Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
SERAFINA
Fear gathered inside of me the closer we drew to Slyborn’s throne room.
The feeling was a dark cloud, rumbling with dread, winds twisting around my insides.
Bodies littered the ground of the courtyard.
Both mortal and monster. The once impenetrable doors of the castle hung drunkenly on their hinges.
“Runa!” Drazen raced ahead, boots sliding through pools of gore.
Kronk adjusted his grip on Thorne’s battered body. “Stay behind me until we know what lingers inside.”
I nodded and followed, pausing at the threshold.
Smoke and sulfur lingered in the air. The bite of it coated my tongue, making me want to wretch.
Leathery wendigos were strewn about the marble floors.
Skin smoldering, they rested in piles of splintered benches.
Black starbursts of soot marred soaring columns wrapped in ivy.
More darkened the walls where great bursts of magic had struck.
“Sister,” Drazen shouted again, desperation in his tone.
A weakened voice floated back. “Here. We’re up here.”
He charged up the steps of the dais, while Kronk and I proceeded at a cautious pace, Thorne secure in his arms. At the top of the platform, the royals came into view.
The king slumped with his legs splayed, blood running down his forehead.
Beside him, Queen Runa dabbed at the wound with a bit of fabric she’d torn from her dress.
Both looked to have been dragged through the streets of Carcerem by a team of runaway bula.
Bruises, lacerations, and soot covered them from head to toe.
“The bastards made it inside,” Kronk’s deep voice wavered.
“They did,” Runa confirmed, shoulders heavy with defeat.
Drazen eyed the strangely silent king. “Why are the two of you not healing? I thought this deal between you and the arbor came with an endless supply of power. That includes healing magic. So why the hell is my sister still bleeding?”
“You know I would have already tended her if I could,” Victor said simply, nodding at the tree.
Our heads swiveled, and the sight of the sacred arbor ripped the air from my lungs. I clutched my chest, nails digging into my skin.
Its once-mighty trunk was split down the middle.
Bronze leaves tumbled from its withered branches, ignited midair, then drifted to earth as embers.
The metallic tang of blood lingered with the acrid sting of ash, as if the tree itself had bled and burned.
While it remained upright, a low creak shuddered through its limbs, warning that even the most sacred things could be brought to their knees.
Kronk took a lumbering step closer, then caught himself. “Is it dead?” he asked, sturdy arms locked around the man he carried, almost as if he forgot Thorne was even there.
“Not dead,” Victor grated, voice a dull rasp. “But I fear it will be soon.”
“It was The Dark One,” Runa said. “Somehow, he tapped into the power of our tree. And with the wendigo’s draining everything they touched…” She trailed off, shaking her head.
The tree was damaged because of me. My blood went cold at the realization. “It can’t be.” Anguish tore through my words. “I–I need the arbor to heal Thorne.”
It was then that both royals turned their weary eyes to the man Kronk held. Runa’s already pained expression darkened. “Oh, Thorne.” She took in his battered form, the blood that painted his torso. “What happened?”
My throat tightened. “Alaric happened.”
“Serafina. I’m so sorry.” Tears wet her lavender eyes. “My deepest condolences.”
I stiffened at the finality in her words. “I don’t need your condolences. What I need is magic so that I can heal him. What I need is Carcerem’s arbor.”
The queen shook her head. “It wouldn’t matter. Not even Carcerem’s most skilled healer can bring back the dead. Thorne is in a place that magic cannot reach.”
“No.” I gritted my teeth. “I don’t believe that. There must be a way.”
I stared at the blistered trunk, the inky sap that leaked down its craggy surface.
While Kronk set Thorne between the roots, a tugging sensation urged me closer.
The nearer I came, the stronger that rope dragged at my insides.
It was a desperate, aching pull. Hathor’s sacred arbor called to me, begging me to heal it.
I pressed my hand to my chest, finding the stone was once again on a chain around my neck. Even though I’d seen it shatter. Surely this was Hathor’s work—her subtle way of pushing me down a path of her choosing. Forcing me to do her bidding.
I clutched the little seed in my fist and took a step back.
“No.”
The word rang sharp and final. Silence fell. Even the tree seemed to pause, its dying branches creaking like bones shifting.
“No?” Runa asked, tilting her head in confusion.
I ignored the question, glaring at the heavens. “That’s right, Hathor. I said no.” My voice rose with my rising anger. “You want me to heal your flarking tree? You’ll give me my mate back.”
Silence greeted me, those gathered watching my theatrics with pale faces and pity in their glassy eyes.
“Serafina.” Drazen reached out as though to grasp my arm.
I jerked away from him. “No. This is between me and the goddess. I am the one she made her handmaiden.”
