Seraphiel's POV
The doors slammed shut, and I felt Cassian's heart rate spike.
"Breathe," I told him through our bond. "Panic makes you sloppy."
"There are thirteen of them and three of us!"
"So? I've faced worse odds." A lie, but he didn't need to know that. "Just stay calm and let me—"
The thing wearing King Aldric's body lunged.
It moved impossibly fast, crossing the room in a blur. Cassian barely got the Kinslayer up in time to block the king's sword—where had he gotten a sword?—and the impact sent us stumbling backward.
"MOVE!" I screamed, seizing control of our shared muscles.
We rolled left as the king's blade smashed into the floor where we'd been standing. Stone cracked. That wasn't human strength—the parasite was using the king's body like a puppet, pushing it beyond normal limits.
"It's going to burn out your father's body at this rate," I told Cassian grimly.
I felt his horror through the bond. "We have to save him!"
"We have to survive FIRST!"
The other advisors moved forward, and their faces were starting to split. Revealing what was underneath. Too many teeth. Eyes that glowed. Skin that wasn't quite skin anymore.
Matthias stood at the back, still wearing his human mask, watching with cold amusement.
"Notice how the prince doesn't fight back?" he said conversationally. "He can't bring himself to hurt his dear father. How touching. How weak"
Cassian's rage blazed through our connection—hot and fierce and exactly what I needed.
"Use that," I told him. "Channel it into the blade."
"How?"
"Stop thinking. Just FEEL."
The possessed king swung again. This time, instead of blocking, I guided Cassian's arm in a deflection. The king's sword slid past us, and we spun, my blade singing through the air.
Not to kill. To wound. To disable.
The edge caught King Aldric's sword arm—just a scratch—but it was enough. The king shrieked and stumbled back.
"Interesting," Matthias murmured. "The Kinslayer draws blood from royalty. Just like the old stories said."
"That wasn't in the stories," I said to Cassian. "That was truth. My blade was forged to protect the royal family. To defend against threats."
"Then why are the stories—"
"Because they LIED!" My fury bled into our shared consciousness. "They twisted everything. Made me the villain so no one would question why a blade forged to protect was sealed away."
Through our bond, I felt Cassian processing this. Felt him piecing together the conspiracy. And underneath his thoughts, I felt something else.
His soul.
I'd been too focused on survival to really examine it before. But now, with adrenaline singing through our veins and death seconds away, I could see it clearly.
And it was wrong.
Not damaged—broken. Like a shattered vase glued back together, the pieces not quite lining up right.
"What..." I breathed, diving deeper into his essence.
Three death-scars marked his soul. But underneath them, I saw fractures. Places where his consciousness had been split apart and forced back together. Not naturally, not cleanly, but by magic.
Someone had been breaking Cassian's soul on purpose. Shattering it and rebuilding it, over and over.
"Seraphiel?" Cassian's thought cut through my horror. "Little busy here!"
Right. The thirteen parasites trying to kill us.
I shook off my shock and focused. The king was circling, more cautious now. The advisors were spreading out, surrounding us.
Elara had her Shadowstrike daggers out, facing three advisors. Morrigan was chanting something—a protection spell, weak but better than nothing.
We were going to die here.
Unless...
I examined Cassian's soul again, looking past the breaks to what lay beneath. And I saw it—power. Raw, enormous, unnatural power that shouldn't exist in someone so young.
The parasites hadn't just been killing him. They'd been feeding him. Each death, each resurrection, each shattering of his soul had left behind traces of divine energy. Building up. Accumulating.
Turning him into a weapon.
"Cassian," I said slowly. "Do you trust me?"
"We're bonded. Kind of hard not to trust the voice in my head."
"I'm serious. Do you trust me not to destroy you?"
That made him pause. Even as we dodged another strike from his father, I felt his uncertainty.
"Why are you asking?"
"Because your soul is broken. Has been for years. The parasites have been shattering and rebuilding it, and each time, they left behind power." I let him feel what I was sensing. "You're carrying divine energy, Cassian. Enough to level this entire room."
"Then let's use it!"
"It's KILLING you!" I practically screamed into his mind. "That energy is tearing you apart from the inside. Every time they resurrect you, they add more. Eventually, you'll shatter completely—and that's when they'll use you as their bridge between realms."
Silence. Then: "How long?"
"Three more deaths. Maybe four if you're lucky."
"So we're racing against time."
"We're racing against your own destruction, yes."
The king lunged again. This time, I wasn't fast enough. His sword caught Cassian's side—not deep, but enough to draw blood. Pain exploded through our bond.
Matthias clapped slowly. "First blood. Well done, Your Majesty. Or should I say, well done to the entity controlling you?"
The thing in the king's body smiled with too many teeth showing. "The boy is weak. Just like his father was. Just like all Solmeres are—bred to be cattle, not kings."
Rage blazed through me. Not Cassian's rage—mine.
"How DARE they," I snarled. "The Solmeres built this kingdom! Protected it! Died for it! And these parasites think they can just—"
"Sera." Cassian's thought cut through my fury. Calm. Cold. "Focus. We need a plan."
Sera. He'd called me Sera. No one had called me that in three hundred years except Daemon.
Something in my chest ached.
"Right. Plan." I forced myself to think. "The divine energy in your soul—I can tap into it. Use it. But it'll hurt. A lot."
"How much is 'a lot'?"
"Remember burning to death? Like that, but internal."
"...That's a lot."
