The Valencrest estate looked exactly as Seraph remembered it.
Marble columns rising toward a sky that didn't deserve them. Gold leaf on every surface that could hold it. Gardens manicured so precisely they looked artificial. Walls so white they hurt to look at in the sun.
But now there were other things. New things.
Guard towers. Resonance turrets. Mercenaries in tactical gear patrolling the walls with military precision. The family had fortified the estate—turned it into a fortress.
They were expecting trouble.
Good.
Seraph stood at the treeline just beyond the outer wall, twin short swords sheathed at her hips, and felt something stirring inside her. A warmth that started in her chest and spread outward, filling her limbs with liquid gold.
Ayọlá's blessing. The goddess's gift she hadn't understood until now.
It was time to use it.
She stepped out of the shadows, and the first guard tower's searchlight found her immediately. Alarms shrieked. Resonance turrets swiveled, locking onto her position.
"Target acquired," a voice crackled over comms. "Single female, armed—"
Seraph moved.
The turrets fired—concentrated beams of sound and light designed to tear flesh from bone. But she was already gone, moving faster than she'd ever moved before. The blessing sang through her veins, turning her body into something more than human.
She cleared the wall in a single leap—fifteen feet straight up—and landed in a crouch on the parapet. The guard stationed there barely had time to raise his weapon before her blade found his throat.
She kept moving.
Down into the courtyard, where a squad of mercenaries was already converging. Ten of them, maybe twelve, all carrying high-grade resonance weapons. Military contractors, judging by their movements. Expensive.
The Valencrests had spared no expense.
"Fire!" the squad leader shouted.
A wall of sound and force erupted toward her. Seraph raised her blade, and something golden flared around her—a barrier of divine light that shattered the attack like glass. The mercenaries' eyes went wide.
"What the—"
She was among them before they could finish the thought.
Her blades sang. One mercenary fell, then two, then three. The others tried to scatter, tried to coordinate, but she was too fast. The blessing made her faster than thought, stronger than steel. Every movement was perfect, economical, deadly.
The last mercenary managed to trigger a resonance grenade. The explosion tore through the courtyard—but Seraph was already airborne, flipping over the blast radius, landing in a spray of golden sparks.
She straightened, breathing steady, and looked toward the main entrance.
More guards poured out. Twenty at least. These ones were different—uniformed, coordinated. House troops, not mercenaries. Trained specifically to defend the estate.
Their captain stepped forward, a massive man with a resonance lance crackling with energy. "Stand down. You're outnumbered."
Seraph tilted her head. "Am I?"
The golden light around her flared brighter, and for just a moment, she felt Ayọlá's presence. Not controlling her. Not possessing her. Just... *there*. Supporting her. Believing in her.
*You are my chosen,* the goddess seemed to whisper. *Show them why.*
Seraph charged.
The captain thrust his lance. She sidestepped, blade flashing, and the lance fell in two pieces. His eyes went wide before her second blade took him across the chest.
The rest came at her in a wave. She met them head-on.
It was beautiful and terrible. Seraph moved like water, like wind, like wrath given form. Her blades were extensions of her will, cutting through armor and flesh with equal ease. The divine blessing made her untouchable—not because she couldn't be hit, but because she was simply too fast, too precise, too perfect in her violence.
A guard swung a mace at her head. She ducked under it, drove her blade through his ribs, pulled it free, and took down the guard behind him in the same motion.
Another fired a resonance rifle. The shot went wide as she blurred past him, her blade trailing golden light.
They fell like wheat before a scythe.
When the courtyard was clear, Seraph stood among the bodies and looked at her hands. The golden light pulsed beneath her skin, warm and alive. She felt strong. Invincible.
And still herself.
That was the important part. This wasn't possession. This was partnership. Ayọlá had blessed her, not claimed her.
The power was hers to control.
She sheathed one blade and walked toward the main entrance. The doors were reinforced steel, locked and barred. Resonance wards glowed along the frame—designed to electrocute anyone who touched them.
Seraph placed her hand on the door anyway.
The wards flared, electricity arcing toward her—then shattered against the golden light surrounding her hand. The divine blessing burned through their defenses like they were nothing.
She pushed. The doors bent, groaned, then exploded inward.
The main hall was packed with nobles and guards. They'd barricated themselves inside, turned the celebration into a fortress. Long tables had been flipped to create cover. Guards crouched behind them with crossbows and resonance weapons.
And standing at the far end, on a raised platform, was Lord Corven Valencrest.
The family head looked different from her memories. Older. Harder. He wore resonance-enhanced armor and held a blade that hummed with deadly energy.
"Seraph Kael." His voice carried across the hall. "I knew you'd come. Predictable, really."
"You killed my mother." Seraph's voice was cold, flat. "What did you think would happen?"
