Seraphina's POV
The screaming woke me.
I sat up in my tiny servant's bed, heart pounding, unsure what had pulled me from sleep. For a moment, there was only silence. Maybe I'd dreamed it.
Then I heard it again—a shriek of pure terror from somewhere in the manor.
Orange light flickered across my window.
I stumbled out of bed and pressed my face to the glass. The east wing was on fire. Massive flames climbed the walls, turning night into day. Smoke billowed into the sky, thick and black.
"No," I whispered. "No, no, no—"
Another scream. Closer this time.
I ran to my door and threw it open. Heat hit me like a wall. The hallway was filled with smoke, and through it I could see fire—everywhere, consuming everything, moving faster than any normal fire should.
A servant girl ran past me, her dress ablaze, shrieking. I tried to grab her, to help, but she was moving too fast. She disappeared around the corner and her screams cut off suddenly.
Horribly.
"Help!" I shouted into the chaos. "Someone help!"
No one answered. Just more screaming. More fire.
I covered my mouth with my sleeve and ran toward the main staircase. I had to find Father. Lyria. Someone who could tell me what was happening. Someone who could make this stop.
The smoke burned my eyes and throat. I could barely see three feet ahead. Bodies lay scattered on the floor—servants I'd worked with, nobles who'd mocked me hours ago. Some were burning. Some weren't moving at all.
I stumbled over something soft and looked down.
Cook Mary. The woman who sometimes saved me scraps from the kitchen. Her eyes stared at nothing, and burn marks covered her arms.
"No," I choked out. "Mary, please—"
A roar shook the entire manor.
It wasn't human. It wasn't any animal I'd ever heard. It was ancient and terrible and filled with rage that made my bones shake.
Through the smoke, I saw a shadow moving on the ceiling. Huge. Scaled. Claws that scraped against stone.
Dragon.
The word crashed into my mind even though it made no sense. Dragons were stories. Legends. Things from books, not real life.
But the creature crawling across the burning hallway was very, very real.
I pressed myself against the wall, trying to be invisible. The dragon moved past me, so close I could feel the heat radiating from its scales. It didn't see me—too focused on hunting others through the manor.
When it turned the corner, I ran.
Down hallways I'd cleaned a thousand times. Past rooms where I'd served nobles who never learned my name. The manor was a maze of fire and death, and I was trapped inside it.
"Father!" I screamed. "Lyria! Anyone!"
I rounded a corner and nearly slipped in something wet. Blood. So much blood.
A man's body lay against the wall. I recognized the expensive coat—the Duke I'd spilled wine on. His face was gone, burned away until I could see bone.
I bent over and vomited. There was nothing in my stomach but bile, and it burned my throat almost as much as the smoke.
Keep moving. I had to keep moving.
I stumbled forward, through the grand dining hall where we'd served Lyria's engagement feast. The long table was on fire. The chandelier had fallen and crushed someone beneath it.
"Please," I sobbed. "Please, someone be alive—"
I found Father in his study.
He was slumped over his desk, which had collapsed beneath him. His back was to me, but I recognized his silver hair, his broad shoulders, the ring he always wore.
"Father!" I ran to him and grabbed his shoulder, trying to shake him awake. "Father, we have to run—"
He fell backward.
His chest was burned open. His eyes stared at nothing.
I screamed and backed away until I hit the wall, sliding down it. This couldn't be real. This had to be a nightmare.
Another roar—closer now. The whole manor shook.
I forced myself up. Father was dead. Mary was dead. But maybe others had escaped. Maybe if I could just get outside—
I found Lyria's fiancé in the ballroom.
He was burned so badly I only recognized him by the engagement ring still on his blackened hand. The same ring Lyria had shown off so proudly just hours ago.
My legs gave out. I collapsed on the floor, unable to breathe.
Everyone was dead. Everyone.
And I was alone in a burning house full of monsters.
"Help," I whispered, though I knew no one would come. "Please, someone help me."
The library.
The thought cut through my panic like a knife. The library was in the west wing—the oldest part of the manor, built with thick stone walls. It had survived two fires in the past century. If anywhere was safe, it would be there.
It was also my childhood hiding place. When Father screamed at me, when Lyria hurt me, when the world became too much—I'd always run to the library and hide among the books.
Maybe I could hide there now.
I pulled myself to my feet and ran.
