18. Seren
SEREN
The morning light finds me before the sound does. It pours through the high windows in thick, golden shafts that sting my eyes and prickle my skin.
Bells chime in the distance. The muffled sounds of market-goers becomes a low, melodic purr—a heartbeat pumping life through the streets of Auria. The city’s ceaseless thrumming pulses against the windowpane, a constant reminder of a life I’m no longer a part of.
A gaping, desolate emptiness collapses inside me. It screams of loss rather than pressure.
I want nothing more than to lie in the silk, shadows curled at my feet, and spiral into the black void expanding within.
But my body has other ideas. I push myself up, my muscles aching.
My chest is sore to the touch where the crescent burned hot.
As the soles of my feet find the cold marble, I hiss at the indulgence.
Its glossy, flat surface is a stark betrayal of the damp, creaky floorboards of home.
My toes wiggle, enjoying the sensation. I hate that I do. I shake my head as if the act alone could scour the thoughts away, and make my way toward the washroom, my footsteps slapping against the stone.
The rainbow-rimmed mirror above the basin throws the light straight at me. For a moment, I don’t recognise the girl in the glass.
My skin is pale and sallow—almost translucent in the brightness.
Years without sunlight have turned it thin and uneven; a patchwork of shadow and ash.
My eyes, once dark and sharp, are already clouding, greying at the edges like storm smoke.
My black hair hangs in brittle strands, coarse and lifeless.
I lift a lock between my fingers and it snaps at the touch.
No wonder Yara found it easy to take a piece of me. But why? Why did she want it?
The hollows of my cheeks catch the light, the bones beneath pressing too close, turning my features severe. Food was never the priority. Sylas was. The tonic was. Hunger was just background noise.
I wipe a hand over my face and pause, noticing my nails properly in this harsh light. They are lined with years of dirt that even last night’s wash couldn’t lift. It’s my only proof that I was real once—that I belonged to a world of soot and soil and survival.
No smirk greets me in the reflection. No movement that isn’t mine. This is me. As I’ve never seen myself before.
I turn on the tap, water pools in my palms before I splash it over my face, waiting for the sting to turn numb. The trickling sound of water fills my ears until a knock at the door breaks the spell. My shadows jerk in response.
The maid from last night enters, carrying a tray and a bundle of folded clothes. As she looks up, her gaze hits the walls.
She stops dead. Her jaw drops, her breath catching as her eyes trace the drawings staring back at her—the woman, the shadows, the crescent—all crawling across the once-white stone.
She makes a tiny, warding motion over her chest before lowering the tray to the table and setting the clothes on the bed.
The room is silent, but my head is a cacophony of imagined whispers, scrutinizing my every move.
Heat flushes my neck. I shrink behind the washroom door, suddenly aware of how exposed I am—both mind and body.
The voices and images were too much to bear; now, I feel like a fool for allowing the monster within to paint its confessions so visibly.
The girl clears her throat, breaking the quiet: “Fresh garments,” she says, her voice trembling. “And food.”
I watch her retreat through a crack in the door frame, mumbling a curt thanks. The door clicks shut with a speed that smells of fear.
For a long time, I just stand there, head tilted back against the frame, staring at the fractured glass glittering in the chandelier. I’ve given them proof. Black on white. Exactly what they came for.
A monster worth burning? Worth ending?
I don’t think I am. But who knows anymore.
I walk over to the bed, where the clothes lie in an orderly, accusing pile. I unfold a heavy jumpsuit made of coarse, institutional grey—the kind of fabric designed to make a girl like me stand out against their sea of cream and gold.
My nose wrinkles and a muscle twitches in my cheek as I clench my teeth.
This room—the luxuries, the hollow normalcy of it all—cannot hide the truth: I am their prisoner. A specimen to be subjected to abject horror, all to confirm their suspicion that I am a monster. But how much of a monster am I?
I close my eyes. The map etched into my vision reminds me of the only thing that matters: Freedom.
She—whoever she is—won’t let it get that far. She promised.
The crescent at my neck warms in response. I close my hand around it, using the heat to power me through whatever comes next.
The Hollow was my blacksmith. It threw me into the furnace of the wastes only to beat me into steel. I will not be defined by this prison, but by my escape.
When I open my eyes, my vision is sharper—a pool of still, clear resolve that refuses to waver.
A soft, weary gust of air fills the silence as I release a slow, heavy breath. My shoulders slump, yielding to a defeat I must now inhabit. The grey jumpsuit’s rough fabric scratches against my skin, hanging like a sack—a shapeless testament to mass production.
I wonder how many others have worn this before me?
Steam from the broth curls in the light. The meaty scent awakens my senses, and I devour it as I did the night before. My attention returns to the markings on the walls.
They are worse in daylight. The woman’s eyes follow me, persistent, silent observers. I try to piece it all together, but though every line seems connected, the meaning slips through my fingers like blood.
I don’t know how long I sit here. In Auria, time moves by bells, not by hunger. Another din rings out, and I cast my gaze to the window, looking out at the city sprawled below.
I walk over, fingers tracing the edges of the pane in search of a lock, but they are sealed shut. I lean my head against the glass, watching my breath fog the surface, blurring the bright lights into a dull glow.
It looks peaceful. Perfect. And I hate it.
The sun slips behind a spire, painting the city in a muted gold. Shadows at my feet stir restlessly, and that’s when I hear the lock click.
I whip my head toward the doorway. Kael stands there, cloak unfastened, silver eyes piercing the light. For a moment he says nothing, his gaze travelling from me to the walls.
His expression is inhumanely still, but his eyes speak volumes. They widen for a fraction before he forcibly narrows them back into his normal, scrutinising position.
Something flutters in my chest. The rational part of my mind screams that his opinion doesn’t matter, but the pit in my stomach tells a different story.
I clear my throat, forcing the sensations to pass. “No knock?”
Pulling his gaze away from the drawings, he glares at me, eyes boring into my soul with that familiar, predatory weight. “I don’t knock for prisoners.” His tone is flat, bored.
The manacles clink as my hands fall, my back straightening as I meet his gaze without flinching.
“So, this is what you needed to draw?” He waves a hand toward the wall with feigned casualness.
“What else did you expect? You gave me a stylus and nothing to draw on.” A tremor slips into my voice. Traitor.
His mouth twitches—not quite a smile, but not a sneer. “I didn’t say you could turn your cell into a shrine.’
Shrine. The word hooks under my ribs.
He moves to the nearest wall, gloved fingers tracing the faint outline of the crescent. “What does it all mean?”
“You tell me,” I say. “You’re the one who's been exposed to my kind before.”
“I have.” He doesn’t look away from the wall. “But none have been like you.”
“Like me?” I press. “And what exactly does that mean?”
Silence stretches. His stare is calculating, assessing, as if he’s searching for the line that divides me from all the others.
I shrug, wanting nothing more than to avoid knowing how many ‘others’ there were. The lamplight catches his spectacles as his head tilts, studying me for answers I don’t have. “You don’t know what you’ve drawn, do you?”
“Do you?” I fire back.
Something flickers in his eyes—a glint of steel. But he doesn’t respond, leaving the question to hang heavy between us.
“Tomorrow you meet with the High Commander,” he says. “I suggest you get some rest and refrain from marking the walls further. I’d hate for you to scare away the maids.”
He turns to leave. A gloved hand rests on the heavy wood as he glances back, a smirk pulling at his mouth before he vanishes through the doorway.
I stare at the walls again. The woman’s smudged hair gleams in the growing light. The shadows at my feet lean toward her, as if they remember.
For a heartbeat, I could have sworn she was smiling back.