Chapter 1 The Girl With Ink-Stained Fingers

Chapter One: The Girl With Ink-Stained Fingers

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‎The scent of warm parchment and beeswax candles always made Seraphina Evernight feel safe.

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‎She sat by the tall, arched window of Saint Morwen's Academy, her chin resting on her palm, dark curls spilling over her shoulder like ink. A half-finished essay lay before her the margins covered not in words, but in doodles. Flowers with fangs. Candles that bled. Little cloaked figures peeking from the corners.

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‎She didn't mean to draw them. They just... came.

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‎"Seraphina," came the gentle voice of Miss Althira, the literature instructor, "your essay on The Fall of Vaelinor was supposed to be turned in yesterday."

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‎Seraphina blinked. "Was it?"

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‎The class snickered.

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‎She gave a sheepish smile and tucked her ink-stained hands under the desk. "I must've gotten distracted. I was... um, researching... candle history?"

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‎Miss Althira sighed, but her voice softened. "Just turn it in by dusk, please."

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‎The bell chimed overhead, its notes echoing down the long stone corridors. Seraphina gathered her books - her favorite worn leather journal, two broken quills, and an apple she never ate. She was always the last to leave class, as if walking slowly would stretch the day.

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‎---

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‎Saint Morwen's sat high on the cliffs overlooking the sea a school carved from the bones of an old monastery. The wind always howled like it remembered something, and the crows circled in strange spirals. But inside, life was quiet.

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‎Seraphina's world was small:

‎A sunlit library with too many corners.

‎A tower room with a squeaky bed and a cracked window.

‎Three friends barely.

‎And an odd little pigeon who always followed her to the bell tower.

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‎She was seventeen. Still a student. Still a dreamer.

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‎And blissfully unaware.

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‎---

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‎"Fina!" a voice called from behind.

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‎She turned to see Nora Bell, the only girl in the academy who could talk faster than she breathed. Her hair was a mess of braids and ribbons, her hands full of ink pots.

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‎"I need your notes from metaphysics class again. And are you still drawing creepy grave things in your margins?"

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‎"They're not creepy," Seraphina said, smiling faintly. "They're... detailed."

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‎Nora gave her a long, suspicious look. "You're odd, you know that?"

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‎Seraphina shrugged. "I get that a lot."

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‎---

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‎That evening, while the rest of the academy buzzed about the upcoming spring festival, Seraphina wandered into the chapel alone. She wasn't particularly religious - not in the way the other girls were. But she liked the hush of the pews, the flicker of the candles, the way the stained glass made the dust sparkle.

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‎She sat by the last window the one with the cracked ruby pane.

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‎Her fingers idly traced the cracks.

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‎She felt... strange lately. As if the days were getting thinner. As if something pressed against the edges of her mind, like a dream trying to be remembered.

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‎That night, she dreamed of a forest she had never seen.

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‎Tall trees like bones.

‎A moon that bled.

‎And a voice deep, ancient, and velvet-soft whispering her name from the dark.

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‎"Seraphina..."

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‎She woke with a gasp, fingers clutching her sheets, the smell of roses and rust clinging to her skin.

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