Kael's POV
The screaming woke me.
I bolted upright in bed, my hand reaching for the sword I kept beside me. Dawn light crept through my windows, but the palace sounded like chaos—running footsteps, shouting, more screams.
Ryn burst through my door without knocking. "Your Majesty, the bodies—"
"I know." I was already pulling on my armor. "Elara's moved them. Where?"
"Everywhere." His face was pale. "They're walking through the palace. Hunting. We've lost three servants already."
My chest tightened—that unfamiliar feeling again. Fear. Not for myself, but for—
"Seraphina," I said. "Is she safe?"
"The wards on her chambers should hold, but—"
I didn't wait to hear the rest. I ran.
The corridors were pandemonium. Servants fled in every direction. Guards tried to establish order but kept getting scattered by figures in rotting wedding dresses—my seventeen dead brides, their eyes milky white, their movements jerky and wrong.
One of them turned toward me. I recognized her face—Bride number seven. Catherine? No, Caroline. She'd lasted five days before Elara killed her.
"Your Majesty," she rasped, her voice like grinding stones. "She's here. The new one. The one who'll replace us."
"You're not really Caroline," I said, drawing my sword. "You're just Elara's puppet."
The corpse smiled with black teeth. "We're all her puppets now. Just like you've always been Mordain's."
The words hit me like a punch. "What?"
But Caroline lunged before I could question her further. I had no choice—I drove my sword through her chest. She crumbled to dust, leaving only her wedding dress behind.
Mordain's puppet. What did that mean?
I kept running, cutting down two more corpse-brides who blocked my path. Each one whispered the same thing as they died: "Ask about the tonic. Ask what he's been feeding you."
The tonic. The drink Mordain had given me every single night for three hundred years.
My blood had turned gold the night before Seraphina arrived. The night I'd refused the tonic for the first time in decades because I'd been too disturbed by the ghost's warning.
Had Mordain been keeping me cursed?
I reached Seraphina's chambers and pounded on the door. "Seraphina! Open up!"
No answer.
The wards were intact—I could feel their magic humming. Nothing dead could pass through. But that meant nothing alive could hear through them either.
"Seraphina!" I hit the door harder. "Answer me!"
Still nothing.
What if she was hurt? What if one of the corpses had gotten to her before the wards went up? What if—
The door opened.
Seraphina stood there in her nightgown, a dagger in one hand and a glowing piece of paper in the other. Her eyes were wild but determined.
"You're alive," I said, and hated how relieved I sounded.
"So far." She pulled me inside and slammed the door. "We need to talk. Right now."
"The corpses—"
"I know about the corpses. I know about a lot of things." She thrust the glowing paper at me. "Read this. Read it and tell me if it's true."
I took the paper. The symbols were old—ancient Thalia magic. Instructions for awakening divine power in her bloodline.
"Where did you find this?"
"In the wardrobe. Hidden. Someone left it for me." She grabbed my arm. "But that's not the important part. Look at the note."
She handed me a second piece of paper, this one covered in hasty handwriting. As I read, my blood—my golden, mortal blood—turned to ice.
"The Emperor is being poisoned. The tonic Mordain gives him keeps the curse strong."
"Is it true?" Seraphina's voice shook. "Has Mordain been poisoning you?"
I thought about three hundred years of emptiness. Three hundred years of feeling nothing while Mordain stood at my side, offering that same drink every night, telling me it was necessary for my immortality.
"Yes," I said quietly. "I think it is."
Seraphina's face hardened. "Then we need to stop him. Before tonight. Before—"
An explosion rocked the palace.
We both stumbled. Through the window, I saw smoke rising from the east wing—the chapel where the wedding was supposed to take place.
"They're destroying it," Seraphina whispered. "Someone's destroying the chapel."
"To delay the ceremony." I understood immediately. "The note said the wedding has to happen exactly at sunset. Not before, not after. If there's no chapel—"
"We can't get married at the right time, and Elara's plan falls apart." Seraphina looked at me. "Or maybe that's what they want us to think. Maybe destroying the chapel is part of Mordain's plan."
She was clever. Cleverer than I'd given her credit for.
"We need to find Mordain," I said. "Get answers."
"We need to survive the day first." She pointed out the window where more explosions bloomed. "Someone's attacking the palace. And the dead brides are still hunting me."
As if summoned by her words, something scratched at her door. Slow. Deliberate.
"Seraphina," a voice called from outside. Elara's voice, but wrong—multiplied seventeen times, coming from seventeen dead mouths. "Come out and play, little bride. We want to meet you properly."
