SERAPHINA’S POV
Sleep did not come gently that night.
It dragged me under with the quiet insistence of deep water, pulling me away from Kieran’s warmth, from the familiar weight of his arm around my waist, from the steady rhythm of his breathing against my hair.
One moment, I was lying beside him in the dark, counting the soft cadence of his breathing, and the next, the world shifted.
The scent reached me first.
Sterile metal. Salt. Old stone. Witchcraft.
My eyes opened to a room I had never entered, yet somehow recognized.
It was small, too elegant to be called a cell and too cold to be called a bedroom.
Pale walls curved slightly at the edges, giving the space the seamless look of something built deep underground, where sunlight had never been invited in.
A narrow bed stood near one wall, dressed in clean white sheets that looked more like a performance of comfort than comfort itself.
