Chapter 27
?──── Serenya ? ────?
Laughter echoes through the gardens, bright as sunlight in spring. I turn, breathless, as Alira tosses a handful of flower petals in my face.
“Oh, you are cruel,” I gasp, brushing petals from my hair.
“I am beautiful and creative,” she declares, spinning dramatically. “You should appreciate it more.”
We collapse into laughter, falling into the grass like children again. For a moment, there is nothing else. No court. No crown. No trials. Just sunlight, the perfume of roses, and the feeling of being young and unburdened.
I blink, and I’m somewhere else entirely.
Now I am in the training yard, sweat slicking down my back as Torin circles me with a wooden blade. “You’re late on your pivot,” he says sternly.
“Maybe it’s more fun this way,” I tease, blocking his next strike with a grin.
He narrows his eyes, but there is no real fire in them. “You’ve been spending too much time with Kallan. His sarcasm is starting to infect you.”
My laugh echoes as the dream shifts again.
I stand in the center of the flagstones with Dimitri circling me like a hawk.
“Your focus is too rigid,” Dimitri says, his voice calm. “The shadows don’t obey like a blade does. They only move if you invite them.”
I sigh, brushing loose strands of hair from my face. “I’m inviting them. They just keep ignoring me.”
Kallan watches from the side, leaning on the wall, arms crossed, and smiling softly. He tries to hide it, but I can see the frustration. His magic is fire. The shadows won’t listen to him, and vaelshad belongs to those who can command darkness.
“Try again. Picture a place within sight. Somewhere your mind can hold clearly,” Dimitri says, taking a step closer.
This time, I close my eyes and breathe in deeply. The shadows rise around me like a tide, brushing my shoulders, curling along my arms. The world vanishes. When the shadows melt away, I’m directly in front of Kallan.
He grins proudly. “That’s my girl.”
Then everything falls away.
I’m younger now, curled in the big velvet chair by the fire.
My father sits across from me, the flicker of flames dancing in his tired eyes.
His shoulders are strong, his voice steady as he reads aloud from the old stories I used to love.
My mother sits beside me, humming softly, brushing out my hair with slow, gentle strokes.
A feeling swells in my chest. Peace. I had forgotten what it had felt like.
The fire dims, and the dream changes again. A different memory now. A deeper one.
The lake shimmers under the starlight. I stand at the shore, my heels forgotten in the sand, my feet kissed by the cold water. Behind me, I hear the laugh that always melts my tension, always brings the warmth back to my skin, no matter how long the day has been.
I turn toward him.
It’s Kallan’s voice. The same playful tone, the same quiet strength beneath it. But it isn’t his face.
It’s Koen standing there, shirt damp from the water, onyx hair tousled by the wind, that crooked grin on his face that makes my heart twist.
He says something, but the dream muffles his words.
I laugh anyway, reaching for him, my fingers brushing his wrist. The touch is familiar and grounding.
This isn’t right, a voice whispers in the back of my mind.
It feels right, though.
I remember this. I remember the way his hand had once wrapped around mine, how we danced in the clearing after midnight, how he whispered promises I once believed.
Only...it had been Kallan. Hadn’t it?
Why is it Koen’s hand holding mine now? Why is it Koen looking at me with love and sorrow?
The stars ripple above us like water. His mouth moves again, but no sound comes. I want to reach him. To ask. To understand.
But the dream slips through my grasp like water through my fingers.
The stars fade. The lake dissolves. I’m in the forest, sunlight filtering through the leaves. The trees blow in the wind, and the world is quiet except for the sound of footsteps beside me.
I look, expecting Kallan. But it’s Koen again.
He doesn’t speak. He simply walks beside me, holding my hand. The silence is warm and familiar. I feel safe.
We reach a clearing. It’s the one I always sneak away to, the one not many know about.
“Do you remember this place?” Koen asks softly, kneeling to brush his fingers along the wildflowers blooming near a fallen stone. He looks up at me, and for a heartbeat, his eyes aren’t Koen’s at all. They are Kallan’s . The same deep, storm-gray color. The same pain hidden behind the calm.
I take a step back. He doesn’t follow. He just looks at me like he has so many times before…before he died. Like I was the center of his world, and he was afraid to hold too tightly.
The clearing vanishes.
Now we are in the training ring, swords in hand. Sweat glistening on our skin. I spin, slash, laugh, as my blade clangs against his. Again, it’s Koen’s face. But the way he moves, the rhythm of it, the way he smiles when I catch him off-guard, it’s Kallan. It is.
“You always overextend,” he teases.