"The wards will hold them," I said, but I wasn't sure.
"Will they?" Seraphina moved to the door and pressed her hand against it. The wood began to crack. "Because it feels like they're getting stronger."
She was right. The scratching intensified. The door shuddered.
"How long until sunset?" Seraphina asked.
I glanced at the sun. "Ten hours. Maybe less."
"Then we have ten hours to find Mordain, stop whoever's attacking the palace, figure out how to fight seventeen corpse-brides and one angry ghost, and still make it to a wedding that will probably kill us both." She laughed—that same slightly hysterical sound from when I'd first told her I'd never love her. "This is definitely worse than being rejected by Marcus."
Despite everything, I almost smiled. "Who's Marcus?"
"The man who pretended to love me for two years as a paid job." She met my eyes. "Turns out being used and betrayed by the living prepares you pretty well for being hunted by the dead."
The door cracked wider.
"We need to move," I said. "There's a passage behind the bookshelf. It leads to my private chambers. We can—"
"No." Seraphina held up the glowing spell paper. "I have another idea."
"What?"
"The spell. The one that will awaken my full power." Her hand trembled. "The warning says I'll change forever. That I'll become what I was always meant to be. What if that means becoming powerful enough to fight back?"
"Or it could kill you."
"Everything in this palace is trying to kill me anyway." She looked at the door as another crack appeared. "At least this way, I'd die fighting."
I grabbed her shoulders. "Don't. Don't sacrifice yourself because you think you're worthless. Your father was wrong. Marcus was wrong. You're—"
"What?" She searched my face. "What am I, Kael?"
The door splintered.
Dead hands reached through the gap, grasping blindly.
And I realized I didn't have an answer. I'd known her less than a day. Spoken to her only a few times. But something about her—her courage, her stubborn refusal to break, her sad smile—made me want to find the words.
Made me want to feel again, even if feeling meant pain.
"You're someone worth saving," I said finally.
Her eyes widened. Before she could respond, the door exploded inward.
Seventeen corpse-brides poured into the room like a tide of death.
Seraphina raised the spell paper, her lips forming the ancient words.
"NO!" I lunged for her, trying to stop her, but I was too late.
Golden light erupted from her body, so bright I had to shield my eyes.
When the light faded, Seraphina stood in the center of the room, but she was different. Her eyes glowed pure gold. Her skin shimmered with divine power. Her hair floated around her like she was underwater.
And hovering above her head was a crown made entirely of light.
The corpse-brides stopped, staring at her.
Then, as one, they dropped to their knees.
"Priestess," they whispered in unison. "The true priestess has awakened."
Seraphina looked at her hands, at the power flowing through them, and when she spoke, her voice echoed with authority that shook the walls.
"I am Seraphina of Thalia's line. Divine vessel and chosen of the Moon Goddess." She pointed at the corpse-brides. "And I command you to be free."
The corpses began to glow. One by one, they disintegrated into golden dust that swirled upward and disappeared.
Seventeen souls, finally released.
But as the last one faded, I heard Elara's scream—furious and terrified.
"NO! They were MINE! He was MINE!"
The palace shook. Windows shattered. The floor cracked beneath our feet.
Seraphina turned to me, and I saw fear behind her glowing eyes. "Kael, I can feel her. She's not just angry—she's growing stronger. Someone's feeding her massive amounts of power. Dark magic. And it's coming from—"
The wall behind me exploded.
I was thrown across the room, hitting the opposite wall hard. Through the dust and debris, I saw a figure step through the hole.
Mordain.
But not the Mordain I knew. This version was younger, stronger, his eyes glowing with the same dark energy that surrounded Elara.
"Well," he said, smiling. "That was unexpected. I didn't think the girl would awaken this quickly." He looked at Seraphina, and his smile grew wider. "But it doesn't matter. You've just made yourself even more valuable."
"You," I gasped, pushing myself up. "You've been behind everything."
"For three hundred years, Your Majesty." He bowed mockingly. "Every bride, every death, every moment of your cursed existence—all part of my plan."
"Why?"
"Because," Mordain said, raising his hands as dark magic swirled around them, "I need both of you for what comes next. The cursed emperor and the awakened priestess. Together, you'll open the gateway to the realm of the dead. And I'll finally have the power I've been waiting centuries to claim."
The floor beneath us began to crack wider, glowing with sickly green light.
"Starting with absorbing the soul of an immortal emperor and a divine priestess."
The cracks spread, and I realized with horror what he'd done.
We were standing on a summoning circle. A trap.
And we'd walked right into it.