Fever dreams first. Fire and drowning, Caelum's smile, Elowen screaming her name. Then sharp and constant pain, like her bones had been replaced with hot iron.
Seraphiel's eyes cracked open.
Canvas ceiling. Rough wool blanket. The smell of woodsmoke and antiseptic. She was on a cot, bandaged head to toe, her Revenant marks still smoldering beneath the wrappings. Not burning like before—Caelum's seal must've broken when she lost consciousness—but pulsing.
She tried to sit up. Failed spectacularly, every muscle screaming protest.
"Don't." A voice. Female. Rough as gravel. "You've been out three days. Moving's a bad idea."
Through the tent flap, Seraphiel glimpsed organized chaos—soldiers drilling in formation, supply wagons, cook fires. All of it centered around banners she recognized from wanted posters: a crowned skull swallowing the sun. The Eclipse sigil.
The tent flap opened properly, and a woman ducked inside.
Mountain was the first word that came to mind. Six feet tall, shoulders that could carry oxen, scars mapping her face like topographical lines. Her left eye was just... gone, replaced by a ragged pit she didn't bother covering.
"Korvath," she said, not offering a hand. "Nyx's second-in-command. You're Seraphiel. The Oracle who got our Warlord nearly killed."
"Is he—"
"Alive. Barely." Korvath settled onto a stool that looked comically small beneath her. "He pulled you from the river himself. Wouldn't let anyone else touch you, even with three arrows in his back and enough poison in his blood to drop a horse. Kept saying something about a blood pact." Her one eye fixed on Seraphiel. "That true?"
"Yes."
"Huh. That explains why he dove into rapids for someone he met six hours ago." She didn't sound impressed. Just... resigned. "We're in the Blackreach Marches. Three days' hard ride from the capital, if you push the horses and don't mind killing half of them. This is Nyx's stronghold. Has been for eight years."
Seraphiel processed that. "How many soldiers?"
"Two thousand, give or take. Most of us branded criminals by your precious kingdom." Korvath's tone carried no bitterness—just fact. "Deserters, heretics, refugees from provinces Caelum 'pacified.' People who had nowhere else to go."
"And they follow Nyx because...?"
"Because he doesn't lie." Simple. Direct. "Doesn't promise us we're fighting for righteousness or the gods or some grand destiny. Just promises if we follow him, we'll never be helpless again. Turns out that's enough."
Footsteps outside. Voices calling orders. The camp settling into whatever passed for routine here.
"Where is he?" Seraphiel asked. "Nyx."
Korvath's expression didn't change, but something flickered in that single eye. "Surgery. The Holy Arrows were barbed, blessed, and poisoned. Triple threat. Been removing them for hours." She paused. "He won't scream. Never does. But the surgeons don't think he'll make it through the night. Thought you should know, since apparently you're bound to him now."
Guilt seeped through her. Nyx had taken those arrows for her. Had shielded her body with his own, then dragged her half-dead weight from the river while bleeding out.
She barely knew him. Didn't trust him. She shouldn't care.
But the blood pact thrummed under her skin, and she couldn't pretend the connection wasn't there.
"Take me to him."
"You can't even sit up."
"Then carry me." Seraphiel met Korvath's eye. "Please."
Korvath stared at her for a long moment. Then snorted. "You've got spine. Alright. But don't say I didn't warn you when you pass out."
.....
......
The camp was exactly what you'd expect from an exiled army—functional, disciplined, grim. Soldiers in black leather armor, weapons maintained to perfection, no luxuries except what they could carry. They stopped to stare as Korvath half-carried Seraphiel past. Not hostile, exactly. Just... evaluating.
"They don't trust you," Korvath said conversationally. "Oracle shows up, Nyx nearly dies saving her. From their perspective, you're a liability."
"From mine, I'm the only reason he's not being sacrificed tomorrow on an execution platform."
"Fair point." They passed a training yard where soldiers practiced with dulled blades. "These people—they've all been burned by the kingdom. Lost families, homes, futures. Nyx gave them something to fight for that wasn't just survival. So if you get him killed..." She let that hang.
"Understood."
