A Vow of Vengeance and Silk

The first frost came early to the ruins of the Thorn Court, painting the shattered obsidian walls in delicate crystals that glittered like broken glass in the dawn light. Seraphine sat on a fallen column, her breath curling in pale wisps as she traced the star-shaped scar on her temple. The cold made it ache, a deep, insistent throb that pulsed in time with her heartbeat. Three weeks since the crown's fall, and still the mark refused to fade. Across their makeshift camp, Kaelan stirred beneath his threadbare cloak. Even in sleep, his gloved hands clenched and unclenched, the old scars beneath the leather glowing faintly with each movement. They had taken to wearing gloves together now, though for different reasons,his to hide the emerald light that still leaked through his skin, hers to conceal the way her fingertips sometimes left behind a rime of frost when she touched things for too long. They had survived.

That was the mantra they repeated each morning as they picked through the rubble of the palace, salvaging what little they could, a dented goblet here, a water-stained ledger there. That was what they whispered to Rook when she woke screaming from nightmares of creeping amber and petrified flesh. That was what Brick had carved into the handle of his axe in rough, uneven letters: Alive. But survival, Seraphine was learning, was not the same as living. The black veins had faded from her skin, but sometimes, when the light hit just right, she could still see the ghost of them shimmering beneath her surface like oil on water. And the dreams... Gods, the dreams. Visions of roots spreading like black lightning beneath the earth. A voice humming just beyond hearing, the melody tugging at something deep in her chest. A throne waiting in the dark, its arms carved with names she almost recognized.

"Stop that." Kaelan's voice startled her from her thoughts. He stood at the edge of camp, his silhouette sharp against the rising sun. When he turned, his gaze went straight to her fingers pressed against her scar.

"You're worrying at it again," he said, softer now as he approached. Seraphine dropped her hand. "It itches." A lie. It whispered.

Kaelan knew. She could see it in the way his jaw tightened, in the deliberate way he adjusted his gloves. But he let the lie stand, just as she let him pretend he didn't wake gasping from his own nightmares, just as they all pretended not to notice how Rook's hands shook when she thought no one was looking, or how Brick sometimes froze mid-motion, his dark eyes distant as if listening to something only he could hear. Rook emerged from the ruins, her boots crunching on frost-covered debris. The once-vibrant red of her hair had dulled to a rusty brown, streaked with ash and dust. Her crossbow, Pip's old weapon, now reforged, was slung across her back. "Found something you'll want to see," she said, her voice carefully neutral. The crypt was hidden beneath what had once been the queen's chambers, accessible now only through a gaping hole in the collapsed floor. Seraphine went first, her boots dislodging pebbles that tumbled into the darkness below. The air grew thicker as they descended, carrying the scent of damp earth and something metallic, like old blood on a copper coin. At the bottom, a circular room stretched before them, its walls lined with mirrors. Most had shattered in the collapse, their fragments glittering like malignant stars across the floor. But at the chamber's center stood one final pane, its surface webbed with cracks but still stubbornly intact. Rook hung back as Seraphine approached, her breath coming too fast. "We didn't touch it. It's... you should see for yourself." Seraphine's scar flared hot as she stepped forward. The reflection showed the four of them, Rook with her crossbow, Brick's massive frame, Kaelan's gloved hands, herself with that cursed star on her temple. But in the glass, there was a fifth figure standing just behind her. A woman in a crown of living thorns, her fingers resting possessively on Seraphine's mirrored shoulder.

Her lips moved. The real Seraphine gasped as her scar burned, the pain so sudden and vicious it brought tears to her eyes. She stumbled back, colliding with Kaelan, whose own scars flared bright enough to glow through his gloves. His arms locked around her as the mirror's surface rippled like water.

Then, The mirror exploded. Not outward in deadly shards, but inward,the glass fragments flying toward some unseen center before vanishing completely. Where it had stood, the air itself seemed to tear, shimmering like heat haze over summer cobblestones. A doorway. A wound. And from within that darkness came a sound that stopped Seraphine's heart. A child's laughter, bright and clear and utterly out of place in these ruins of death. The scar on her temple pulsed once, twice, in perfect time with the laughter's rhythm. As if answering.