Chapter 5 BLOOD BENEATH THE MOON

The night after the Wrathborn attack was unlike any Seraphine had known.

The forest was too still.

Not silent - that would be expected.

But still, as if holding its breath, as if waiting.

Kael dozed lightly beside the embers of the fire, his blade still in hand, chest rising and falling in short, shallow waves. She watched him. The bruises beneath his eyes. The cut healing across his collarbone. The frown he wore even in sleep.

He'd been a hunter once.

And now he was hers.

And because of that, the world would burn.

At dawn, they moved. East - deeper into the Wyrdwood, toward the ruins of the Obsidian Hollow.

Seraphine had only heard stories of it: a city beneath the surface, carved into the stone ribs of a dead mountain. Once a haven for witches who refused to kneel, now a graveyard sealed by spells older than language.

"No one returns from the Hollow," Kael said as they approached.

Seraphine stepped over the threshold of black vines without flinching. "That's because no one dared to."

The Obsidian Hollow was colder than the world above.

Not by temperature - but by presence.

Here, magic didn't whisper.

It watched.

Every footstep echoed. Every breath seemed too loud. The air was thick with the residue of long-dead spells, and the stone walls bore carvings that twisted when seen too long.

They descended into a vast chamber lit only by the faint glow of fungi growing from broken pillars.

Seraphine reached into her satchel and pulled out the shard of soulglass she'd taken from the Wrathborn's remains.

Kael raised a brow. "You didn't tell me you kept that."

"You would've argued."

"Damn right."

She stepped to the center of the chamber and placed the shard in a broken pedestal. The stone flared with blue fire.

Kael stepped back.

The air screamed.

A figure emerged from the flame - not a ghost, but a memory echo, a piece of a witch who had once ruled here.

She had eyes like hollow stars and a crown of scorched silver.

"You seek the Crown of Mourning," the echo said.

Seraphine bowed her head. "Yes."

Kael stared. "What's the Crown of Mourning?"

"A relic," Seraphine said. "Forged during the First War. Made to turn grief into power. But it kills the wearer."

The echo smiled. "Not if the grief is strong enough to survive it."

Kael whispered, "This is madness."

Seraphine turned to him. "You want to end this war?"

"Yes, but not at the cost of-"

"Of what?" Her voice was soft, but deadly. "Your comfort? My safety? We've already passed that threshold."

The echo faded.

And the floor cracked.

A staircase spiraled downward - into pure black.

They descended into the heart of the Hollow.

Here, the magic hummed in their bones.

The walls dripped with memories. The stones breathed.

And at the center, atop a twisted altar, lay the Crown of Mourning.

It was hideous. Beautiful. Forged from bone and metal, wrapped in thorned vines, pulsing with a heartbeat that wasn't theirs.

Seraphine reached for it.

Kael caught her hand.

"Think."

"I have."

"You put that on, and you're gone. You won't be you anymore."

Her gaze didn't waver. "I haven't been 'me' since the day they burned my mother."

Kael's jaw clenched. "I love you."

She paused.

That silenced even the crown.

"I love you," he said again, stepping closer. "Not the witch. Not the weapon. You. The woman who talks to squirrels, and sings when she thinks I'm asleep, and still believes in the good in people even after everything."

Seraphine's voice cracked. "And what if love isn't enough?"

Kael touched her cheek. "Then we burn together."

She looked at the crown again.

Then she turned her back to it.

For now.

Meanwhile, far above, in the High Fortress of the Guard, Inquisitor Mael stood before a gathered war council.

He placed the soulglass raven on the table. It screeched once, then dissolved.

"Thorne is alive," he said coldly. "And he travels with the Nightbloom witch."

Gasps. Whispers.

Mael raised a hand.

"The time for restraint has passed. The witch plague spreads again. We will not wait for it to reach our door."

He turned to his generals.

"Awaken the Iron Choir."

"But they've been-"

"Sealed, yes. For a reason. Now we unseal them."

