Chapter 1

My best friend and I. A witch and a Fae from Whisperwood.

I have the blood of a Seer. My three rune bones can see a kingdom's rise and fall.

She's a gold-touched Fae. Born to attract wealth. One roll of the dice in a goblin casino, and she'd empty their vault.

When we were eighteen, we found a disgraced Grand Duke in the capital's slums. His stepmother had thrown him out. We saved him.

She amassed his gold. I spun his fate. We helped him claw his way back to the capital. He took back his land. His scepter.

The first thing he did? He asked my best friend to marry him. They had a son. A gifted heir.

I grew tired of the noble squabbles. I went back to my hidden cottage in the woods.

Ten years later, a little princess. Blessed by the Moon Goddess. Finally born in the Duke's castle.

He was ecstatic. Flew his griffin over the mountains that night. Begged me to come bless his daughter.

Of course, I agreed. I stood over the cradle. Drew a sacred blessing rune on the baby's forehead.

Before I left, I had a sudden urge. I tossed my three rune bones. A quick look into my friend's future.

But they hit the floor and turned to dust. Black magic choked the air. An omen of death. Her soul was gone.

Ice flooded my veins.

If my best friend was already dead...then who was the Duchess, smiling at me from her velvet chaise?

Chapter 1

The moment I pushed open the door, the baby was still crying.

But the woman on the chaise was already reaching for me, smiling.

"Sera, you're here! Look, isn't she just like me?"

I watched her fingers twirl a lock of hair. That was Elara's habit.

The same tone. The same smile.

But my heart sank. Deeper and deeper.

She saw the look on my face. Her smile froze. "What's wrong? Is it... a bad omen for the child?"

Dante rushed to my side, his voice trembling.

"Seraphina, what did you see? Just say it! The walls of the North can withstand any curse!"

Ten years ago, his stepmother plotted with a dark mage. A curse froze his heart solid.

I was the one who laid a star-circle. Sacrificed half my magic. Bled my own soul dry to pull him back from death's door.

Three years ago, his eldest son, Caelan, was taken hostage. Held in an abandoned alchemist's workshop.

I was the one who conjured a mist ward. Made the kidnappers turn on each other. They all died in a fire.

Two lives saved. Two debts owed. The entire ducal family of the North treats my word as gospel.

I didn't answer Dante. I just raised my hand. Pointed at the woman on the bed.

"That is not Elara."

Dante froze.

The woman stared for a second. Then she laughed. A forced, wounded sound.

"Seraphina, that's not a very funny joke. I just gave birth, and you're telling me I'm not myself?"

I didn't have time for her act.

"Where is Elara's soul? Tell me the truth. I might give you a quick death."

"What did you say?!"

A roar from the doorway. Isolde burst in with six knights. Their swords all pointed at me.

"Seraphina! How dare you curse my sister-in-law? You think because you saved my brother twice, you can do whatever you want in this house? She just risked her life in childbirth, and now you show up saying she's dead?"

I ignored Isolde. My eyes were fixed on the woman in the bed.

"Elara has a scar on her right shoulder blade. Coin-sized. From when she took a shadow wyvern's sting for Dante. Drop your robe. Prove it."

Isolde exploded.

"Are you insane?! Asking a Duchess who just gave birth to disrobe in front of the guards? Seraphina, what are you playing at?!"

But Dante spun around. His voice was as cold as a blade.

"Show her."

Isolde's eyes went wide. She started to argue, but Dante's glare silenced her.

The woman on the bed sighed. Her eyes grew red, like her heart was breaking.

"Dante... you don't believe me either?"

"Show her." He repeated the words. But this time, his voice held a hidden tremor.

The woman slowly untied the ribbon. The nightgown slipped from her shoulder.

Her right shoulder blade. A nasty, piercing burn scar. Clear as day in the light.

The position. The shape. The depth. It all matched.

My pupils contracted. It felt like a fist was squeezing my heart.

"See?" Isolde sneered. "Anything else to say?"

My Seer's blood has never been wrong. Not once since the day I was born.

