Kael's sword pressed into my throat.
Not enough to cut.
Just enough to promise he could.
The cold edge kissed skin, and my pulse throbbed against it—my own body begging to be sliced open.
His eyes were empty.
Not cruel.
Not satisfied.
Just… gone.
A weapon waiting for a command.
The temple knights holding me eased their grip, not to free me, but to angle my chin up. Presenting me like an offering.
The High Inquisitor's voice floated through the chamber, soft as prayer.
"Now," he said, "finish her."
Prince Adrian watched like he was already choosing what kind of speech he'd give after my death. Liora's tears glittered beside him, perfect and useless.
My father made a broken sound near the altar, trying to crawl toward me. A temple boot shoved him down again.
I couldn't breathe.
Not because of fear.
Because if I inhaled too sharply, the blade would bite deeper.
I stared at Kael's throat.
The sunburst brand sat at the base like a burned collar.
Even in candlelight, it looked wrong—too crisp, too deliberate, like it didn't belong on human skin.
Kael's jaw didn't move.
His grip didn't tremble.
He began to push.
A thin sting flared. Warmth touched my skin.
Blood.
Just a thread.
My vision sharpened in a cruel way.
This was how it began last time.
A calm hand.
A clean death.
A room full of witnesses who didn't matter.
I forced my voice out past the blade. "Kael."
No reaction.
I swallowed carefully, keeping my throat still. "Duke Rivenhart."
Still nothing.
His sword pressed a fraction more.
The sting turned into a slice.
My breath hitched despite me.
A temple knight's grip tightened at my arm, thrilled by the flinch.
The High Inquisitor smiled.
"See?" he murmured. "Even pride bleeds."
My hands clenched in useless rage.
*Think.*
In this room, I had exactly three weapons:
Witnesses.
Paper.
And whatever Kael still was underneath that brand.
I couldn't swing a sword.
I couldn't outmuscle knights.
So I needed seconds. One heartbeat of chaos. One crack in the ritual.
Kael's eyes didn't flicker.
His blade pressed again.
My skin split a little more.
I tasted copper.
And suddenly I remembered his whisper in the corridor upstairs.
*Do it. But don't drink anything.*
He'd anticipated this.
He'd known the goblet would return.
Which meant he'd expected the chain.
Which meant—no matter what the High Inquisitor did—Kael had walked in with a plan.
I forced myself to focus on the smallest detail.
Kael's glove.
The black leather at his knuckles was faintly damp.
From blood.
From the goblet.
From the poison that had hissed against his chains.
That liquid burned sanctified metal.
The brand on his throat wasn't metal, but it was holy.
What if it burned too?
My throat tightened.
The sword edge cut a fraction deeper in response.
I didn't have time to be afraid of pain.
I had to be afraid of endings.
Kael leaned closer—not from choice, but because the High Inquisitor's order pulled him in like a leash.
His throat was inches from my mouth.
The sunburst brand sat right there.
Perfect.
I let my lips part as if to beg.
As if to plead.
As if to do what every obedient woman in this empire was trained to do when a man held her life.
Adrian's smile widened, delighted by the performance he thought was coming.
Liora's lashes fluttered, hungry for my humiliation.
The High Inquisitor watched with mild curiosity, as if wondering what shape my last words would take.
I whispered, barely moving my mouth, "You said live."
Kael's eyes flickered.
So fast I almost missed it.
Not emptiness.
A ripple.
Something under the ice.
I seized it like a drowning person grabbing cloth.
I bit the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste blood.
Hot.
Copper.
Real.
Then I exhaled—not outward, but downward—letting saliva and blood gather at the back of my tongue, thick with the bitter residue of the poison drop I'd never swallowed.
My lips brushed Kael's throat.
It could have looked like desperation.
It could have looked like a dying woman reaching for her fiancé.
In truth, it was war.
I spat.
A thin, sticky line of blood-saliva streaked across the sunburst brand at the base of his throat.
The effect was immediate.
The brand flared white-hot, not with light but with pain. It hissed—an actual hiss, like the poison hitting his chains earlier.
Kael's body jerked.
The sword slipped a hair from my throat.
His eyes snapped sharp—river-dark, furious, present.
A sound tore from him, low and strangled.
The High Inquisitor's head tilted.
For the first time, something like interest sharpened his pale gaze.
Kael's voice came out rough. "You—"
I didn't give him time to finish.
I used the heartbeat he'd regained to move.
Not away—the knights held me.
I moved *inside* the hold, twisting my shoulders the way Kael had drilled into me in the mirror.
If you can't pull free, you don't pull. You turn.
My right arm slid just enough under the knight's grip for my fingers to reach the inside seam of my cloak.
The tiny knife was still there.
