Chapter 46
Chapter forty-six
Seraphina
It had been two days since she’d learned about her father.
Two days since witnessing looks of adoration in Vasso’s future gaze.
And Alistair was still asleep from the belldon Ophelia had drugged him with.
Ophelia had assured her that he would wake the next day, pulling his threads to prove her point, and Sera finally stopped berating the oracle for what she’d done. She hadn’t worked up the courage to apologize to the witch.
She was so angry. About her father, the lies her mother had told, the look on Vasso’s face when they were definitely having future sex.
That in itself brought on a slew of emotions she didn’t want to unravel right now.
It didn’t help that Vasso had left her in the training circle the day before with a simple instruction to burn targets, and left.
Sera cocooned herself deep into the feather pillows of her bed, soaking in every inch of the gray silk nightclothes the domovoi had given her. They were big but much more comfortable than her trousers and tunic.
Snik snored beside her.
“So I’m half demon,” she said to her magic.
A little more than half, but yes.
“And is that where you come from? Do all demons have random voices in their head?”
Her magic giggled but didn’t answer.
Sera unclasped the necklace her father had left her, turning the stone raven between her fingers.
On the ride back from the ruins, she’d asked Vasso to tell her everything about her father.
He’d told her his name was Darius, and that he’d been an adviser to the previous demon king. His most trusted, according to Vasso.
Darius was at least eight hundred years old if he were still alive. A war general with a keen eye for battle strategy, was what Vasso had said. But after the last battle of Okaterth, he disappeared.
She remembered studying that battle. It was a bloody one for both sides. The ground had been burned so badly that nothing grew there, as if that small outcropping was an island made of Deadlands.
This entire time, her mother had lied. About who her father was. What she was. Her darkness. Had Lavinia known about it from the beginning? She had to have. Her mother was too calculated, too motivated… too fucking powerful.
Sera turned the necklace over again, and the pad of her thumb caught on the beak.
“Oww,” she said, sucking the blood from the prick.
Crack. The pendant turned hot as an ember in her palm. Sera gasped with the pain and threw it to the ground.
“Eeeeech?” Snik cooed at her.
“I don’t know,” she said. The stone cracked again. Blinding light seeped from the fractures of the bird, and in a snap of magic, a black raven half her height appeared, releasing a mighty caw.
“Oh, Shadow. Ophelia? Vasso!” she yelled.
Snik was on all fours, snarling at the thing, then talking to it in his little animal language. The bird only stretched out its wings and flapped.
Her bedroom door crashed open. Vasso stood there panting as if he’d run to her from the other side of the manor. His eyes blazed bloodred. “Seraphina?” She couldn’t say anything and just pointed to the massive bird. Vasso let out a breath. “What is it?”
“I don’t know! Will you get Ophelia?”
“One moment,” he said.
The raven croaked, then trilled so loud she covered her ears. What on Eraphon was this? She’d never seen a raven so big before. Its beady black eyes bore into her as it tilted its head from side to side. Snik took a swipe, but Sera grabbed him by the middle and pulled him to her chest.
“Oh my.” Ophelia’s smooth voice descended over the room. Vasso was behind her, shaking his head with an exasperated look.
“What is it?” Sera asked.
“Well, I believe it’s a familiar.” Ophelia stepped closer, holding out her hand. “I never thought I’d see one.”
“A familiar? I thought they’d left the witches? One hasn’t been bonded in thousands of years.”
“May I?” The oracle motioned to the bed, and Sera nodded.
“I’ll leave you two to discuss.” Vasso closed the door and left.
Ophelia sat at the foot of the bed. She was dressed in gray robes today. Sera’s heart ached for Dominick. If she and the oracle were on better terms, she would ask Ophelia to pull his thread so she could get a glimpse of him.
“It seems your father has left you quite a gift,” Ophelia said.
“It’s not very inconspicuous. I’m pretty sure I could ride on the back of it.” In a flash of light, the raven shrank to a normal size.
Ophelia clapped her hands in delight. “How did it break free?” She turned her sky blue gaze to Sera.
“I was just playing with my necklace. I never realized how sharp the beak was. My thumb caught, and a drop of my blood touched the stone. Next thing you know, it appeared.”
“Fascinating.”
She supposed it was. The only thing that Sera couldn’t figure out was why her father—a demon—had access to something only witches were supposed to bond to. “Do you know how to bond it to me?”
Ophelia adjusted her robes and stroked the bird’s head. “If I had to guess, I think the drop of blood took care of that.”
“Ophelia, I wanted to say I’m sorry. For enthralling you, and for badgering about Al.”
The oracle raised a white-blond brow at her. “I apologize for revealing something that you should have learned on your own.”
It had changed something between them. She and Vasso both, judging from the way he looked at her in those images.
Knowing what it could be. But then his dead face in her hands—it made her want to run in the other direction.
“I just—so much is happening right now. The war is picking back up, Nora kidnapped, my powers, Vasso…”
“Hmm, how do you feel about him?”
“Vasso?” She had no idea, really. Somewhere between lust and annoyance, she supposed.
“I don’t know enough about him to make any sort of opinion.
Other than he can be vicious at times, but I think…
” She thought that deep down there was a reason for it.
That he hadn’t had an easy life, and maybe, like her, he was missing a bit of kindness.
He cared. For the beings of the forest, for Snik, for the domovoi.
Even the fox. She knew now that he had taken away its pain, pouring it into her, so she could learn. “I don’t know what I think.”
“The prophecy spoke of a witch with the power to bring the covens back under demon rule. That she would change all life on Eraphon.” Ophelia took Sera’s hand. “Seraphina, I think that witch is you.”
Her mouth went dry. “Even if I wanted that, I don’t have that kind of power. The Council of Elders would never listen to me. They’ve been fighting this war for two thousand years. Not to mention our ancestors rebelled for a reason. I’m only one witch.”
Ophelia sighed. “But you’re not just a witch, are you?”
Her familiar hopped onto the bed and balanced itself on Sera’s knee. Snik whined.
“Do not eat it.”
The goblin harrumphed, and she let him go.
“What good would it do, anyway?” she asked the oracle. “Even if the Solarni coven did surrender and go belowground, I imagine they’d try to rebel again.”
Ophelia stood. “I know you’re managing a lot. But only the strongest will endure. Have faith.”
“In Shadow?”
The oracle gave her a soft smile before opening the door to leave. “In yourself.”