Even with that perfect scar staring me in the face, I still didn't believe it.

I took out my three rune bones. The divining tools I'd carried for eighteen years.

"What are you doing?" The woman's voice was tight. The first time I'd heard it that way.

I didn't bother to answer.

"The bones do not lie."

I raised my hand. Threw the bones hard against the floor.

The sharp crack of the bones hitting the stone had a strange, trembling echo.

And then... all three bones shattered. At the exact same time.

A thick black mist seeped from the cracks. The stench of black magic. It hung in the air, refusing to fade.

I knew that smell. It was the omen of a soul already gone.

The temperature in the room plummeted.

The color drained from Dante's face.

Isolde's sword clattered to the floor.

The woman on the bed gripped the sheets. Her knuckles were white. For the first time, her expression cracked.

It wasn't sadness. It was pure, unfiltered panic.

The baby's cries grew more frantic. As if she could feel the chill from the underworld.

I stared her down.

"I can feel the traces of Elara's soul... She's dead! Who are you?!"

Chapter 2

Isolde laughed. A cold, contemptuous sound.

"I think you've truly lost your mind. Guards! Drag this mad witch out of here!"

The six knights stepped forward, their blades closing in.

Before I could even react, a figure stepped in front of me.

Dante.

He spread his arms, shielding me completely. His voice was laced with deadly intent.

"Don't you dare touch her."

"Dante!" Isolde shrieked. "She just cursed my sister-in-law! Didn't you hear her?"

"I said, we checked." Dante looked back, his gaze lethal. "The scar is real. I believe her."

"But Seraphina's bones have never been wrong."

Caelan moved to my left, his hand on his sword hilt, his eyes like poisoned daggers.

"My Godmother says she is dead. So she is dead. Anyone who touches her, I'll feed them to the wyverns."

Fourteen-year-old Finn balled his fists. He stood behind his brother, voice trembling but spine straight.

"Godmother, we believe you."

The woman on the bed watched them. Tears welled up in her eyes.

"None of you believe me... Fine. Then investigate. I'll go with you."

She sounded utterly heartbroken, her voice thick with sobs.

I stared at her, my chest aching.

Ten years ago, Elara shielded Dante. She took that wyvern's sting with her own body. The one meant to pierce his heart.

She shook with fear. But she stood her ground.

This woman... her tears looked real. But her eyes held none of that courage. None of that defiance in the face of death.

I bent down. Picked up the shattered pieces of my rune bones. A biting chill spread from my fingertips.

The shadow of the dead hadn't faded. It clung to my palm, silently pointing the way.

I looked up. Out the window. East.

"The East." My voice was quiet, but everyone heard. "The ducal family's crypt."

Dante didn't hesitate. He turned to his attendant.

"Ready the griffins and the carriage. We leave now."

The woman struggled to get out of bed. She was too weak to stand, but she shook her head stubbornly.

"I'm going too. I have to prove I'm Elara."

A maid rushed in with a velvet-lined wheelchair. She sank into it, trembling, and sobbed quietly the whole way.

I ignored her.

A quarter of an hour later, we arrived. The ancient ducal cemetery in the East.

A vast Moon Pool spread out before us. The water was dark green. Horribly still.

I stared at the surface. The stench of death... it was seeping up from the bottom.

"Open the floodgates."

Dante commanded.

The water level dropped with shocking speed. Soon, the muddy bottom was exposed.

Before the guards could go in, Caelan had thrown off his coat. He jumped right into the knee-deep sludge.

"Son!" Dante yelled from the edge.

Caelan didn't look back. He dug frantically through the mud with his bare hands. Covered in black slime. Like a wild animal.

"I found something!"

He shot up, holding an oilcloth-wrapped object. He scrambled ashore, dripping mud and water.

Dante rushed over. He practically snatched it from him.

A guard brought water to wash away the mud, layer by layer.

The oilcloth appeared. It was an ancient, coarse linen, soaked in preservation spells.

Dante's hands were shaking.

Everyone thought they would find Elara's bones inside.

