CHAPTER TWO
The Blood Oath
The morning in Castle Alraen was too still.
Seraphine woke before dawn, her breath visible in the frigid air of the west tower. Despite the heavy tapestries and roaring hearth, the cold here didn't come from the weather — it came from something older. Something beneath the stone. The kind of chill that clung to bones.
She stood barefoot by the window, eyes fixed on the ruins below — the Temple of the Flame, shattered long ago. Her mother had once prayed there. So had she. Now it was ash and silence.
A knock echoed at the door. Polite. Precise.
She pulled on her heavy robe and answered it to find a young maid bowing low.
"Her Grace has requested your presence for morning repast," the girl murmured, not meeting Seraphine's eyes.
"Of course," Seraphine replied. "Lead the way."
---
The dining hall was smaller than she remembered, yet the air was just as thick — with perfume, ambition, and poison smiles.
Nobles lined the long table, draped in velvets and gold, speaking in hushed voices behind bejeweled fans. They all looked up when she entered. Whispers followed.
There she is.
The girl from the borderlands.
Another puppet bride for the prince.
She walked past them like mist — untouchable and calm. Let them sneer. Let them underestimate her. It would make her vengeance all the sweeter.
At the head of the table sat Queen Regent Iralyn, dressed in deep sapphire, sipping from a cup as though nothing in the world could ever touch her.
Beside her, in black and red, sat Prince Kael.
His gaze met hers the moment she entered. Cool. Sharp. And far too knowing.
"Lady Seraphine," the queen said. "We trust you slept well?"
"I did," she said, taking the seat offered to her. "The west tower still holds many memories."
A pause. Then, the queen smiled. "Of course. That wing has always been... quiet."
Kael said nothing, but his eyes didn't leave her.
"I understand the prince and I are to begin courtship rituals soon," Seraphine said lightly, slicing into a piece of fruit with a silver knife. "Will there be a schedule? Or should I expect to be summoned like a hound?"
A few nobles choked on their wine.
Kael's mouth twitched. "You'll find I don't whistle for things I don't own."
"Then let's hope you never try," she said smoothly.
The queen's eyes glittered. "Such spirit."
Seraphine smiled. "I inherited it from my mother."
That silenced the table.
---
After breakfast, she walked the palace alone. Or pretended to. She could feel the guards' eyes on her from the shadows — assigned to watch her every move.
Let them. She wasn't looking to escape. She was looking to remember.
The halls had changed in decor but not in essence. She touched old stone where she once played as a child, now colder, as if mourning something long lost. Her steps took her westward again, drawn by instinct more than memory.
Then she saw it — a mirror at the end of a side hall, dust-covered and cracked. Something pulsed beneath her skin.
She approached it slowly.
The mirror wasn't a mirror. It shimmered faintly, like heat behind glass. The frame bore the mark of her bloodline — a tiny flame, carved at the top and long since scrubbed away.
She pressed her palm to the glass.
A breath.
A whisper.
The wall clicked.
And the mirror opened.
---
Behind it was a narrow passage, cobweb-laced and black as pitch. She stepped in without hesitation, the dagger beneath her robe drawn and ready.
After a dozen paces, she entered a chamber.
It was her mother's old sanctum.
Or what was left of it.
The altar had been smashed, its stones scorched. The scrolls lining the walls were burned at the edges. But the scent... the scent still lingered — roses and fire. Her mother's scent.
She dropped to her knees before the ruins, placing a hand over the stones. "I'm here," she whispered. "I'm sorry it took this long."
The air stirred.
And then she saw it — a pendant, buried beneath blackened parchment. A flame-shaped crystal, gold-bound, still faintly warm.
She touched it.
And the world shattered.
---
She was standing in fire.
Not burning — surrounded.
A great hall of flame stretched endlessly around her. In its center, chained in molten gold, was a being unlike anything she'd ever seen — a man made of ember and ash, his eyes twin furnaces, his voice a roar and a whisper.
"You bear her blood," he said. "You walk the cursed path."
"Who are you?" she asked, her voice trembling.
"I am the first fire. The breath of the old gods. She bound me... and broke the world."
"Who?"
"Your bloodline."
He stretched his hand toward her, fire dripping from his fingers like rain.
"She made a bargain. She sealed it with a kiss and a lie. Now the Curse lives in all who carry her flame."
"What curse?"
"The one that turns love to ash. The one that ends kingdoms. It sleeps in you, child of embers. But it wakes soon."
Seraphine stepped back. "I don't want power like this."
"Then perish. Or burn."
The flames rushed toward her—
---
She gasped awake, the relic burning hot in her hand.
Her clothes were damp with sweat. Her fingers shook.
She stood in the chamber again — alone. But something had changed. The pendant now glowed softly against her skin, pulsing like a heartbeat.
She pressed it to her chest. And whispered the words she had not spoken in eleven years:
> "Sirae val'kareth."
A language lost. A flame tongue.
And somewhere outside the palace — deep in the broken temple — a candle ignited.
---
That night, she paced her room, heart still racing from the vision.
The being — that god — hadn't lied. The curse lived in her. She could feel it now, coiled beneath her ribs like a serpent.
But she would not let it control her.
She would master it.
There was a knock — soft, hesitant.
She crossed the room and opened the door.
No one.
Only a folded slip of parchment on the floor.
She picked it up, heart pounding.
One line:
> "They know you're not here to marry the prince. Meet me by the crypts. Midnight. Come alone."
---
She closed the door quietly.
The game had begun.
And fire was patient —
But it never forgot.