"She *sold* herself to us." Corven descended the platform slowly, his guards moving to flank him. "Came crawling back when her little rebellion failed. We gave her what she wanted—status, wealth, security. And in return, she paid her debt."
"Her debt?" Seraph's grip tightened on her blades. "She was your *family*."
"She was a commodity." Corven raised his sword. "And so are you. The Church would pay handsomely for a live Blessed specimen. I wonder how much more they'd pay for a dead one?"
"Let's find out."
Seraph moved.
The guards fired. Bolts and beams filled the air where she'd been standing—but she was already gone, vaulting over the barricades, her blades trailing golden light.
The first guard she reached died before he could reload. The second tried to draw a sword but wasn't fast enough. The third managed to block her strike—but the divine power behind it shattered his blade and drove him to his knees.
Seraph left him there and kept moving.
Lord Corven met her in the center of the hall. His blade came down in a crushing overhead strike. She blocked it—felt the impact shiver up her arms despite the blessing—and realized he was stronger than she'd expected.
Resonance enhancements. High-grade, military tech. He'd turned himself into a weapon.
Good. It would make killing him more satisfying.
They traded blows, moving in a deadly dance across the marble floor. Corven was skilled—genuinely skilled, not just some noble playing at combat. He'd trained for this. Prepared for this.
But Seraph had been blessed by a goddess.
She found her opening when he overextended on a thrust. Her blade deflected his strike, and her second blade cut through the armor on his thigh. He stumbled, and she pressed the advantage.
Three strikes, four, five. Each one pushing him back. Each one cutting deeper.
"You can't win!" Corven snarled, blood streaming from a dozen cuts. "Even if you kill me, the Church will hunt you! They'll never stop!"
"Then I'll kill them too."
Her blade took him across the chest. He fell to his knees, sword clattering from his grip.
Seraph stood over him, and the golden light around her blazed brighter. She looked like a goddess herself in that moment—terrible and beautiful and utterly beyond mercy.
"This is for my mother," she said quietly.
Her blade fell.
Lord Corven died with his eyes wide, finally understanding that some debts could only be paid in blood.
The remaining nobles scattered. Some tried to run for the exits. Others begged. A few fought.
None of it mattered.
Seraph cut through them methodically, efficiently. The divine blessing made her tireless, relentless. She was a force of nature, unstoppable and inevitable.
Uncle Veran was in the east gallery, but he wasn't running.
He stood in the center of the room, and Seraph stopped when she saw what he'd become.
Resonance enhancements covered his arms—black metal grafted directly to his flesh, similar to the Sanctifier armor but cruder, unstable. His eyes glowed with artificial energy. Cables ran from his spine to a power pack on his back.
He'd turned himself into a weapon.
"I knew you'd come," Veran said, his voice distorted by the enhancements. "The family thought I was paranoid. That I was wasting resources." He flexed his augmented arms, and energy crackled along them. "But I knew. I *knew* you'd want revenge."
"You were right." Seraph raised her blades.
Veran moved faster than she expected—the enhancements giving him speed that rivaled her blessed state. His fist came at her like a cannonball. She dodged, but the strike cratered the wall behind her.
He was strong. Dangerously strong.
They clashed in the center of the gallery. Veran's enhanced fists against her divine blades. Each impact sent shockwaves through the room, shattering display cases, cracking marble.
He caught her blade with his bare hand—the enhancement letting him grip the edge without cutting himself. "The Church wanted your mother. I gave her to them. Simple business."
Seraph twisted, yanked her blade free, and drove her second sword toward his throat. He blocked with his forearm, metal screeching against steel.
"She was your *SISTER*!" Seraph's voice was raw.
"She was a *traitor* who married beneath her station!" Veran's other fist came up, and Seraph barely avoided the strike. "She chose that rebel over her family. Over her *NAME*. She got what she deserved!"
The golden light around Seraph flared brighter, hotter. Ayọlá's blessing responding to her rage.
"Then so do you."
She moved with divine speed, faster than his enhancements could track. Her first blade cut through the cables on his back. Her second blade found the joint in his arm enhancement, severing connections.
Veran roared, swinging wildly. She ducked under the strike and drove both blades through his chest—one from the front, one from the back, crossing in his heart.
His eyes went wide. The glow in them faded.
"You... can't..." he gasped.
"I already did."
She pulled her blades free, and he collapsed.
Lady Vesper offered gold, status, anything. Seraph's blade answered faster than words could.
Lord Tavin fired a resonance pistol point-blank. The shot glanced off the divine light surrounding her, and she drove her sword through his heart without breaking stride.
Cousin Elara tried to surrender. Seraph remembered her at family gatherings—laughing while servants were beaten, mocking the "lower breeds." Her blade was swift. Merciful.
