Seraphine's POV
I woke up screaming in someone else's body.
Not my body. It's not my rooms. Not my life.
When I looked down, I saw hands that weren't mine. They were smaller, darker, and had three glowing soul bonds that looked like charges. The hands of Lyanna. It was impossible for me to leave Lyanna Thorne's body.
"Get out!" From across the room, I could hear my own scream. My real body stood there, looking at me with Lyanna's scared green eyes. "Get out of my head!"
We'd switched. Somehow when the power exploded, our souls had changed places through the shadow bond.
"What did you do?" Cassian grabbed my shoulders—no, Lyanna's shoulders, the body I was stuck in. His touch felt different from this side. Warmer. Safer. The fire bond hummed between us, trying to pull me closer.
Except it wasn't pulling me. It was pulling Lyanna, wherever her soul was hidden.
"I didn't do anything!" The words came out in Lyanna's voice. I hated how weak it sounded. How small and scared. "She forced a bond on me and now we're—"
"Tangled," Kieran finished grimly. He stood beside my real body, his storm mark glowing in answer. "The soul bonds formed a connection you weren't ready for. Your souls swapped."
"Fix it!" I ordered. "Right now. Get me back in my own body!"
"I don't know how," Lyanna's voice came from my mouth. She sounded on the edge of fear, touching my face, my hair, my body like she couldn't believe this was real. "I didn't mean to—I don't know what I'm doing!"
Good. Let her be scared. Let her understand what it's like to lose power.
Except... I was scared too. Terrified, actually. Because I could feel everything Lyanna felt—every feeling, every memory, every desperate hope that maybe Cassian actually loved her.
And worse, I could feel her power. Raw Primordial magic coursing through this hybrid body, barely controlled. It felt like holding lightning and fire and shade all at once. How did she live like this? How did she not burst from the pressure?
"We need to reverse this immediately." Cassian's hands still held my shoulders—Lyanna's shoulders. The touch sent confused warmth through me. "Before—"
"Before what?" My real body laughed, but it was Lyanna's broken laugh. "Before everyone learns the great Lady Seraphine is actually a nobody hybrid? Before your precious alliance falls apart?"
She was getting emotional. I didn't blame her. Being stuck in my body, feeling my shadow magic, remembering my memories—it would break anyone.
Especially what she was about to discover.
"Seraphine." Kieran's words cut through the chaos. He grabbed my real body's arm, making Lyanna flinch. "Why do you have a soul bond to her? Soul marks only show between compatible souls. People who could truly love each other."
"That's ridiculous." I tried to cross my arms but these shorter limbs felt wrong. "I hate her. She's ruining everything."
"Then why does the bond exist?" he pressed.
I didn't have an answer. Didn't want to think about it. The shadow link was a mistake, a cosmic joke, something that shouldn't be possible.
But I could feel it now from both sides—the pull toward my real body, the intense hunger to connect, to understand, to stop being so alone.
No. I shoved the feeling down deep. I wasn't alone. I had power. I had plans. I had— Memories that weren't mine filled my mind. Lyanna's memories, available now that I wore her skin:
A childhood of hiding, always pretending to be weaker than she was. A grandmother who loved strongly but kept terrible secrets. Years of loneliness, watching other people find love while she studied old books and convinced herself she didn't need anyone.
Then Cassian. Beautiful, dangerous Cassian who made her feel special for exactly ninety days before destroying her totally.
The terror of learning she was pregnant. The frantic hope that maybe the baby would make him choose her. The soul-crushing moment when she realized she'd been nothing but a distraction.
The feelings hit me like physical blows. Her pain. Her crime. Her absolute belief that she wasn't good enough, would never be good enough, didn't deserve love.
I knew those thoughts. Lived with them every day behind my perfect mask.
"Oh gods," I whispered through Lyanna's mouth. "We're the same."
"What?" Cassian leaned closer.
"We're the same," I repeated, dread flooding through me. " Lyanna and me. We both—" I couldn't finish. Couldn't say out loud that we were both desperate for love, both terrified of rejection, both ready to destroy ourselves for people who didn't deserve us.
The soul bond existed because deep down, underneath all our differences, we were copies of each other.