I shouted louder this time, directing my voice skyward.
“Thorne has done nothing to deserve this. You punished him for almost a thousand years for a crime he didn’t commit.
And me. You abandoned me with no memory and watched as I became a slave.
For what? So that I can find happiness only to have it wrenched away? ”
Victor rose from where he was slumped on the floor, predatory movements demanding my attention. “Is this true? You are Hathor’s handmaiden?”
“It’s true,” Drazen confirmed. “She confessed as much, and I’ve seen her magic.”
The king’s silver gaze leveled on me, hard and focused. “If so, it is your duty to heal her sacred arbors.”
Brimming with rage and pain, I ignored the threat in his tone.
“Sacred duty? Lady Penelope used to say the same thing about her bedpans. I am sick and tired of being pushed around by one powerful entity or another. Forced to serve some greater power. And for what?” I flung my arm out, gesturing to Thorne’s broken form.
“Poor girl is crazed with grief,” Kronk muttered.
“No. I don’t think she is,” Runa said, glancing up at the glass ceiling.
I followed her stare. Above the withered tree, light gathered. It swirled in a tightening sphere until it formed a brilliant orb so bright it burned my eyes. Shadows fled to the corners, the mighty arbor’s sacred branches tipping toward the orb.
“Is that…” Drazen trailed off, mouth gaping.
“Hathor.” The king lowered to one knee, bowing his silver head. The others followed his lead, matching his act of devotion. Whereas I folded my arms and firmed my jaw. I would not bow before the entity who’d taken my mate from me.
“Daughter,” a voice made of sunshine and honey washed over me. “I did not make you my handmaiden as a punishment, but as a gift.”
“Some gift,” I spat.
“Careful.” The warmth darkened. Thunder rumbled through each syllable, shaking the marrow in my bones.
“I blessed you, not so that you could serve your own needs and that of one Draconis, but to serve others and the world around you.”
“Serve, you say. My whole life, all I have done is serve. Peasants. Royals. Dragons. Even fate itself. When all I desired was freedom.”
“And now?” the goddess asked, her voice quieter, but no less commanding.
“Now.” I glanced at Thorne’s broken body, tears swimming in my vision. “What’s the point of freedom if I’m cursed to live it alone? I’d chain myself to the devil if it meant my mate would survive.”
“Then do your duty and heal the tree,” she said in a firm, yet patient manner.
Hope speared my chest. Fragile. Desperate. “If I do this, you’ll restore him?”
“Heal the tree.” The glowing light floated higher, the sphere shrinking.
“Wait,” I called out. “I don’t know how.”
“Yes, you do.” The voice grew faint, and the ball dimmed until it vanished.
Something ancient inside me stirred in answer. It whispered that she was right, that I did know. It also warned that if I did this, there was no coming back. Hathor’s sacred tree was wounded down to its core. Healing it would demand every part of me.
One glance at my mate and my decision was easy. Really, wasn’t that all I’d ever wanted? The right to choose my own fate?
Runa and the others rose to their feet. I sensed their eyes on me but dared not look at them. My focus was only on Thorne.
Kneeling next to him, I dipped my head, brushing my lips against his. Heart breaking, I whispered, “You better be worth it.”
Before I could lose my nerve, I lurched to my feet and strode to the tree, every step an act of defiance and surrender. The tugging inside of me became a dragging tumble, then a landslide that pushed me closer.
My palms pressed to the wounded bark, and the world exhaled.
A violent pull yanked at my center, as though invisible threads were being torn free of my soul. I gasped, and my spine arched, my body trembling against the surge.
The sacred seed at my throat flared, bursting with light. It melted into my flesh, sinking into my heart, and suddenly my veins were rivers, carrying pieces of me into the fractured trunk.
Memories bled into the magic. Speck’s smile, Yaga’s voice, Thorne’s laughter, the warmth of his lips on mine. Each one ripped away, swallowed by the arbor as it demanded more. The tree wasn’t just healing—it was devouring.
Much as The Dark One had.
Even in that absolute moment of divinity, the similarities were not lost on me. The divide between right and wrong was a narrow one.
The pull grew stronger. The line between me and the arbor dissolved until I couldn’t tell where I ended and the ancient roots began. A scream wrenched from my throat, raw and ragged, but I didn’t let go. I couldn’t.
And then—
Something answered.
Not Hathor, not the goddess, but the tree. A heartbeat thrummed beneath my palms, ancient and immense, beating in time with mine. The rhythm consumed me until all that I was poured into its wounded soul.
Light shattered behind my eyes. Bronze leaves flared above me like burning stars.
And I fell, not away from myself, but into something vast, luminous—
Eternal.