The woman in the wheelchair covered her mouth. Her shoulders shook violently. Tears splashed onto the armrest.

Dante's hands trembled as he unwrapped the oilcloth, layer by ancient layer.

The last layer fell away. Everyone froze.

No bones. No rotting flesh.

Just a small silver box. Palm-sized. Old. Engraved with intricate vine patterns.

I recognized the craftsmanship instantly.

Fae work. And very, very old.

Chapter 3

Dante held the silver box, his knuckles white.

"What... what is this?"

The woman in the wheelchair looked up, her eyes swimming with tears. Her voice was a choked sob.

"It's my amulet."

All eyes turned to her.

"Three years ago, the treasury collapsed. The Council of Nobles tried to strip your title. They called you incompetent." She stared at Dante, her eyes shimmering. "Do you remember?"

Dante flinched.

"For seven days, you thought I was just sick." She wiped away a tear. "The truth is, I buried my Fae amulet—the one I've had since I was a child—at the bottom of this pool. I prayed to the Moon Goddess for seven days and seven nights. I prayed until I fell unconscious."

"The day I woke up, a massive grant from the Free Cities' Merchant Guild saved our treasury. It saved you. It saved the entire North."

The color drained from Dante's face. His eyes filled with guilt and heartache.

He rushed forward. Swept her out of the wheelchair and into his arms.

"I never... I never knew." His voice broke. "All these years, all the pain you endured. I never knew."

Isolde stood by, watching. She lifted her chin defiantly.

"See? My sister-in-law has been bleeding for this family, and Seraphina comes here cursing her to death!"

"Brother, are you still going to believe the ravings of this mad witch?"

Caelan and Finn stood frozen, their eyes full of conflict.

That silver box... it was definitely an old relic from Whisperwood. Only a master Fae artisan could carve those vines.

If she had a token like that, how could she be an impostor?

I rubbed the bone shards in my palm. My voice was cold.

"A dead object proves nothing."

"What?" Isolde stared at me in disbelief. "The box is right here. What more do you want?"

I ignored her. The guards stepped forward, ready to "escort" me from the cemetery.

But Dante held up a hand, stopping them.

"Wait." He looked at me, a flicker of doubt in his eyes. "Seraphina, what other proof do you need?"

The woman wiped her tears. She took an exquisite deck of fate cards from her lady-in-waiting.

"I know you don't believe me. So let me prove it with this."

Her voice had a grim, tragic certainty.

"My power of luck has never faded. You can try it."

Her hand trembled slightly as she turned over the first card.

The Crown.

The major arcana. A symbol of ultimate power and favor from fate.

Everyone gasped.

She turned the second card. The third. The fourth. The fifth.

All of them were cards of supreme good fortune. Not a single bad one.

That aura of luck... it was exactly like the Elara I remembered.

Caelan and Finn both sighed in relief. The tension finally left their faces.

"It really is Mother..." Finn muttered.

I stared at the five cards. The ice in my veins grew colder.

Luck can be faked. It can be stolen. It can be grafted.

But a soul... a soul can't lie to my bones.

I drew the silver dagger from my belt. Without hesitation, I sliced open my palm. I let the warm blood drip onto the bone fragments.

The massive drain of magic made me dizzy. I fought to stay upright, chanting in the Old Tongue.

"By ancient blood, I swear, tear through this mist of lies!"

The blood-soaked shards erupted with a dark light. A beam shot out, pointing straight at the chapel. At the long-abandoned building.

There was a dry holy well inside. Sealed for decades.

Dante's face was ashen. He stumbled towards the chapel, all noble decorum forgotten.

Guards followed, prying open the stone slab with iron bars and lowering a rope.

The digging took a full fifteen minutes.

When they pulled the rope up, it made a heavy, suffocating scraping sound.

A skeleton, caked in black mud, was hoisted up. It fell to the ground with a heavy thud.

On its right shoulder blade, there was a clear fracture. An unnatural shape. As if it had been deliberately smashed.

Dante fell to his knees in the mud. He was trembling, reaching out but not daring to touch the skeleton.

