“We used the blood of the Elysium and the ancient magic of the Seraphel Order,” Seraphina continued.
“Two forces that were never meant to merge. Two skies that should have been forbidden to touch.”
“Forbidden by every Order,” Fionn growled. “By every star-scripted law. By the geometry of the heavens themselves.”
“And yet,” Seraphina whispered, “we found her before the others. Before the Gatekeepers scented her. Before the Elorium felt her pulse in the air, and before the Elders of the Seraphel read her name in the sky.”
“You think I don’t see it?” Fionn snapped. “You think I don’t know what the séance did? The séance didn’t just guide her to us, it awakened Vareth, and has made him hungrier than ever.
Vareth’s prophecy is tightening around our bloodline. Far more than it ever has. Every Marked soul feeds him, and now he’s looking to us to deliver her.”
“Stop it!” Seraphina’s voice rose, sharp and commanding.
“We used forbidden magic.” Fionn said. “We broke celestial law and for what? To drag out the inevitable?”
I heard him shuffle as if he had stepped closer to her; Then the shift in his tone, the cold certainty of a man who had already made his decision.
“She is not a soul that can bind to my brothers or me,” his voice stern. “She is a burden. We end her, and the curse resets. That is the only mercy left for the human.
Everything paused for a second.
“The Blood Moon takes what it was promised, and our realms breathe again.”
My stomach churned. He wanted to dispose of me, like I was nothing.
“That is not the way,” Seraphina hissed, but her voice wavered.
“The choice is merely a formality,” Fionn said. “If she doesn’t make it soon, the Blood Moon will demand its offering, and I will do what must be done.”
“Cillian will not allow it,” Seraphina said, He believes in the binding and that it will break Vareth’s cycle.
“He obeys The Varethym Kharos. The laws of the Marked. Fionn retorted.
“One way or another, he will remember where his loyalty belongs. Cillian will be pulled in line.”
I leaned back from the window, my hands trembling. I didn’t know what scared me more—the curse, their plans for me, or the possibility that Fionn might be right.
My chest tightened, and then the voices came. It wasn’t Seraphina or Fionn anymore, this was something else. Faint at first, like a whisper, but they soon rose in my mind. Not one voice, but many.
"They’ll kill you, Tilly. Just like the others."
"You’re nothing to them. A means to an end."
"You saw their bones, didn’t you?
Scattered, broken, forgotten about. You’ll join them soon enough."
My throat felt dry as I clamped my hands over my ears.
It didn’t matter.
The voices weren’t coming from outside me.
They were inside, crawling through my mind like parasites.
It wasn’t just fear anymore. It was anger, a deep, simmering fury that threatened to consume me. To them, I wasn’t Tilly. I wasn’t a person. I was a mark, a possibility, a gamble. And if I didn’t meet their expectations? They’d discard me without a second thought. The bones I’d seen weren’t a warning—they were my fate if I didn’t fight.
The room felt heavy and suffocating, as if the walls themselves were closing in. I needed to pull myself together, to wear the mask they needed to see. Hearing the door creak open, I turned to seeCillian standing in the doorway. For a moment, I swear my heart stopped.
