenient timings. All before the women could complete Flamebearer awakening trials. All shortly after producing the next generation."
Seraphina pulled out another document, Mother's research on demon attack patterns.
"And with each failed awakening, demon attacks increased. The realm's protection weakening with every Celestine woman who died before completing her trials."
She set the chart down. The data showed clear, undeniable evidence.
"The Celestine bloodline was designated cosmic anchor. They maintain realm stability. When they're kept from awakening, the barriers between realms degrade. Demons breach more easily. More often."
Her voice stayed cold, factual. Everyone in the room understood what she was saying.
"Four generations of failed awakenings. 125 years of building pressure. The demon crisis everyone thinks is recent? It started when they began killing them."
"Could be coincidence," Thalion said, but his voice lacked conviction. "Rural medicine, dangerous childbirth, accidents happen."
"One is coincidence," Caelan interrupted quietly. "Two is suspicious. Three is a pattern. And Duchess D'Lorien hasn't presented the fourth case yet."
Caelan had read the situation correctly.
Seraphina reached for the final bundle. Her hands weren't quite steady.
"The fourth woman. Lady Adrianne D'Lorien."
Eleanor's posture shifted. This was recent history. A woman Eleanor had known personally, even if distantly.
Seraphina swallowed hard before continuing.
"Approximately forty years ago, Lady Adrianne attended an imperial court function." Her voice had gone very quiet. "She was drugged. Someone tried to engineer the same trap that worked on previous generations, drug the woman, create a compromising situation, force a scandal marriage."
She pulled out the incident report from that night, official court records that dismissed the incident in only a few lines.
"Lady Adrianne experienced sudden illness. Duke Lucien D'Lorien escorted her to her chambers. Rumors of scandal circulated briefly but no formal accusations emerged."
Seraphina set down a different document, Lady Adrianne's personal diary entry from that night, written after the drug wore off.
"Lady Adrianne described waking disoriented in a corridor. Not knowing how she got there. A lord she barely knew trying to guide her toward the guest wing. Then Duke Lucien D'Lorien appeared, removed the man's hand, and escorted her to safety."
Eleanor had gone very still.
"Duke Lucien broke the pattern through simple intervention when he stepped in, acted decisively, and protected her." Seraphina's throat was tight. "She wrote about it later: 'If Lucien hadn't been there, I would have woken in that lord's chambers. The scandal would have been unavoidable. I would have been forced into marriage within days. Trapped the same way.'"
Seraphina looked up, meeting Eleanor's gaze.
"Your Majesty, that happened at an imperial function. Approximately forty years ago. Someone drugged a noblewoman at your court to force her into a trap."
The implications settled over the room with cold clarity, this had happened in Eleanor's palace, under her protection, approximately forty years ago.
Eleanor's expression had shifted from careful thinking to something harder. Colder.
"You're certain it was deliberate drugging?"
"Lady Adrianne was certain. She'd learned to detect most poisons after years of vigilance, family skill passed down through generations. This was something new. Something sophisticated enough to bypass her defenses."
Seraphina pulled out the final document in Lady Adrianne's research bundle.
"After that night, she married Duke Lucien. Broke the pattern of forced marriages to weak bloodlines. And they began investigating immediately. Three years of intensive work tracing money, following patterns, documenting connections."
Her throat tightened.
"Duke Lucien used his military intelligence contacts. Lady Adrianne used her family's old networks. That initial investigation established the foundation. Lady Adrianne continued the research for years afterward, throughout her daughter's childhood, until she died eight years ago."
The death certificate from eight years ago listed the cause as unknown, with doctors unable to explain her deterioration.
"She died slowly over six months. Duke Lucien never understood why. The truth wasn't discovered until her research was found."
Seraphina's voice cracked slightly but she pushed through.
"She cast something. Ancient Flamebearer magic that required the caster's life as payment. Duke Lucien didn't know what she'd done until it was too late to stop it."
She met Eleanor's gaze directly.
"Lady Adrianne killed herself casting that spell. And she died before finishing her investigation, before finding out who planned 130 years of murder."
Seraphina's voice cracked on the last word. The crack was small enough that most people wouldn't notice, though she recognized she'd lost the clinical detachment that had carried her through the presentation.
She'd laid out Lady Adrianne's sacrifice as documented proof, timeline verification and cause-and-effect analysis, but Mother hadn't been evidence to her.
Mother was the woman who sang old Flamebearer lullabies while braiding Seraphina's hair and taught her to read patterns in flame and recognize poison in wine. She spent her final months in agony, slowly dying from magic that consumed her from the inside out, so her daughter might have a second chance.
Seraphina's hands trembled as she set down the death certificate. She pressed them flat against the desk surface, willing them steady.
The room had gone absolutely silent.
Seraphina kept her gaze on the documents. If she looked up now and met anyone's eyes, her composure would break completely.
Eleanor stood motionless near the desk, her expression carefully blank. The Empress's knuckles had gone white where her fingers pressed against the desk edge.
Behind Eleanor, Thalion had gone absolutely rigid, staring at the documents with intense focus. The evidence revealed a pattern spanning four generations: deaths timed with suspicious precision, infiltration attempts, forced marriages, and systematic elimination of Flamebearer women before they could complete their awakening trials.
And one of those attempts had happened here. In this palace. Decades ago, during Eleanor's reign.
At an imperial function.
Under Eleanor's watch.
Eleanor finally spoke, her voice very quiet.
"Four women. Four generations. Four incidents that could be chance or could be pattern." She paused. "And one of them happened at an imperial function. In this palace. Approximately forty years ago."
Eleanor's words carried confirmation and agreement, a threat finally spoken aloud.
Seraphina met the Empress's gaze directly.
"Yes, Your Majesty."
The simple, undeniable words carried damning weight between them.
Eleanor's expression shifted as her careful neutrality cracked and hardened into something colder.
Something that reminded Seraphina that Eleanor hadn't become Empress through charm alone.
This was the woman who had survived court politics for decades, kept power despite her dynasty not being the ancient Flamebearer line, and survived murder attempts, coups, and constant challenges to her authority.
Someone had planned a drugging at her court function, tried to force a noblewoman into a trap under Eleanor's own roof, and succeeded with three previous generations before Duke Lucien D'Lorien broke the pattern through simple intervention.
Eleanor turned to face the window, her back to the room. Her shoulders rose and fall with a single deep breath before her posture went rigid.
Eleanor was probably running through decades of court functions, trying to remember which nobles had been there forty years ago, which lords had shown interest in young Lady Adrianne, and who had been there when the drugging happened.
The silence stretched.
Finally, Eleanor spoke. Her voice had changed. Gone cold. Professional. Stripped of the careful politeness she usually used with nobles.
This was the voice of an Empress who had just learned someone had planned murder under her own roof, broken the safety of imperial functions, and run a plot spanning four generations while Eleanor ruled, seemingly blind to the pattern.
"You said Lady Adrianne and Duke Lucien investigated together for years."
Eleanor kept staring out the window, shoulders rigid, hands clasped behind her back with white-knuckled force.
"Show me what they found."
Eleanor didn't look away from the window.
"When we find who did this," she said, "I will destroy them myself."
Seraphina felt her breath catch.
Because the next documents would trace the money.
And money always led back to those who paid for murder.