Chapter 2 The Capture

"Even the stars submit to alignment. But I, I was born to fight alignment."

-Seraphyne of the Moonfire

They took her beneath a sky that had been smeared with the red of a dying moon.

Elire, her city, was consumed. Not gradually, not lovingly, but as if heaven itself were working against it. Flames climbed roofs like snakes eager to be free, twisting in fiery tongues. The metal-hued air reeked of smoke and metal, thick with the bitter incense of something holy torn asunder. Shrieks twisted through the night, raw, terror-stricken, human.

Seraphyne ran away.

Her blistered and bare feet pounded across cracked ground and splintered wood. Her lungs were on fire. Not from running, but from the truth ripping at the edges of her mind.

They hadn't taken over the village. They'd taken over her.

And they didn't do it alone.

Two presences loomed over her, giant and indelible. One was cold and calculating and ageless. The other a creature of nature, wild and unbridled. Vampire. Werewolf. In tandem. That was enough to make a fresh wave of terror run through her blood.

Moonfire seethed inside her. Not magic, heritage. A power as yet not hers to control, but potent enough to corrupt her blood and call forth every killer born of the dark. Her skin crawled, her veins ran silver under the flesh. She didn't require a prophecy to know what she was.

Last Moonborn.

Girl intended to end the Night.

But prophecies lack hearts.

The wheat riven ahead of her, its yellow stalks coppered by fire. Shadow crept over the field, closing her path. And then he stepped out of it.

Valerius Draegor.

King of the Nightborne. A shadow king, a seduction king, his look more restrictive than shackles. Seraphyne paused, not out of will, but because something within her vast, old soul screamed surrender. His presence clung to the air, squeezing thoughts out.

He did not travel alone.

Another stepped forward, taller, wilder, coming out with muscle hard under furs rough and crude. Alpha Kaelen. A beast of a man, eyes burning with the rage of the moon and the hunger for something that had no name.

Valerius's lips curved ever so slowly. "Running?" he drawled, voice like oil, smooth as silk, as black as ink. "You injured us."

She spat, an action fueled by something she had never yet given a name to, some combination of anger and pride. It hit the ground between them.

Kaelen did not hesitate. In the space of a blink, he had her arm. His grip was unyielding, iron-backed. "She's mine, leech," he growled, his voice more beast than man.

Valerius did not glance away. "You forget whose fire was lit to burn," he whispered. "She was devoted. And I ever am."

As Seraphyne fought to escape, the two men pinned her down. Kaelen had one arm clamped, Valerius his hand around the back of her neck with icy intimacy, light as if he had the pressure precisely in mind to take breath without taking life.

Her back collided with a charred tree. She gasped but didn't scream.

"What is freedom," she spat in anger, "to one born already claimed?"

Valerius's thumb caressed the underside of her jaw. "You are burned," he whispered. "The Moonfire marks you like the kiss of a lover's lips. Even now, I can feel it, summoning me."

His eyes swept the length of her face, down her neck. Desire did not gleam in them, but a hunger to know, and claim.

Then something shifted.

He ceased, nostrils flaring. "No," he muttered. "Something's different."

Kaelen raised an eyebrow.

Valerius's expression went cold. "She's not human. Not any longer."

Seraphyne bared her teeth. "Touch me again, and I'll engrave your name on the underworld."

Valerius smiled gently, menace flashing in his eyes. "Would you have me touch you again?"

His hand slid down her collarbone. Her body betrayed her, shuddering, clenching. Not with passion, but with some reflexive, ancient reaction. Shame and anger mixed in her breasts.

He leaned in. "You are afraid of me, or what can I awaken?"

Kaelen's growl was sudden, as he stepped back. "That's enough. We had an agreement."

Valerius did not flinch. "The order was for her capture, not her killing." He gestured, and from the charred wood clearing came others, vampires, clad in silence and power.