"It'll also drain years off your life. Maybe decades." I paused. "And it might shatter your soul further. Speed up the parasites' timeline."
Cassian was quiet, dodging strikes from his possessed father. I felt his mind racing, calculating odds.
"He's thinking too much," Matthias observed. "A true warrior acts on instinct. But the prince was always too careful. Too weak."
"Matthias is baiting you," I warned Cassian.
"I know." But I felt his anger building anyway. "He did the same thing in my first life. Always pushing. Always manipulating."
"Then don't let him win."
Cassian stopped moving. Just stood there, the Kinslayer at his side, facing his possessed father.
"What are you doing?" Elara shouted, fighting off two advisors.
"Thinking," Cassian said calmly.
The king raised his sword for a killing blow.
And through our bond, I felt Cassian make a decision.
"Use the divine energy," he told me. "All of it."
"Are you insane? That'll—"
"I know what it'll do. But I also know we're dead if we don't." His resolve was iron-hard. "You said three more deaths, maybe four. That means I can afford to lose some soul-integrity now if it means surviving today."
I wanted to argue. Wanted to tell him he was being reckless, stupid, suicidal.
But I'd been reckless and stupid too. Three hundred years ago, when I'd tried to expose the parasites alone. When I'd thought being right would be enough.
Daemon had been the same—all passion and idealism, throwing himself at impossible odds because it was the right thing to do.
But Cassian was different. He wasn't fighting because it was right. He was fighting because he was angry. Because he'd been used and betrayed and murdered, and he wanted revenge.
Just like me.
"You're nothing like Daemon,. I said softly.
"Is that bad?"
"No." I felt something like fondness bleed through our bond. "It's perfect."
The king's sword fell toward Cassian's head.
I seized the divine energy in his soul and pulled.
Power exploded through us—white-hot, agonizing, beautiful. Cassian screamed, but I kept pulling, channeling three resurrections' worth of stolen divine energy into the Kinslayer.
My blade blazed silver. No—not silver. White. Pure, burning white that lit up the entire council chamber.
The king's sword met mine, and shattered.
The possessed advisors shrieked, covering their eyes. Even Matthias stumbled back, his perfect mask cracking.
And in that moment of blazing light, I saw them all clearly.
Their true forms. Not human at all, but things made of shadow and hunger, wearing flesh like costumes. Feeding tubes connected them to each other, and at the center—
Connected to all of them—
Was Matthias.
"He's the anchor," I breathed. "The one feeding power to all the others."
"Then we kill him," Cassian gasped through the pain.
"Can't. Not yet. We're not strong enough."
The light faded. I released the divine energy, and Cassian collapsed to his knees, gasping. Blood leaked from his nose, his ears. The price of using power his body wasn't ready for.
But it had worked.
The possessed king stood frozen, his sword in pieces. The advisors were scattered, disoriented. Even Matthias looked shaken.
"Impossible," he breathed. "You shouldn't be able to access that power yet. Not for another two deaths at least."
Cassian looked up, blood streaming down his face, and smiled. "Surprise."
Then Elara was there, hauling him to his feet. "We need to go. NOW."
Morrigan blasted the doors open with the last of her magic, and we ran.
Behind us, Matthias's voice echoed through the chamber: "You can't run forever, little prince! We'll find you! And when we do—"
We didn't hear the rest. We were already sprinting through the palace corridors, guards shouting, alarms blaring.
"That was stupid," I told Cassian as we ran.
"It worked though."
"You burned through a third of the divine energy in your soul. Your fourth death will come faster now."
"How much faster?"
I examined his soul's new cracks, the way the power had scorched through him like acid.
"Weeks. Maybe a month."
Cassian stumbled but kept running. "Then we have a month to figure this out."
"A month to fight creatures that have ruled for a thousand years."
"Better than three days."
I wanted to argue. Wanted to tell him we'd just made everything worse. That using that power had been reckless and dangerous and might have doomed us both.
But I was starting to understand something about Cassian.
He wasn't Daemon, trying to save everyone out of idealism.
He wasn't me, fighting for justice and truth.
He was something new. Something broken and rebuilt wrong, turned into a weapon by the very creatures trying to destroy him.
And now that weapon was pointed at them.
"You're going to get us both killed," I said.
"Probably."
"I'm three hundred years old. I've waited centuries for revenge."
"So?"
"So I'm not dying until I get it." I felt fierce satisfaction. "Which means keeping you alive, even if you're determined to be suicidal."
Cassian's laugh was half-hysterical. "Deal."
We burst out of the palace into the gardens. Behind us, guards poured out—but their eyes were glowing green now. No more pretending. The parasites had stopped hiding.
"Cassian," I said urgently. "Your soul—there's something else wrong with it."
"Besides the cracks and divine energy?"
"The breaks aren't random. They're deliberate. Like someone's been carving patterns into your soul."
He felt it too, now that I'd pointed it out. The way his essence had been fractured in specific places. Strategic places.
"What kind of patterns?"
I examined closer, horror growing.
"Binding patterns. They've been preparing your soul to be a prison. Just like they did to me."
"A prison for what?"
Behind us, something roared—not human, not animal. The sound of parasites dropping all pretense.
And in the distance, the sky above the Shadow Citadel began to glow.
Green. Sickly. Wrong.
"The barrier between realms is breaking," I whispered. "They're not waiting for three more deaths. They're going to try to force it open now."
"Using what?"
I felt the divine energy in his soul pulse, responding to something in that distant green glow.
"Using you."