Through burning corridors. Over bodies I couldn't look at. Past rooms collapsing in on themselves. The heat was unbearable, and my lungs screamed for clean air, but I didn't stop.
I couldn't stop.
The library door appeared through the smoke—heavy oak, still intact. I grabbed the handle and yanked it open.
Cool air rushed out. The library was untouched—no fire, no smoke, just rows and rows of books exactly as I remembered them.
I stumbled inside and slammed the door behind me, leaning against it as I gasped for breath. My whole body shook. Tears and soot covered my face. My nightgown was singed and torn.
But I was alive.
"Safe," I whispered. "I'm safe."
For the first time since waking, I let myself believe it might be true. The library's stone walls were two feet thick. The door was solid oak. The fire couldn't reach me here.
I could wait out the flames. Then I'd escape. Find help. Figure out what had happened.
I moved deeper into the library, past the shelves where I'd spent countless hours reading about dragons. About their magic and beauty and power. I'd loved those stories. Wished I could meet a real dragon someday.
The irony would have been funny if I wasn't so terrified.
A portrait hung on the far wall—the Ashencroft family tree, painted generations ago. I'd stared at it hundreds of times, finding my own small picture at the bottom. The forgotten daughter. The one they'd tried to hide.
I was looking at it now when I heard footsteps behind me.
Slow. Deliberate. Each one echoing in the quiet library.
I spun around.
A man stood in the doorway I'd just come through—except I'd closed that door. Locked it.
He was tall and terrifying and beautiful in a way that made my heart stop. His hair was white as moonlight. Scales shimmered across his neck and arms, catching the lamplight like jewels. His eyes glowed like melted gold.
He was covered in ash and blood, and he looked at me with such hatred that I forgot how to breathe.
This wasn't a man.
This was a dragon wearing a man's skin.
"No," I whispered, backing away. "No, please—"
He stepped through the doorway—walked right through the flames that followed him like obedient pets. The fire parted around him, and I understood then that he wasn't running from it.
He was controlling it.
"Please," I begged. "Please don't kill me."
He didn't answer. Just walked slowly toward the portrait on the wall, studying it with those terrible burning eyes.
Then he looked at the small painting at the bottom—the child with dark hair and scared eyes.
He looked at me.
"Seraphina Ashencroft," he said. His voice was deep and cold and certain. "The hidden daughter. The shameful secret they locked away."
My throat closed. I couldn't speak.
"Tell me," he said, moving closer. "Do you know what your family did to mine?"
I shook my head frantically.
"No?" His laugh was bitter and broken. "Of course not. They kept you ignorant. Fed you scraps and beat you and made you grateful for it. You don't even know why you deserve to die."
"I don't!" The words burst out of me. "I don't deserve this! I never hurt anyone! Whatever my family did—I didn't know, I swear I didn't know—"
"Ignorance," he said softly, "isn't innocence."
He reached for me and I ran—but there was nowhere to go. The library was a dead end. I'd trapped myself.
His hand caught my wrist. His skin burned like fire, and where he touched me, metal formed—chains that wrapped around my skin and seared into my flesh. I screamed and tried to pull away, but he was impossibly strong.
"Please!" Tears streamed down my face. "Please, I'll do anything—"
"Death," he said, pulling me close enough that I could see my reflection in his golden eyes, "would be too kind for you."
He grabbed my other wrist and chained it too. The metal burned and burned and I couldn't stop screaming.
"You're coming with me," he said. "You're going to answer for every crime your family committed. Every dragon they tortured. Every life they destroyed. And when you finally understand the depth of what they did—"
He leaned down until his face was inches from mine.
"—then maybe I'll let you die."
"Who are you?" I sobbed.
"My name," he said, "is Draeven Nightscale. And you, Seraphina Ashencroft—"
He lifted me off my feet like I weighed nothing.
"—are the last of your bloodline alive."
The last one.
The words hit me like ice water.
"No," I whispered. "Lyria—my sister—"
"Dead." His eyes held no mercy. "Everyone is dead. Your father. Your sister. Every servant, every noble, every person who carried Ashencroft blood or served Ashencroft evil."
"But why?" I screamed. "Why did you kill them all?"
"Because," Draeven said, carrying me toward the window, "three hundred years ago, your family slaughtered mine."
He crashed through the glass in an explosion of shattered pieces.
We fell into the night—and I watched in horror as his body began to change.