One by one, they fell.
The estate ran red with Valencrest blood.
When only silence remained, Seraph stood in the center of the ruined hall and felt the blessing begin to fade. The golden light dimmed, receding back into her core. The supernatural strength ebbed, leaving her with just her own—still formidable, still deadly, but human again.
She was breathing hard now. Tired. The divine power had carried her through the massacre, but the exhaustion was catching up.
One more thing. One more place to burn.
The Church laboratory was in the east wing, hidden behind false walls and reinforced doors. Seraph didn't bother with subtlety. She carved through the door with her blades, the last traces of divine power helping her cut through steel like paper.
The room beyond was cold and clinical. Rows of equipment hummed. Resonance crystals glowed in the dark.
And throughout the room, in glass tubes and on metal tables, were people.
Test subjects. Experiments. Bodies in various states of transformation—crystals growing through their flesh, machinery grafted to their bones, faces frozen in silent screams.
Some were still alive.
Seraph's stomach turned.
In the center of the room, in the largest tube, floated something that made her blood run cold.
It looked like her mother. Same face. Same hair. But wrong. Empty. A clone, maybe. Or a reconstruction built from Isolde's stolen genetic material. The Church trying to recreate what they'd lost, to continue their experiments even after her mother's death.
"No," Seraph whispered. "No, no, no—"
She attacked the equipment with savage fury. The tubes shattered. The machines sparked and died. The clone—the thing that wore her mother's face—collapsed as the fluid drained away.
Seraph moved through the lab destroying everything. Every piece of equipment. Every crystal. Every vial of stolen blood and tissue. She showed no mercy to the technology, no hesitation.
For the test subjects still alive, she was gentler. She opened their restraints, disconnected them from the machines. Most were too far gone—too transformed, too broken. They looked at her with eyes that didn't understand anymore.
She gave them mercy. Quick. Clean. Painless.
No one should have to suffer what the Church had done to them. No one should have to live as a twisted experiment.
When the last subject stopped breathing, Seraph stood in the center of the ruined laboratory and looked at her hands. They were shaking. Covered in blood—some from her enemies, some from her mercy killings.
She'd come here for revenge. She'd gotten it.
And she felt nothing but hollow.
"Seraph."
She turned, exhausted, to find Lady Miren standing in the laboratory doorway. The older woman looked at the destruction, at the bodies, at the shattered tubes and broken machines.
"You're leaving," Seraph said, her voice flat.
"I am." Miren wore a simple travel cloak, a packed bag over her shoulder. "I told Isolde what this place would do to her. I was right. And I'm telling you now—this won't heal you."
"I know." Seraph looked at the clone's body, the thing that wore her mother's face. "But they needed to die. And this—" she gestured at the lab, "—this needed to burn."
"It did," Miren agreed quietly. She stepped into the room, careful to avoid the broken glass. "The test subjects?"
"Gone. I gave them mercy." Seraph's hands were still shaking. "No one should have to suffer like that."
Miren nodded slowly. "Your mother would be proud of that, at least. That you showed them kindness when no one else would."
"My mother is dead." Seraph's voice cracked. "And they tried to bring her back. Tried to make a copy, a weapon—"
"I know." Miren moved closer. "I found the contracts. The research proposals. I tried to stop it, but I was too late." She held out a hand. "But you stopped it now. You ended it. That matters."
Seraph stared at the offered hand. At this woman who'd told her mother the truth. Who'd tried to save her. Who stood here now, offering understanding instead of judgment.
Slowly, Seraph lowered her swords.
"Leave," she said quietly. "Leave this city. If I see you again—"
"You won't." Miren squeezed her shoulder once, gently. "She loved you. More than this family. More than her pride. More than her life. I hope you know that."
Seraph said nothing. Couldn't.
Miren left, her footsteps soft against the broken glass.
Seraph stood alone in the ruined laboratory for a long moment. Then she pulled a lantern from the wall and threw it into the center of the room.
The flames caught quickly, feeding on chemicals and spilled fluids. Fire spread across the lab, consuming the equipment, the experiments, the horror.
Seraph walked out as the flames grew behind her. Out of the laboratory. Out of the estate. Out of the nightmare.
Behind her, House Valencrest burned.
And she didn't look back.
She walked through the streets of the Upper City alone, covered in blood and ash, and felt nothing but the hollow ache where her heart used to be.
She'd gotten her revenge. Killed everyone who'd wronged her mother. Destroyed the laboratory that had tried to desecrate her memory.
The goddess had blessed her with the power to do it.
And it had cost her everything that mattered.
The city was still burning. The war was still raging. Ilias was still fighting.
And Seraph walked through it all, alone, wondering if she'd ever feel whole again.