SERAPHINA’S POV
The last line blurred before my eyes.
Do not trust me.
The words pressed into me, heavy and suffocating, as if trying to take root beneath my ribs.
For a long moment, I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe.
The letter trembled in my hands, the paper whispering under the strain of my grip, but I barely felt it.
My mind had already fractured into too many directions at once, each thought crashing into the next before it could fully form.
Lucian.
Marcus.
Zara.
My cousin.
The word echoed strangely in my head, foreign and intimate all at once. Cousin. Bloodline. Shared power.
I stared down at the ink again as if it might rearrange itself into something that made more sense if I just looked long and hard enough.
It didn’t.
Instead, everything unraveled further.
Lucian had known from the beginning.
Not just who I was—but what. What ran through my veins. What I could become.
A sharp ache seized my chest.
