Chapter 13
Seraphina
Iwoke with a gasp, like the night before.
No slow fade into awareness, no drifting. Just a jolt, a sudden burst of consciousness that left my heart pounding and my breath coming fast. The world snapped into place around me, sharper than before, and for the first time since all of this began—I remembered.
Not everything. Not clearly. But enough.
My name. My name was Seraphina.
I was a Godling.
And I had been placed here. Not by accident. Not by fate. I had been put in this mountain on purpose.
I sat up too quickly, and the world tilted. My skin felt… real. I touched my legs, my arms, my face. Everything buzzed like it was waking up with me. I knew something had shifted, as if my body understood something that my mind didn’t.
I pressed a hand to my chest, trying to still the flutter there. I was not stone. Not anymore. And I didn’t know if that should comfort me or terrify me.
Because I didn’t know what I was meant to do. Only that it had been bad.
I wished Thavros were here. I knew he was busy tonight with the feast. That hall was full of people and merriment, and I was trapped there.
Alone. Locked away from the world. Wishing for the orc who knew me.
Gods, I would give anything to be with him right now.
To look into his deep brown eyes and feel his muscled form under my hands.
I wrapped my arms around myself and stood, pacing the stone floor of the war room. Thavros wasn’t here. I had woken before him. He had said he would get here as soon as he could. I should have been excited. But all I felt was dread curling beneath my ribs.
Now that I knew who I was —only in bits and pieces —it filled me with even more questions.
What if I had been sent here to destroy the very thing I now loved?
The crystal on the table flickered faintly, as if echoing the unrest inside me.
And then—I heard the door.
I quickly made my way down the stairs. I need to feel his strong arms around me. I craved that sense of peace only he could give.
Only when I got to the base of the stairs … it wasn't Thavros I saw at all.
A guard.
Panic surged. I turned to run back upstairs, but not before a strong orc hand gripped my wrist with bruising strength and pulled me down.
"Stop. Who are you?"
"I'm no one, please, I just –"
He pulled me closer to him. I was used to the orc hands being gentle and loving, not bruising and painful. My head and heart were a jumbled mess.
"Why are you in the war room during the feast?" he growled at me.
He clearly thought I was an intruder; maybe I was, but all I knew at that moment was that I needed Thavros. “Wait—no—please, I can explain—”
But the guard didn’t listen. He only shouted for backup, like I was some intruder, as if I was still the weapon someone had sent here.
"Please, get Thavros. He will tell you! Please get Thavros!"
They called for Khuldruk instead.
And then everything began to unravel.
I barely had time to scream before the guards seized me. My bare feet scraped against the stone as they dragged me through the winding tunnels, too shocked to resist and too frightened to speak. I didn’t understand what was happening—why they were treating me like an intruder, a threat.
"I belong here!" I shouted, twisting in their grip. "I’ve been here! Ask Thavros! He’ll tell you!"
They didn’t listen.
Of course, they didn’t.
No one ever listens when your voice shakes.
They tossed me into a cell like I weighed nothing. My body hit the stone floor hard, my elbow scraping against rough rock. I scrambled to my knees, breath heaving, eyes wild.
The door clanged shut.
Darkness closed in.
I reached for the bars, the metal biting into my palms. “Please. I don’t know what’s happening. Just get Thavros. He’ll explain everything.”
But they were already gone.
I didn’t know how long I sat there—just that my skin was trembling with too much awareness. I was real. More real than I’d ever been. And somehow that made this worse.
Footsteps echoed. Heavy. Deliberate. And when the door at the end of the corridor opened, I knew who it was before I saw him.
Khuldruk.
He was broader than Thavros. More imposing. The kind of presence that didn’t require volume to dominate a space.
He stopped just outside the bars and looked at me, not with rage, but calculation. It was worse.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
I hesitated.
He narrowed his eyes.
“Seraphina,” I said. My voice cracked, but I didn’t flinch.
“And what are you, Seraphina?”
I swallowed hard. “A Godling. I think. I—I don’t remember everything yet. But I didn’t break in. I’ve been waking in the war room. With Thavros.”
His brows lifted at that.
"With him. Alone?"
I nodded, too anxious to lie. “For two weeks. He knows. We’ve been trying to figure out what I am, why I was a statue—why I was here in the first place.”
Khuldruk didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Just stared through me like he was waiting for the truth to fall out of my mouth on its own.
“I don’t remember all of it,” I whispered, words tumbling fast now. “Just flashes. I know I was sent here. I know this doesn't look good. But I didn’t know who I was until tonight. I didn’t know anything.”
“Then what changed?”
I looked down at my hands—flesh and blood. “I woke up real.”
He didn’t speak for a long moment. Then, finally, said, “Real or not, you’ve been hiding in my mountain. You’ve been alone with my brother. And now you claim you were sent here, without knowing by whom or for what.”
“I know how it sounds,” I said desperately. “But I don’t want to hurt anyone. Please—just let me see him.”
“If Thavros knows anything about this,” Khuldruk said, stepping back, “we’ll see what he has to say.”
And then he turned and walked away, leaving me behind the bars, cold and shaking—unsure if I was more afraid of the truth or what came next.
I looked around the cell. It was an empty stone cell with nothing but the iron bars keeping me here.
I was in a body, a body that until tonight had nothing but the tender touches of Thavros.
Now I was battered and bleeding on the floor.
Blood dripped down my arm from the scrape on my elbow, and I was pretty sure my knees and ankles were bleeding from being dragged here, but there wasn't enough light to properly see.
How did this happen? I needed Thavros. Where was he?
Suddenly, there was a bang as a door opened, followed by a shout and the scuffle of guards.
"Where is she?"
My heart leapt. Thavros. He had come for me.
"Brother, I have some questions for you," I heard Khuldruk say.
"Later," he ground out. "Where is she?" he nearly growled.
"Who is she?" his brother asked, his commanding voice tinged with concern.
"She is mine," Thavros growled.
The door burst open, and there he was, his chest heaving, eyes filled with rage until he saw me, and he sagged, dropping to his knees, sticking his hand through the bars to reach for me.