She did not fight when the restraints came, velvet cuffs, magically sealed. Her arms went numb, her fire sputtered. When she was taken off the ground, she looked back once. Kaelen standing still, teeth gritted, eyes burning.

That gaze hung longer than the fires.

She awoke on silk.

A chamber, dark and lush, rimmed in shadow and writhing gold. Mirrors lined every wall, her skin, her bruises, her gasps mirrored back to her. She wore nothing. The Moonfire flame on her flesh glowed softly, casting a gentle, otherworldly, ghostly light. It moved with her breathing as if it were animate as well.

"Make her bathe," Valerius instructed. "But do not give her any clothes. Let her feel the room like a lover's touch."

She stirred to a seated position, fury bubbling in her ribs. Not at her nakedness. Not even in the cage. But at how deliberate it all was. Each glint of the mirrors, each spasm of Moonfire, designed to undermine her power, her self, her strength.

The door creaked open.

Valerius arrived with the calm confidence of a man who took everything and everyone to bend.

He paced back and forth, not saying a thing for some time. Just watching her reflection alter in each mirror.

"You're alive," he finally said.

She didn't blink. "Supposed to be a favor?"

He smiled. "A warning."

He stepped closer. The air between them was heavy, heavy with something unspoken.

"You're here because I didn't kill you. You're here because the world won't live unless you do. Not unless you're. shaped."

His fingers brushed against her chin. She didn't flinch.

"You think I'll shatter," she whispered, "but I'll grow; even in the darkest earth."

Something flickered behind his eyes. Surprise? Mirth? Admiration?

"You confuse chains with roots," he breathed.

"And you confuse silence with surrender."

He stood up and left without a word, the door closing quietly behind him.

She sat for a moment, trapped in the circle of her own face. Not a prisoner. Not a queen. Not yet.

Something was changing, though.

The Moonfire hummed low and softly, as if she'd spoken aloud.

A weapon was waking.

The quiet thickened on his departure, enclosing the room in a velvet cord. Seraphyne's reflecting deceptions of death echoed around her in the center of the room, her body tender but her will not. The Moonfire within her quivered and cursed like a confined flame, not yet escaped but eternally watchful, waiting.

She looked into one of the mirrors. Not to be admired, not to mourn, but to remember.

To consecrate every bruise, every breath taken from her, every look of command to memory.

For memory would be her sword.

"Bloom in the darkest earth," she spoke again, trying on the sound of the words. A vow, not to Valerius nor Kaelen, but to herself. The girl they stole was not the girl who would rise.

Somewhere beyond the walls of this prison of corruption, Elire's ashes kept whirling around in the air. Her people's wails echoed within her mind. The moon, which had been holy, now looked on in silence at her fall.

But Seraphyne was not made for quiet ends.

A soft knock echoed at the door, too polite for guards, too light for monsters. It creaked open, revealing a figure cloaked in pale silver. A woman. Old, perhaps immortal. Eyes like dusk, full of secrets and sorrow.

"You're awake," she said gently.

"I was never asleep," Seraphyne replied.

The woman entered, setting down a tray of oils, fruit, a jug of some red stuff. Wine. Possibly. Maybe not. Her fingers brushed over Seraphyne's shoulder, not to hurt, not to comfort, but to explore. For strength. For will.

"You are stronger than they think," she said finally. "But strength draws hunger. And both kings, Valerius and Kaelen, are hungry."

Seraphyne's eyes narrowed. "And what are you?"

The woman smiled, bony and sad. "A gardener. And I see something blooming where they buried devastation."

She left before Seraphyne could answer, the door clicking shut like a verdict.

Seraphyne went back to the mirrors. To the Moonfire lace that pulsed on her flesh. To the bruises. The anger. The prophecy.

Not a captive.

Not yet a queen.

But war was waiting. And soon she would teach it her name.

She lay down in bed, silk, black as guilt, and settled as if on the battlefield.

And there, in the quiet of night, under the dying breath of flame and tooth, she swore one final oath to the darkness:

"I will not burn alone."