I stared at the skeleton. My brow furrowed.

The aura was wrong.

All wrong.

"Court Mage," I commanded. "Test the bones. Now."

An old man in mage robes hurried forward. He held his hands over the skeleton, channeling magic to examine it.

His hands began to shake. The more he tested, the more they shook.

After a moment, he snapped his head up. His face was white as a sheet. He could barely speak.

"This... based on the magical resonance and the bone structure... these are the remains of an adult male!"

The world went silent.

These weren't Elara's bones at all.

Chapter 4

A shrill laugh cut through the silence.

It was Isolde. She was clutching her stomach, laughing so hard tears streamed down her face.

"Hahaha, a man's skeleton! Seraphina, your own blood magic can't even point straight, and you still dare to play these dirty tricks?"

"I see what this is. You're just trying to drive my sister-in-law out of this family!"

I ignored her taunts. My gaze fell back on the woman.

She had walked over to me. Her slender fingers rested gently on the back of my hand. Her voice was soft.

"Sera, listen to me."

"You've lived alone in the forest for too long. Always dealing with the echoes of dark magic. Has a spirit from the abyss corrupted your mind?"

"These visions, this feeling of death... maybe it's all in your head."

"You should go back to the forest and rest. Please?"

Her voice was so light, so gentle. Warm enough to make anyone lower their guard.

If I didn't know the truth, I might have actually believed her.

Just then, Caelan snatched the bloody bone shards from the ground. He quickly arranged them in his palm.

His eyes widened as he stared at them. He grabbed Dante's arm.

"Father! I understand!"

His voice was filled with ecstatic joy.

"It's not an omen of death! It's a sign of rebirth, like the sacred White Tree! The cracks... they form a rune of rebirth! It means the old life is gone, and a new one has begun!"

"Godmother must have been away from her divining for too long. She's out of practice. She misread the oracle!"

A collective sigh of relief went through the crowd. Even the guards relaxed.

Dante slumped against the chapel wall, as if all the strength had been drained from him. His voice was a hoarse whisper.

"Someone, please escort Seraphina to a guest room. She must be tired."

I stood there, watching them. Watching their relief. It was pathetic.

They'd rather believe a sixteen-year-old's desperate guess than my bloodline, which has never once been wrong in eighteen years.

A Seer's blood does not lie.

I ripped my hand away from the woman's touch.

"No."

I snatched the sharpest piece of bone from the ground.

"Seraphina, what are you doing?" Dante shot upright, his face pale with alarm.

I didn't answer.

Without hesitation, I dragged the sharp edge of the bone across my brow.

"Godmother!"

Caelan and Finn both lunged forward to stop me, but a powerful wave of magic blasted them back.

Blood streamed down my face. But before it could fall, magic caught it. It formed an ancient, dark red rune, hanging in the air before my eyes.

"Stay back." My voice wasn't my own. It echoed with an ancient, heavy power.

I opened my eyes. They glowed with an eerie blue light.

My ultimate bloodline gift. True Sight.

The air in the chapel grew thick. Heavy. It was hard to breathe.

The woman stumbled back several steps. Her face went deathly white. Her eyes flashed with unconcealed terror.

I looked down on her. I walked towards her, step by step. My voice was an undeniable weight.

"The master of Whisperwood. What did we call her, in private?"

"Say it."

The woman's pupils shrank. Her eyes darted around, desperately searching for the answer.

"She... she was..."

She hesitated. Finally, her lips moved. A name spilled out.

"Lady Lysandra!"

The chapel fell deathly silent.

Tears streamed down my face. Unbidden.

The real Elara would never have called her "Lady Lysandra."

In private, we only ever called her by one name. A nickname only the two of us knew.

He staggered. Collapsed to the stone floor. He gasped for air, choking on his own guilt.

The last shred of trust on Caelan and Finn's faces shattered. It turned into a tidal wave of hatred.

They drew their swords in the same instant. The tips were pointed right at the woman. Their eyes were bloodshot.

Caelan's voice shook with pure rage.

"Who the hell are you?!"