She didn't sleep.
Not because she couldn't — but because the forest wouldn't let her.
Every rustle in the leaves sounded like a whisper.
Every howl in the distance echoed with a name she didn't want to remember.
Kael had vanished hours ago, leaving her with nothing but a dying fire and the memory of his words.
She started the Purge.
The sentence burned into her bones, hotter than the flames crackling beside her.
Her fingers trembled as she traced the scar behind her ear — a reminder of the night her sister had screamed her last breath.
Lilith.
The name felt cursed.
But the worst part wasn't that Kael's mother was alive.
It was that she had built her war with shadows — and Seraphina had been blind to it all along.
She stood up, brushing dirt from her torn dress, and looked into the trees.
She didn't hear anything.
But she felt it.
A presence.
Eyes that didn't blink.
Breath that didn't fog.
She picked up the dagger Kael had left behind, cold and sharp in her hand like betrayal itself.
Then she heard it.
The crunch of leaves.
One step.
Then another.
Slow.
Deliberate.
She turned, heart pounding in rhythm with the wind.
"Who's there?"
Silence.
Then a figure emerged.
Not Kael.
Not a rogue.
But a child.
A boy no older than ten, barefoot, with tangled hair and skin like porcelain snow.
His eyes glowed silver.
Not grey.
Silver.
Like the edge of a blade dipped in moonlight.
Seraphina froze.
"Are you lost?" she asked, though her instincts screamed that he wasn't the one who needed help.
The boy tilted his head, curious.
"You smell like fire," he whispered.
She blinked.
"What?"
"Fire… and death."
She tightened her grip on the dagger.
"Who are you?"
"I'm her voice."
Her blood turned to ice.
"Whose voice?"
He smiled, and suddenly the air felt thinner.
"Lilith," he said.
Before she could move, the boy raised his hand.
Not threatening.
Not violent.
Just raised.
Like he was calling something.
The wind changed.
The fire died.
And out of the shadows, figures emerged.
One by one.
Eight of them.
No sound.
No heartbeat.
Just silence and silver eyes.
"Your mate's truth is not the only truth," the boy said calmly.
Seraphina backed away slowly.
But the circle had already closed around her.
Then she heard it.
The growl.
Low.
Deep.
From the trees behind.
Kael.
But before he could appear —
The silver-eyed boy raised one finger.
And Kael screamed.
The scream was unlike anything Seraphina had ever heard — not a cry of pain, but a raw, guttural howl that shattered the stillness and seemed to shake the very ground beneath her feet.
She turned toward the sound, her heart pounding wildly in her chest, each thump a desperate drumbeat of panic as Kael's voice was swallowed by the suffocating darkness.
The circle of silver-eyed figures didn't flinch or move; they merely stood there, statues cloaked in shadows, their expressions unreadable, as if they were nothing more than puppets awaiting their master's command.
The boy stepped forward, his bare feet brushing against the dying embers of the fire, and though his skin should have blistered, he remained untouched, like fire itself dared not harm him.
"You should not have come here," he said softly, his voice eerily calm, as if the forest and its secrets belonged solely to him.
Seraphina raised the dagger, her hand trembling violently, not from fear alone but from the weight of knowing she was no longer in control — that she had walked straight into a snare.
"What did you do to him?" she demanded, her voice sharp with terror, laced with fury that clawed at her throat like a caged animal desperate to escape.
The boy's silver eyes glinted with something ancient — not malice, not kindness — but the cold emptiness of someone who had never known either.
"He saw the truth," he whispered, as if it were a curse.
The moment the words left his lips, a gust of wind blew through the clearing, scattering ashes and choking the air with a scent that made Seraphina's blood run cold — the unmistakable, iron-rich stench of blood.
"No," she breathed, clutching the dagger tighter, her pulse roaring in her ears like a storm at sea, crashing and furious.
She tried to run toward the trees, toward Kael's scream, but the figures around her moved as one, their bodies gliding like smoke, surrounding her with terrifying precision.
"You wanted to find her," the boy said, his voice now carrying a strange echo, like it came from beneath the earth, "but you never asked what price truth demands."
"I don't care," Seraphina spat, her voice cracking with rage and sorrow, "I'll pay it with blood if I must."
The boy's lips curled into a smile that didn't reach his eyes — eyes that shimmered with something unnatural, like moonlight bouncing off a frozen lake that's never melted.
"She is waiting," he murmured, and the moment the words fell into the air, the trees behind him split open with a crack like thunder.
From the darkness stepped a woman cloaked in violet, her hair cascading down her back in a river of white silk, her eyes twin coals burning with memories Seraphina had spent years trying to forget.
Lilith.
Her face hadn't aged.
Her beauty was unnatural — haunting, unholy — the kind that didn't belong to the living.
"Daughter of ashes," she said, her voice like velvet soaked in venom, "you survived my fire… but I wonder, can you survive my truth?"
Seraphina's heart nearly stopped as the woman's gaze pierced through her soul, dredging up every buried scream, every sleepless night, every haunting dream she had tried to silence.
The silver-eyed figures dropped to their knees in eerie unison, bowing their heads in reverence, and for the first time since her sister's death, Seraphina understood what true fear felt like.
Not the kind that made your hands shake.
But the kind that made you question if your soul could still be saved.
Lilith stepped forward, the earth cracking beneath her heels, and with each step, memories crashed over Seraphina like waves too powerful to resist.
The burning woods.
The screaming wolves.
The scent of ash and blood.
"I didn't come to beg," Seraphina said, forcing herself to stand tall despite the tears brimming in her eyes and the dagger trembling in her hand, "I came to end this."
Lilith smiled, and it was the kind of smile that could unmake kingdoms.
"Then strike, little wolf," she whispered, voice cold as winter, "and see how many ghosts awaken with me."
Seraphina screamed as she lunged — not out of rage, but out of agony too deep for words — and her dagger cut through the air like lightning through storm clouds.
But before steel could meet flesh, a hand caught her wrist — stronger than stone, colder than death — and Seraphina looked up to find Kael, eyes wide, his mouth moving without sound.
Then everything went black.