The air smelled of spiced wine and roasted pheasant, of expensive perfumes and older money.
King Aldric stood at the head of the hall, radiant in crimson velvet, one hand raised for silence. The chatter died down in waves.
"My friends," he began, his voice carrying that practiced warmth politicians spent decades perfecting. "Tonight we celebrate the Feast of Divine Mercy. But more than that—we celebrate the man who embodies that very mercy." He turned, gesturing broadly. "Caelum Thorne. Our Virtuous Shield."
Applause erupted. Some of it genuine, most of it mandatory.
Caelum rose from his seat with that infuriatingly perfect humility he'd mastered. Everything about him screamed saint... the white ceremonial armor, the golden hair catching the light just so, even the slight bow of his head that said "I'm honored but unworthy."
Three years ago, he'd returned from the northern provinces with news that had shocked the kingdom: the Oracle, their blessed seer, had conspired with enemies of the crown.
He'd executed her himself. Burned her family's estate to the ground and saved the realm from treachery. Or so the story went.
"Your Majesty, you're too kind," Caelum said, and damn if his voice didn't sound genuinely modest. "I only did what any loyal servant would—"
The stained glass window exploded, a thousand colored fragments blasting inward like shrapnel. Nobles screamed, diving under tables. A shard embedded itself in a duchess's elaborate hairpiece. Someone's wine glass hit the floor and shattered, the sound almost delicate against the chaos.
And through the gaping wound in the cathedral wall, something fell. Someone actually.
She hit the marble floor hard enough that the impact echoed, hard enough that cracks spiderwebbed from the point of contact. But she rolled to her feet with a dancer's grace, and that's when people really started screaming.
Black flames wreathed her body like fire's negative image, flames that seemed to devour light rather than create it. They licked across her skin, her tattered robes, the wild tangle of her dark hair, but they didn't burn. Didn't consume. They just... were.
Her oracle robes hung in bloodstained tatters. Her body was gaunt, skinny, all sharp angles and visible ribs. Scars crisscrossed her exposed skin like someone had tried to map constellations in flesh. But her eyes—
Oh, her eyes were worse than anything. They fixed on Caelum with the focus of a predator that's been tracking its prey for three years.
"No," someone whispered. Lady Rosmund, maybe. "That's impossible. She's dead. He said she was dead—"
Caelum had gone the color of old parchment.
Seraphiel Ashvern smiled. It wasn't a nice smile, more of a deadly grin.
"Hello, Caelum." Her voice resonated wrong, like she was speaking from the bottom of a well, or maybe a grave. "Miss me?"
"You—" His hand had gone to his sword. Pure instinct. But he caught himself, forced his fingers to relax. "This isn't possible. I saw you—"
"Die?" She took a step forward. The black flames pulsed. "Yeah. I remember that part pretty clearly. Funny thing about being an Oracle—we see everything. Every possible future, every branching path. I saw you kill me, Caelum. Saw you drive that blessed blade through my heart. Saw you torch my family's manor with my parents and little brother still inside."
A collective gasp rippled through the hall.
Caelum's expression shifted—grief, concern, that pastoral kindness he wore like armor. "Seraphiel, please. You're unwell. The Pyre madness, it's taken root in your mind. Whatever visions torment you, they're not real. Let me help you—"
He started toward her, arms spreading in universal gesture of compassion. The saint approaching the sinner. The shepherd seeking the lost lamb.
"STAY BACK!"
Guards surged forward, a wall of steel and loyalty. Six of them, weapons drawn, forming a protective barrier between their Right Hand and the impossible ghost of his past.
Seraphiel raised one hand. It was almost lazy, that gesture. Bored, even making death-marks spread across the marble floor like frost racing across a winter window. Intricate patterns, geometric and wrong, that made your eyes hurt if you looked at them too long. They touched the guards' boots and kept spreading, crawling up their legs in twisted spirals.
The guards dropped unconscious, crumpling like puppets with cut strings.
The crowd lost whatever composure it had been clinging to. Nobles scrambled for the exits, crushing velvet and dignity in equal measure. Someone knocked over a candelabra. The king's personal guard formed a protective circle around Aldric, who looked like he'd aged ten years in the past minute.
Through it all, Caelum stood frozen staring at her. At the death-marks. At the black flames that should've killed her but instead seemed to be keeping her alive.
"How did you know?" Seraphiel asked quietly. The cathedral was emptying fast, but her voice still carried. "How did you know that Oracles can't see their own deaths? That our gift has that one blind spot?"
"I'll tell you how," she continued, moving closer. Each step left scorched footprints on the pristine marble. "Because you're Undying. A saint blessed by the gods themselves, immune to death, cursed with eternal life. And you knew that made you invisible to my sight. I could see you in every future except the ones where you killed me. So you made sure all of them led to that."
"Seraphiel—" His voice cracked. Actual emotion bleeding through. Fear? Regret? Hard to tell. "Whatever you think happened—"
"I let it happen." She laughed, and it was the saddest sound Caelum had ever heard. Broken glass and ashes. "I saw every other future. Saw what you'd become if I stopped you. So I let you betray me. Let you burn my family. Let you parade my execution as heroism."
She was close now. Close enough that he could see the way the black flames reflected in her pupils, turning her eyes into twin abysses.
"Because the only way to kill an Undying Saint..." Her smile widened, showing too many teeth. "...is to become something worse than death itself."
The flames surged. Caelum stumbled backward, raising his arm to shield his face—
Seraphiel collapsed. Her body hit the marble like a felled tree, and where she landed, the stone didn't just crack. It blackened, spreading outward in concentric circles. The air smelled of sulfur and burnt offerings and something older than either.
Then the symbols started appearing. They burned into the floor around her unconscious form ancient glyphs that predated the kingdom, predated the cathedral, maybe predated humanity itself. Death magic in its purest form, so old even the gods had forgotten how to work it.
Caelum stared down with carefully maintained mask of saintly composure slipped, just for a heartbeat. He looked terrified.