"No." My real body shook its head furiously. Lyanna's words came out sharp with denial. "I am nothing like you. You're cruel and manipulative and—"
"Scared," I finished. "Just like you. Willing to use any tool to protect yourself. Just like you."
"I don't use dark magic!"
"No, you just accidentally blow up buildings with Primordial power you can't control." I felt Lyanna's—my current—lips twist into a bitter smile. "Much better."
Cassian stepped between us. "This isn't helping. We need to work on switching you back."
"Do we?" The question came from my own mouth, but it was definitely Lyanna asking. She looked at her real hands, bending Seraphine's fingers. "What if I stayed in this body? I'd have her power, her title, her claim to you."
Ice shot through my borrowed blood. "You wouldn't dare."
"Why not?" Lyanna's eyes—my eyes—met mine with surprising steel. "You were ready to kill me for interfering with your plans. Why shouldn't I just take your life instead?"
"Because it would destroy you," Kieran said quietly. "Using her body, her magic—it's all built on shadow and lies. It would poison you from the inside out."
"Maybe I'm already corrupted." Lyanna touched the engagement ring on her present finger. My ring. My future. "Maybe being nice and good and following rules is what got me abandoned while pregnant. Maybe it's time to try something else."
This was bad. Really bad. I could feel the shadow magic reacting to her thoughts, feeding her worst impulses. My magic was deadly to pure souls. It would twist her into something dark.
Something like me. " Lyanna, listen." I forced myself to sound calm even though fear clawed at my throat. "The shadow magic—it doesn't work like other skills. It feeds on negative feelings. Rage, jealousy, fear. The more you use it, the more it uses you."
"Is that what happened to you?" she asked. "Did the magic make you cruel, or were you always this way?"
The question cut deeper than any blade. Because I didn't know anymore. Couldn't remember where Seraphine ended and the shadow magic started.
"We have to switch back," I insisted. "Before—"
The room door exploded inward.
My father stood there—the Shadow Dragon King—with royal guards at his back. His old eyes took in the scene: his daughter's body being worn by the hybrid, the hybrid's body being worn by his daughter, and two dragon princes standing between them.
"So," he said in a voice like grinding stone. "The reports were true. My daughter has been body-swapped with a Primordial."
"Father, I can explain—" "Silence." His eyes fixed on my real body—the one Lyanna currently wore. "There is only one way to break a forced soul bond. One of the bound souls must die."
Horror crashed through me. "No! You can't—"
"If we kill that body," my father continued, pointing at Lyanna-in-my-body, "your soul returns to where it belongs and the bond shatters. Simple."
"You'd kill your own daughter's body?" Cassian's voice shook with fury.
"To save her soul? Absolutely." My father's smile was colder than ice. "Besides, we can always get her a new body. Shadow magic knows many dark practices."
"You're insane," Kieran snarled.
"I'm practical." My father motioned to his guards. "Kill the hybrid's body. Let my daughter come home."
The guards advanced on me—on Lyanna's body that I currently wore.
And I realized with clear clarity that I didn't want to die. Not even to get my real body back. These hands, this heart, this life—I wanted to keep living, even in stolen skin.
"Wait!" Lyanna's voice rang out from my body. "I have a better idea."
Everyone froze.
She smiled with my lips, and it was frightening how natural it looked.
"What if neither of us goes back?" she said. "What if I keep being Lady Seraphine, and she keeps being Lyanna Thorne? I get the power and place I deserve. She gets to escape your shadow magic rot and start over."
My father's eyes narrowed. "You would take my daughter's place?"
"Why not? I'm marked by fate. I have Primordial power. I'm probably more useful to the Shadow Kingdom than your real daughter ever was." Lyanna straightened in my body, and gods help me, she looked like she belonged there. "All I ask in return is that you leave my real body alone. Let Seraphine live a quiet life as a mixed nobody."
"No!" I shouted. "That's not—you can't—"
"Deal," my father said.
The world turned sideways.
"Father, please—"
"You were always too weak," he said to me—to the body that was mine but that everyone now believed was Lyanna. "Too emotional. Too desperate for praise. Perhaps the hybrid will make better use of your inheritance than you ever did."
Lyanna smiled with my face. And in that moment, I saw exactly what she'd become.
She'd learned from me too well.