The medical tent was larger than Seraphiel's, smelling of blood and herbs. Three surgeons worked around a table—older men with steady hands and grim expressions. Between them, barely visible through the crowd—
Nyx.
Unconscious. Stripped to the waist. And gods, his back was a mess. Not just from the arrows—those were obvious, the entry wounds still bleeding despite the surgeons' efforts—but from decades of violence. Scars layered over scars, burn marks, what looked like whip lashes, brands. A map of every time someone had tried to break him and failed.
"Thirty years of this," Korvath said quietly. "War, torture, survival. He was fourteen when Caelum's father first tried to kill him. Been running or fighting ever since."
One surgeon looked up, noticed them. "Commander. We've removed two arrows. The third..." He grimaced. "It's lodged near his spine. If we pull wrong, he'll never walk again. If we leave it, the poison will kill him by dawn."
"So do it right," Korvath said flatly.
"We're trying—"
Nyx's eyes snapped open.
Those winter-storm eyes, unfocused and glazed with pain. They found Seraphiel across the tent. Locked on.
"Still... alive." His voice barely a whisper. "Good. Would've been... waste..."
Then his eyes rolled back, and he was gone again.
The surgeons worked faster, swearing. One of them grabbed a wicked-looking tool—some kind of hooked extractor.
Seraphiel looked away. Couldn't watch this. Couldn't watch him...
The tent flap burst open.
A scout, young and out of breath, eyes wide. "Commander Korvath! Riders approaching from the south—Royal banners! They're carrying a white flag and a message."
Korvath's hand went to her sword. "How many?"
"Just five. Envoys, looks like. They're asking for an audience with..." The scout swallowed hard. "With the Oracle."
Seraphiel's blood went cold.
"They say the Virtuous Shield requests her presence. He's offering a trade." The scout reached into his satchel, pulled out a small wooden box. Ornate. Expensive. Wrong.
Korvath took it, opened it. And inside—
A lock of blonde hair. Silk-soft, the color of wheat fields in summer. A bloodstained oracle pendant. Silver filigree, cracked across the center, and a note, folded precisely. Caelum's handwriting, and elegant :
"Seraphiel,
Elowen misses you terribly. She asks about you every day. "Where's Sera? When is Sera coming home?" It breaks my heart to see her so distressed."
"I'm offering you a trade: Surrender yourself within seven days, and I'll release your sister, unharmed. You have my word as the Virtuous Shield. She'll be escorted to any location you choose, alive and whole."
"Refuse, and I'm afraid Elowen's usefulness as a Vessel will have to be... maximized. The kingdom needs oracles, after all. And she has so much potential yet to be tapped."
"The choice is yours. But choose quickly—I'd hate for anything unfortunate to happen while you deliberate."
"Come home, Seraphiel."
"Tick tock." —C
Seraphiel grabbed the table edge to stay upright.
Elowen. Fourteen years old when Seraphiel "died." Seventeen now. Three years in Caelum's hands, being used as a Vessel—drained of prophecies, kept alive just enough to be useful.
And now this bait?.
"What does it mean?" Korvath asked. "'Vessel'?"
"It means he's been extracting her visions," Seraphiel managed through numb lips. "Draining her gift. Slowly. It's... excruciating. Drives most oracles mad within months."
"Three years," Korvath said softly. "Your sister's been enduring that for three years."
Behind them, the surgeons worked. Metal scraping bone on Nyx unconscious and dying.
Seraphiel stared at the lock of hair. Elowen used to braid it every morning, sitting at their mother's vanity, humming old folk songs.
Seven days to surrender, and Elowen goes free. Caelum would have her back—could finish what he started three years ago.
Refuse, and Elowen suffered worse. Died screaming, probably. Alone in whatever hell Caelum kept his Vessels.
"What are you going to do?" Korvath's voice, carefully neutral.
Seraphiel looked at Nyx. At the monster who'd taken arrows for her. Who'd bound himself to her revenge with blood and magic.
Then at the box. At her sister's hair and bloodstained pendant and Caelum's patient, confident script.
"Tick tock."
"I don't know," she whispered.