But as Roan looked at Seraphina, the crushing weight of his past grief suddenly crystallized into something new.
It forged itself into a blinding, diamond-hard spike of resolve.
He had lost Cecil.
He had let her slip through his fingers into the dark, and he had spent a lifetime paying the price.
'Never again,' Roan vowed, the power of the Supreme Archmage flaring silently in his veins, vibrating with a promise that resonated across the leylines of the earth. 'I lost one light to the shadows. I will burn the fabric of reality to ash before I lose this one. If the Capital tries to break her, if someone tries to stifle her, if someone even looks in her direction... I will unleash a cataclysm that will make the demonic wars look like a children's tea party.'
He tightened his arm around her, pressing his cheek against the top of her head.