“So do you,” I shoot back, but my voice trembles. Because I remember this. Every detail.
But that man died. I had wept over his broken body. I had performed the Luminara and watched his body turn to stardust.
How can Koen know these moments? How can he feel like the missing half of a story I had already lived?
The training ring melts away.
Now we stand beneath the stars again. We are dressed in ceremonial clothes. The Divine Ceremony. The one that takes place at the end of the trials.
His hand takes mine, slow, reverent, like he is afraid I might disappear. Music drifts around us. A dance, slow and quiet.
It feels like another memory. But…this one has never happened. Well, not yet, at least.
Koen’s voice breaks the silence.
“I found you,” he whispers, his thumb brushing over my knuckles. “Even when I forgot everything else…I found you.”
I open my mouth to answer, but I wake with a gasp instead.
For a moment, I don’t remember how to breathe. My chest is rising too fast, heart pounding in my ears. Then, as quickly as it began, the panic eases. My lungs settle, my pulse slows, and I open my eyes.
Warm light pours through tall windows, dust motes drifting lazily in the air. The bed beneath me is soft and enormous, with layers of silks cushioning me like a cocoon. It smells like cedar and lavender and something darker beneath it, like moonlit stone.
This isn’t my room. It isn’t even my palace. I sit up slowly, gaze scanning the elegantly arched windows, the midnight tapestries, the strange spiral shelves of glass.
Noctheron.
I haven’t been here in years. Not since the war. Not since that night. Yet I remember the quiet air that hums with ancient magic, the subtle elegance of the architecture, colder than my home, but no less beautiful.
My fingers brush over the smooth fabric clinging to me. Clean, warm, and unfamiliar. A soft robe. The scent of herbs clings to my skin. My body feels whole. I look down at my hands. No blood. No sores. Only smooth, healed skin.
The door opens.
I turn sharply, expecting Dimitri, but it isn’t him. It’s another vampire. The moment I see her, my breath falters for an entirely different reason.
“...Ravelle?” My voice is quiet.
She smiles warmly, with a touch of amusement.
Her long, pale pink hair falls in waves down her back.
She wears black leggings and a long-sleeved dress of dark green—the hem falls to the floor in the back, but the front cuts off at her thighs, with a purposeful slit across her abdomen that bares just a hint of skin.
Her casual attire. I’ve always loved her style—bold, effortless, and unapologetic.
Her silver eyes—eyes all vampires have—crinkle with relief.
“Well,” she says, “you remember me. That’s a good start.”
A small smile tugs at my lips at seeing Dimitri’s female companion. “I do.”
I stare at her for a moment, overwhelmed. I haven’t seen her since before the bloodshed turned every vampire alliance into suspicion.
“Glad to see you’re not dead,” she says. “You were quite the mess.”
A laugh escapes me, then I wince as my ribs protest. “How long was I asleep?”
“Three days.”
My eyes widen.
“We were worried,” she continues. “You were…worse than Dima let on. I’m still not sure how you are breathing without pain.”
“Where is he?”
“Hunting,” Ravelle says gently. “But he will be back soon. He’s…not exactly calm, in case that surprises you.”
It doesn’t. Dimitri is calm the majority of the time, but when someone he cares about is in danger, composure is the first thing to go. I just didn’t realize that I was still someone he cared about.
“I will let him know you’re awake,” she says, stepping toward the door.
“Ravelle,” I say softly.
She pauses.
“It’s really good to see you again.”
She grins widely . “You too, Ren. You always had a habit of showing up when the world needed shaking.” With that, she slips out of the room.
I lean back against the pillows, my thoughts racing.
It isn’t long before the door swings open without warning. I jolt upright, shadows curling instinctively around my fingertips until I see Dimitri.
He stands in the doorway, hair tousled and damp, tension cutting sharp lines into his face. Gone is the careful calm he usually wears like armor. His coat hangs open, boots covered in mud, eyes scanning me.
“Dimitri—”
“You’re awake,” he exhales, stepping inside and closing the door behind him.
He crosses the room in long strides, gaze sweeping over me as if confirming I’m still breathing.
“I’m fine,” I tell him, though my voice wavers.
He doesn’t say anything right away. He stops a foot from the bed, fists clenched at his sides, chest rising too fast. His mouth opens like he wants to speak, but nothing comes out.
I force myself to meet his eyes. “Dimitri, why am I in Noctheron?”
His jaw flexes. “You were dying, Serenya,” he says, his voice low. “You were covered in blisters. Your magic wasn’t healing you. You would have been dead if I hadn’t gotten you to a healer.”