Zachary stopped dead in his tracks, his chest heaving, and simply stared.She wore a simple white meditation robe that clung to her from the water, her long dark hair plastered to her back.She looked... diminished, somehow.The vital energy that usually radiated from her like heat from a flame seemed dampened, reduced. Her skin, normally holding a healthy tone despite her paleness, appeared waxy and lifeless in the crystal light.‘She looks… so weak’His eyes dropped to her arm—the one she had cut—and he saw the heavy bandaging that wound from her wrist.Even from this distance, he could see a faint discoloration where blood had seeped through, though it appeared to be old, dried.Seraphina's eyes met his, and for a moment, neither of them spoke.A quiet drip… drip… of water echoed from the pool behind her.Then her lips curved in a small, tired smile. "Young lord. You're awake." Her voice was softer than usual, lacking some of its characteristic strength. "Are you well rested? Have

He didn't need to clarify who "him" was. They both knew.There was only one "him" that could make Seraphina look like this, only one person whose very mention could fill the air between them with this particular brand of tension.So… it’s finally timeSeraphina nodded once, a short, sharp motion of her head. "His Majesty has decided that you've made enough progress." She paused, then added with what might have been an attempt at encouragement, though it fell flat: "He wants to see you."For a moment, Zachary didn't move.Didn't speak. Didn't even seem to breathe.All that went through his head was one thought.‘He wants me back?’Then a laugh burst from him, harsh and bitter as burnt coffee, completely devoid of humor.Of course he does.The sound of it surprised even himself—it was the kind of laugh that belonged to someone much older, someone who had seen too much and been disappointed too many times to expect anything else from the universe."Well," he said, his lips twisting into

Sighing, Zachary carefully replaced the flower and closed the book, sliding it back onto the shelf. He moved to his bed and sat on its edge, his hand brushing over the plain wool blanket. How many nights had he lain here, staring at the ceiling, wrestling with anger and grief and confusion? How many mornings had he woken with the sun streaming through his window, his body already anticipating the day's training before his mind had fully surfaced from sleep?This bed had witnessed his nightmares, those terrible dreams where he relived his own death, where he saw himself fight for his life over and over again in that dog pit while Elsie and Bennett laughed at him from above.. It had been his refuge after days that pushed him past what he thought were his limits, when his body was one massive ache and his mind was too exhausted to do anything but collapse into unconsciousness. It had been where he'd lain awake planning his revenge, imagining all the ways he would make the Sterlings

The car slowed as they approached the building, and Zachary felt his pulse quicken again despite his efforts at control.The memories came flooding back—all of it, the whirlwind of that brief period when he'd been thrust into the chairman's seat, still raw and wounded from Elise's betrayal, from Bennett's cruelty, and from the dog fighting pit that should have been his grave but instead became the crucible that awakened his bloodline.A faint tightness gripped his chest.He remembered the confusion, the anger, the intoxicating rush of power as he'd used his newfound position to begin his revenge against those who had used him, discarded him, nearly murdered him for nothing more than his bone marrow.He remembered Bennett's face when everything the bastard's father had built on lies and exploitation had nearly crumbled.He remembered Elise's desperate tears, her pleas to the media regarding her innocence after he had outed her for the fraud she was.But none of that brought him true sa

"Rise," Valerius said, his voice carrying that characteristic calm.Zachary straightened, fighting the urge to fidget, to look away, to do anything except stand there under his father's assessing gaze.He had to bite his cheek so as not to look away.Valerius moved forward from behind the desk with unhurried steps until he stood directly before Zachary.‘…like a mirror, huh?’Zachary knew, intellectually, that they looked remarkably similar, that he was essentially a younger, less refined version of the man before him.Yet he also knew that no one else would see it—not really.Seraphina had explained it during one of their sparring sessions on Sanctuary, when he'd asked how his father could be so famous and yet remain so unknown, how no one had recognized Zachary as his son immediately."Your father has a geas placed upon him," she'd said, her voice carrying that patient tone she used when explaining the more weirder aspects of being an heir. "An extremely powerful one, woven by a ma