Chapter 25 Alaric
Alaric
Shadeau
Séraphine.
Candlelight warmed her bronze skin and caught on the charms woven into her dark coils—bones and beads clicking softly when she shifted.
A woman kissed by shadows and crowned by the dead.
But it was her eyes that made my spine tighten.
They’d once both been ember-gold. Now one still burned—while the other was flat black, unreadable, watching me like it already knew what I’d come for.
The first time I met Séraphine Devereaux I’d come looking for protection—real protection, the kind you paid for in blood or favors you could never take back. I knew walking into her territory meant gambling my life. I went anyway.
Her graveyard temple sat at the heart of the city, candles burning low among bone and ash.
She was seated at the center of a quiet circle, calm as a tide that knew exactly when it would turn.
Skulls and coins lay scattered across the table before her, citrus cut open and dusted with ash.
Snakes coiled at her feet, unbothered, familiar.
I stayed longer than I should have. I kept her close.
Close enough to learn how she worked. Close enough to be dangerous.
Shadeau treated us like untouchables—me handling the underbelly of trade, her commanding the spirit world.
People knew our names. They stepped aside when we passed.
But it was more than that. Séraphine slipped past every wall I’d built and made me want something I didn’t know how to ask for.
Even then, I knew that attachments were liabilities. So I left. No warning. No goodbye. Not long after came the curse. Then the sea. And with it, the certainty that I could never return.
Until now.
Standing in her presence once more, I wondered if she still carried the bitterness of that betrayal, or if she had simply moved beyond it, letting me become another ghost in her long history of the damned.
Séraphine didn’t look pleased or angry—just alert.
Something flickered across her face when she saw Nerina, the first crack in her composure I’d ever witnessed.
My pulse tightened. Her eyes settled on me again, steady and weighty, as if she were trying to measure everything I’d become since the last time we stood face to face.
“You look ‘bout shocked to see me, Cap’taine.” Her voice rolled, thick with something older than memory. “Tell me now—be it this cursed place that haunts you, or is it me?”
I forced a smirk, though it felt hollow. “Haven’t decided yet.”
She let out a quiet hum, moving around the shop with the grace of a queen in her court, each step deliberate, each glance carrying the silent weight of judgment.
Her fingers brushed against a shelf lined with vials, her touch lingering over one filled with an inky black substance that shimmered unnaturally.
“Mm,” Séraphine murmured.
I felt it then—the subtle shift in the room, the way the air leaned toward her.
"You changed," she murmured, voice thick with honey and smoke. "The kinda change that gets done to ya, not by ya."
Nerina stood just behind me, inching closer without seeming to notice. Her attention shifted between us, wary, curious. I could feel her questions pressing against the space between us, tightening with each moment, but she held them back—for now.
Seraphine's mouth curled. “You used to be a man who carved his own fate, bent the world how he pleased. Now look—chained to hunger, to shadow that won’t ever set ya free."
I forced my expression to remain impassive, though something inside me twisted at her words. She knew what I had become, of course she did.
Séraphine missed nothing. But there was something in the way she said it, seeming to see the thing lurking beneath my skin, the thing I tried not to acknowledge.
She took a slow step closer, "Maybe ya think ya done lost everythin’ already, Cap’taine. But ya ever wonder what'll happen when the lender stop feelin’ generous?”
I felt Nerina’s eyes flick between us—just a sliver of movement, but enough. She didn’t say anything, didn’t ask.
I could’ve said something. Offered some half-truth to make it easier to swallow.
But I didn’t. Whatever Séraphine and I had was forged in another life—before blood, before curses, before Nerina.
And yet… some part of me didn’t want her to look at me any differently.
So I said nothing. Let the silence speak for me.
“You need somethin’?” Séraphine drawled, her fingers dancing lazy over a vial dark as embered coals.
“We're looking for something,” I admitted, bracing for whatever reaction that might bring.
She turned slowly, leaning back against the counter, arms crossed tight beneath her chest. "What kinda mess y’all bringin’ to my door?"
“We're looking for The Eye of Nareth,” Nerina spoke before I could.
Séraphine stilled, her attention snapping to Nerina.
Her mismatched eyes flickered, searching, peeling back the layers of whatever she expected to find—but her expression darkened, just slightly, when she found nothing.
Her lips parted; she meant to say something, but she hesitated.
