This man was Serena's father.
The man who adopted her, raised her, named her heir, trained her, loved her with the deliberate, permanent love of a man who chose his daughter rather than produced her. The man whose decision to keep her had cost him a military alliance and, six years later, his kingdom.
He fought beside his wife. His blade moved with the precise, efficient violence of a warrior whose skill had been honed over decades and maintained through discipline. He killed four Dark Fae soldiers in the time it took Fin to count them.
Seraphine screamed something that Fin couldn't translate but understood from the tone: I cannot hold this much longer.
Serena was there.
The girl was in a corridor adjacent to the courtyard. Still a child. Taller. Her green eyes were enormous, her face chalk-white, her small body pressed against an ice pillar, watching through a gap between the wall and a shattered door.
She was supposed to be running.