The black-handled blade Kael had tossed upstairs when I cut my father's bindings.
I'd hidden it like a secret heartbeat.
My fingers closed around it.
I pulled it free.
The knight didn't see until the metal flashed.
I drove it into his wrist—not deep, not fatal, just enough to make him lose grip.
He shouted and recoiled.
My arm was free.
Mara surged beside me the instant she sensed the opening, slamming her shoulder into the second knight and wrenching his balance off. Her elbow cracked into his ribs with brutal precision.
The High Inquisitor's smile vanished.
"Seize her," he snapped, voice suddenly sharp.
Too late.
I had one free arm and a blade.
Not enough to win.
Enough to change one moment.
I didn't attack Adrian.
That would be a story they'd love.
I didn't attack a knight.
They had too many.
I threw the knife.
Straight at the High Inquisitor's ringed hand.
The black-handled blade spun through candlelight and struck exactly where I aimed—across his palm, slicing through skin and drawing a bright bead of blood.
The High Inquisitor inhaled sharply.
Not in pain.
In surprise.
His fingers twitched.
The chamber hummed.
For half a heartbeat, the air pressure changed, like the ritual itself had been disrupted.
Kael's eyes cleared further.
His sword lowered.
His shoulders rose and fell once, heavy.
He looked at me like he'd just woken up in the middle of a nightmare he remembered too well.
I fought to breathe around the blood at my throat. "Kael—"
His gaze snapped to my cut.
Rage flashed.
Not at me.
At them.
Then the High Inquisitor smiled again—slowly, calmly—as if my little rebellion had simply proven his point.
"Ah," he murmured, flexing his bleeding hand. "There she is. The demon's bite."
He lifted his palm, blood glistening on his skin.
And with that blood, he drew a tiny sunburst in the air—an invisible gesture that made the candles flare.
The brand on Kael's throat responded.
It pulsed.
Once.
Twice.
Kael froze mid-breath.
His fingers tightened on his sword hilt like something had seized the tendons.
I felt panic slam into my chest.
No.
Not again.
The High Inquisitor's voice was mild, almost kind.
"You thought you could interrupt holiness with a kitchen trick," he said, glancing at my blood on Kael's brand as if it amused him. "But the Sunbrand isn't concentration. It's covenant."
He turned his head slightly, addressing Kael like he was speaking to an obedient animal.
"Duke Rivenhart," he said softly, "you will prove your purification."
Kael's jaw clenched.
His eyes were open, but trapped.
I could see him fighting inside his own body.
It made my stomach twist in a way I didn't have time to name.
The High Inquisitor's pale gaze slid to me.
"Not by killing her," he continued gently.
My blood ran cold.
Adrian's brows lifted—surprised.
Liora's mouth parted, breath catching.
Even the temple knights hesitated, sensing a turn.
The High Inquisitor smiled.
"Too simple," he said. "Too quick."
Then he looked at my father kneeling near the altar.
"Leverage," he murmured.
My father stiffened, terror washing over his face.
The High Inquisitor spoke the new command like a blessing.
"Duke Rivenhart," he said, voice soft and absolute, "execute Lord Vale."
For a heartbeat, the chamber didn't understand.
Then it did.
My father's eyes went wide.
A strangled sound tore from his throat.
"Seraphina—"
I lurched forward, but a temple knight grabbed my free arm and wrenched it back. Pain exploded through my shoulder.
"Don't move," the knight hissed.
Mara tried to strike, but two knights rushed her at once, slamming her into the stone wall. She hit hard, breath leaving her in a harsh gasp.
Kael's body moved.
Not toward me.
Toward my father.
His boots scraped stone.
His sword lifted.
His face was a mask again—obedience forced over fury.
But his eyes—
His eyes were not empty anymore.
They were aware.
And that was worse.
Because it meant he would remember doing it.
Adrian's smile returned, wide and satisfied. "Yes," he murmured, voice almost affectionate. "That's it."
Liora's tears spilled faster, her hands clasped. "Oh, Sera… I'm sorry…"
Lies.
All of them.
My throat burned where the sword had cut me. Warm blood slid down beneath my collar.
I fought against the knight's grip, voice ripping out raw.
"Kael! Stop!"
Kael didn't stop.
He reached my father.
My father tried to stand, legs shaking. He stumbled, bound by fear more than rope.
He looked up at Kael with desperate, pleading eyes.
"My Lord," he rasped, "please—"
Kael's jaw tightened so hard a muscle jumped in his cheek.
His sword arm trembled—just once.
A sign of resistance.
A sign that the man inside was screaming.
The High Inquisitor's voice was soft as silk. "Now."
The sunburst on Kael's throat flared.
Kael's sword lifted higher.
My father squeezed his eyes shut.
And Kael's blade began to fall.