A pause.

Then a nod.

That night, Kael and Seraphine made love in the Hollow.

Not out of lust.

But out of need.

To remember they were human. That they still felt. Still hoped. Still lived.

And in that dark, stone-bound place, they whispered promises they couldn't keep.

The next morning, the Hollow shook.

Not from within.

But from what approached above.

They ascended quickly, the Crown still untouched, but the spell of its resting place now sealed behind them.

When they emerged into daylight, the sky was black.

Not with clouds.

With crows.

Hundreds. Thousands.

Each a Watcher of the Guard.

And beneath them marched a legion.

Kael stared. "They brought the Choir."

Seraphine stiffened. "What is it?"

"Not who. What."

He turned to her. "They were witches - once. Broken. Hollowed. Stripped of soul and turned into weapons. A punishment worse than death."

Seraphine's hands balled into fists. "How many?"

Kael counted the banners.

"Forty."

She swallowed. "Then we don't run."

Kael looked at her.

And for the first time in days, he smiled.

"No," he said. "We make our stand."

They gathered the remnants of the Hollow's wards, fusing old magic with Kael's knowledge of Guard formations.

Kael painted blood runes across the trees. Seraphine summoned the spirits of the Wyrdwood - not to fight, but to witness. To remember.

They stood in the glade where they first kissed, backs to the trees, faces to the storm.

And when the Choir came, they did not kneel.

They rose.

Together.

The first clash was like thunder.

Kael moved like death, blades slicing through armor like paper.

Seraphine's magic was no longer wild. It was weaponized. Targeted. She whispered curses that turned steel to ash, bones to dust.

But the Choir kept coming.

Endless.

Voiceless.

Pitiless.

Kael fell once - impaled through the side - and Seraphine screamed a word she hadn't spoken in years.

A curse so old, the trees recoiled.

The ground swallowed three of the Choir.

Kael rose, bloodied, grinning.

"Nice."

She sobbed once. "Don't die."

"Not before you."

"Romantic."

Hours passed.

The bodies piled.

So did the broken parts of Seraphine's soul.

And then- the forest split.

Mael stepped through.

Draped in shadow, wielding a blade made of pure hatred.

Kael stepped forward.

"I was your son in all but name."

Mael sneered. "You were a tool."

Kael charged.

Their swords met with the sound of thunder.

Seraphine collapsed behind a shattered ward stone, magic drained, vision swimming. She crawled toward Kael, who now knelt, one arm shattered, the other trying to lift his blade.

Mael raised his sword-

And Seraphine screamed.

"No!"

The Crown appeared in her hand.

She didn't remember calling it.

She didn't remember how it reached her.

She only remembered choosing.

Kael turned just in time to see her place it on her head.

"NO-!"

The world shattered.

Light erupted.

Not white.

Not black.

But grief.

The forest wept.

The crows screamed.

Mael burned.

Kael was thrown back, his heart torn between horror and awe.

And Seraphine-

Was no longer Seraphine.

She rose, eyes like novas. Voice like thunder.

"I am the child of ash."

"I am the voice of the fallen."

"I am every witch you murdered."

"I am your end."

The battle was over in seconds.

The Choir collapsed.

Mael turned to cinders.

The crows dropped from the sky.

And then-

Silence.

Kael crawled toward her. "Sera?"

She looked at him.

And for one beautiful moment - he saw her.

The woman.

The witch.

The one he loved.

And then she fell.

He caught her before she hit the ground.

The crown rolled away, dimming.

He cradled her. "Don't you die. Don't you dare."

She smiled.

"I told you," she whispered. "Love isn't enough."

He held her tighter. "Then I'll make it enough."

She closed her eyes.

Far away, in the ruined vaults of the Guard, the last commander lit a signal fire.

One that hadn't burned in three hundred years.

And across the kingdoms, the ancient enemies of witchkind began to stir.

Because the world had changed.

The war had only just begun.