That hesitation sent a ripple of unease through me. Séraphine never hesitated.
Nerina stiffened at my side.
Séraphine moved closer, slow and deliberate. “I been walkin’ this earth since ‘fore the old gods turned to bone and shadow. Seen things that ain’t got no right to breathe, loved things born wrong—and still, I ain’t never seen one like you.”
I stepped forward, placing myself slightly between them, the movement instinctive. Protective. "She's not part of this."
Séraphine arched a delicate brow, her lips curling in something that wasn’t quite amusement. "Oh, she standin' here, ain't she? In my shop, in my city. That make her part o' it."
Nerina’s chin lifted, defiant, but I could see the tension in her hands, the way her fingers curl in trepidation.
I stepped forward without thinking, the movement fast and instinctive. “She’s not for you—she’s not merchandise.” I said.
Séraphine’s brow arched, slow and deliberate. “Mm. Careful now, Cap’taine, you can’t own somethin' so wild, untamed.”
“I didn’t say she belonged to me.” I said more defensively than I'd like to.
Her smile curved—lazy, knowing. “Didn’t have to.”
She looked past me, fixing on Nerina. “Ain’t that right, cher?”
Nerina lifted her chin. “I don’t belong to anyone.”
“We gon’ see. But for now, let’s talk what brought ya knockin’. The Eye of Nareth.” She narrowed her eyes like she was weighing truth against trouble. “Ain’t got it. Ain’t know who do neither. But Shadeau got her whispers, and if ya pay the right price, I might just find what ya need.”
Séraphine turned away before I could answer, moving to the worn table at the back of the shop. A blackened brass bowl sat at its center, ringed with salt and dried wax. Low candles flickered around it, their flames reacting to something I couldn’t see.
She worked quickly, pulling vials and herb bundles from the shelves.
The air thickened as she moved—charged, heavy.
Shadows shifted along the walls, stretching in ways they shouldn’t.
She began to speak in a low, steady chant.
I’d seen her call on spirits before; none of this was for show.
The Loa listened to her, answered her. She didn’t command them—they worked with her, and the price was never small.
She poured a dark liquid into the brass bowl, then added bone fragments, dried sage, and a piece of something faintly luminous.
Power rippled through the room. The candles flared, melting faster than they should.
Without hesitation, Séraphine drew a blade across her palm and let a drop of blood fall.
The mixture shifted instantly, swirling into a deep violet sheen.
A faint metallic scent joined the rotting roses in the air as she uncorked another bottle. A sudden gust pushed the candle flames sideways though the door hadn’t moved. The shop inhaled.
“Let us see who holds the Eye now,” she said. Her voice layered—hers, and another beneath it. The shadows pressed close as the surface of the bowl went unnaturally still. Shapes rippled across it, faint and shifting.
A cold pressure swept through the shop, and Nerina stiffened beside me. “What is that?” she whispered.
Séraphine didn’t pause her work. “Loa,” she said quietly.
Nerina blinked. “What are Loa?”
“The spirits, chère,” Séraphine clarified, gathering herbs. “They protect, they guide… they move between this world and the next.”
Nerina glanced toward the shifting shadows. “And they listen to you?”
“When they choose to,” Séraphine said with a small tilt of her head. “If they think you worth hearin’, they’ll answer.”
Their presence wasn’t visible, but the signs were unmistakable—the floor creaked under no weight, a low hum vibrated through the walls, and the air grew cold enough to sting.
Séraphine continued the ritual, fingertips gliding through the violet surface, guiding it.
The candles dimmed, their flames thinning to weak points of light.
Séraphine closed her eyes, tilting her head, listening to distant voices. One by one, the shadows receded, thinning into nothing. The shop remained heavy with ritual—burning herbs, cold air, and spent magic. The candles sputtered, drained. Silence settled between us.
Now, all we could do was wait.
Meanwhile, Nerina had begun to wander through the shop, her fingers trailing over the strange relics and vials that lined the shelves.
Bottled shadows, bones etched with forgotten runes, and silken bags filled with dried, unidentifiable things.
I kept a close, watchful eye on her, my gut twisting with unease.
This was not a place to touch things lightly.
Séraphine’s chuckle danced through the air, "Tell me somethin’, when’d ya start fallin’ for that girl, hmm?"