55. Seraphina
55
SERAPHINA
T he night air hits me like a blade.
Cold. Sharp. Unforgiving.
I gasp, my body trembling as we step out of the collapsing cave and into the open world again.
Everything feels too bright, too loud, too alive.
The stars above are unmoving, staring, watching.
Rylan’s hand is tight around mine, pulling me forward, away from the wreckage, away from the past.
We move through the jagged cliffs, the scent of smoke and earth and ancient dust clinging to my skin.
The treasure is heavy on our backs, gold and artifacts strapped in sacks, enough to buy empires, to start wars, to rebuild dynasties.
It should feel like victory.
But I can feel it now?—
The weight of something else.
Something… odd.
Rylan stops near a stream, his breath ragged, his body tense, every muscle coiled like a predator still expecting the next fight.
He turns to me, his eyes shadowed, searching.
"We should rest," he says, but it’s not a question.
I nod, though I don’t feel tired.
Not anymore.
Not the way I should.
He gestures toward the water. "Wash the blood off."
That’s when I notice I should be aching. I took a dagger to my ribs, I felt death itself press against my skin.
But there is no pain. There is no blood. There is nothing.
I step forward, my feet unsteady as I approach the water’s edge.
Kneel.
Lean forward.
And that’s when I see her.
Not me.
Her.
The woman in the reflection is not the same one who walked into that cave.
She has my hair—long, dark, unbound.
She has my lips—parted, trembling.
She has my eyes.
But they are wrong.
They glow.
A faint, silver light pulses from within them, as if something else is staring back at me.
The scars on my arms, the ones that should be etched deep from years of chains and fights and survival?—
Gone.
I inhale sharply, my hands shaking as I touch my own skin.
Smooth.
Too smooth.
I don’t even feel the cold anymore.
What am I?
The ground shifts.
Not beneath me.
Behind me.
A presence.
Rylan.
I see him in the reflection too—watching, silent, unreadable.
"You see it now," he murmurs.
I close my eyes.
"I already knew."
His voice is quiet, edged in something I don’t recognize.
"Do you?"
My fingers curl into fists.
I don’t.
Not really.
Because this isn’t just magic.
This is something worse.
Something permanent.
How can I undo it? I’m clueless .
The wind shifts.
A rustling.
Not from the trees.
From the rocks.
The shadows.
I feel it before Rylan does.
The last remnants of Nhilian’s men, probably waiting for their master to return. Tough luck.
I don’t even think.
The world blurs around me as I rise to my feet, spinning just as the first blade comes hurtling toward my throat.
I catch it.
My fingers close around the steel before it reaches me.
Before it can even graze my skin. I blink.
The dark elf in front of me hesitates, his breath hitching.
He didn’t expect that.
Neither did I.
Then, chaos.
More of them.
Five. Six.
Rylan is already moving, blade in hand, fluid, fast, brutal.
But I am faster.
I don’t have a weapon.
I don’t need one.
The first soldier lunges.
I duck beneath his swing, my body moving too easily, too precisely.
Instinct guides me. No, something deeper than instinct.
I strike, my fingers curling around his wrist, snapping the bone like it’s nothing.
He screams.
The second comes from behind.
I spin, grabbing his cloak, twisting, yanking.
I use less force than I should.
But he goes flying.
Flying.
His body crashes into the jagged rocks with a sickening crack.
Rylan slams his dagger into another’s throat, but he is watching me now.
I can feel it.
The last soldier hesitates.
He knows.
He sees it.
The way my body moves, the way I don’t breathe, don’t sweat, don’t flinch.
I step toward him.
He runs.
I should let him go.
I don’t.
I move faster than thought.
One second, he’s there.
The next I have him by the throat.
His body thrashes, legs kicking.
He is taller than me.
Stronger.
But I hold him without effort.
The realization hits me like ice.
I am not weak anymore.
Not human.
Not entirely.
I am something else.
I tighten my grip.
He chokes, claws at my wrist.
Rylan’s voice is low, steady.
"Seraphina."
It is not a warning.
It is a call.
A reminder.
I release the soldier.
He crumples, gasping, coughing, scrambling away like a wounded animal before fleeing into the night.
Silence.
Rylan steps forward, his gaze dark, sharp, filled with something I can’t describe.
I swallow hard. I feel the way the bones broke under my hands and the weightlessness of my own body, the effortless speed, the unnatural strength.
I don’t look at him. I don’t want to see what’s in his eyes. I already see it in my reflection. I’ve changed and I’m clueless as to who I am.
Can I go back to the person I was?
Power is a heady drug.
If this can help Rylan… I’ll willingly become more than a human.