Page 21 of Haunted Crowns
The name surfaced, unbidden. “Seraphina?”
Kaelioth nodded once. The fire flared. Eris swallowed against the tightness in her throat.
“I don’t know much about her. Only that she went mad.”
Kaelioth let out a low, bitter chuckle. “Mad?” he echoed. “No. They called her that because she was dangerous. Because her voice threatened their order.” The fire snapped, spitting embers into the dark. “They could not control her. So, they erased her. She was meant to end what should never have begun, and they silenced her before she could.”
Eris’s pulse thundered. “Did you know her?”
“I knew Seraphina, not the myth gilded in halls, nor the whispers behind locked doors. The real one.” His voice softened. “She was light. She was fire. And she did not fear the dark.” Then his voice dropped colder: “Kriponius Dragov did not lose his wife to madness.”
Silence stretched as the flames twisted, shadows clawing toward her. Then he spoke again.
“He slaughtered her with his own hands.”
Kareon’s fists clenched.
Eris shook her head. “No. That is not—” But the denial died. She had never questioned why Seraphina’s name was buried, why no one spoke of her, why her body had never been placed in the Dragov crypt. And now, she knew.
Kaelioth’s voice turned to a whisper. “She lies at the bottom of Mournshadow Lake.” The firelight dimmed, shadows clawing at the walls. “But her heart,” he said, barely audible, “her heart rests in Kriponius’s coffin.”
Eris’s throat closed. “Why?”
Kaelioth’s expression remained unreadable. “Because even in death, he could not let her go.”
Eris’s fingers curled into fists. “This is monstrous. What a cruel fate.”
Kaelioth nodded slowly. His face remained unreadable, but in his eyes, she saw the weight of a wound that had never healed. Then his voice softened.
“Seraphina did not just feel people. She moved through their grief and fury the way rivers shape land. She wielded sorrow like rain, tempered rage like wind before the fire took hold. And when she wept, the skies answered.” His gaze locked with hers as the air between them pulled tight. “And it is in you.” A pulse of something deep and raw stirred in her chest. “Not dormant,” he clarified. “Only waiting.” His voice dropped, steady with certainty. “And with every step you take toward the spirits, it will rise. If you do not master it, it will master you.”
A shiver threaded down her spine as Kareon’s shoulders tensed. A whisper of wind stirred, not from outside, but from within. It curled unnaturally, pressing against her skin like unseen hands reaching for something just beneath the surface. Eris’s breath came too fast, too shallow. Deep down, she had always known. She had always felt things that were not hers… sorrow from unseen places, wounds never suffered but somehow her own. She had told herself it was empathy, nerves. An overactive mind. But it had never been imagination or weakness. It had been power; a truth she had spent her life trying to ignore.
The unseen presence pressed closer. Kaelioth exhaled heavily.
"Seraphina's work was never finished. She was meant to be the bridge between our worlds." His voice seemed edged with something ancient. "But she was silenced." He leaned forward, the glow of the fire catching the sharp angles of his face. "But the spirits do not forget."
A stillness settled over the space, thick as smoke.
Then, softly, Kaelioth spoke again: "Long before you were born, the spirits whispered: One will rise, walk the path of ash, and end what was begun, or the world will burn." Eris stilled as her heart slammed against her ribs. Kaelioth didn’t blink. "And now, here you are."
The wind stirred, and the walls of the tent seemed to press closer. Eris shook her head before she even knew she was doing it.
"No." Her breath hitched, her body too tight, as if something inside her was breaking apart. "I am not her." Her voice was sharper than she intended, panic lacing the edges. She stood abruptly, stepping back from the fire. The heat against her skin felt too much. Too close. "I never asked for this!"
She had wanted to change things, but this revelation, this power she never asked for brewing in her veins, was too much to process all at once. Kaelioth's gaze didn’t falter.
"Neither did she."
Her hand pressed against her chest as if she could hold herself together. Her voice cracked.
"What if I refuse?"
Kaelioth leaned back, the firelight casting shadows over his face. His voice was unshaken.
"Then the spirits will wait." The fire snapped. "But the suffering will not."
Eris's hands trembled. She knew the truth of it before he even spoke it. If she walked away now, the world would still burn.
