The sun hadn't yet risen, but the war council chamber in Blackspire Keep was already alive with murmurs and veiled threats. The great obsidian table, etched with ancient runes of warding and wisdom, sat at the center like a battlefield in miniature. Candles sputtered in their sconces, casting flickering shadows across the nobles' impatient faces.
Auren Valen stood in silence beneath a high archway, half-concealed by a velvet curtain. His gaze swept the room, not missing a single sneer, whisper, or calculating glance. He had been here before—different faces, same ambitions. In his past life, he'd thought loyalty could be earned. In this one, he knew better.
"Lord Harren proposes we move three legions to the northern ridge," Duke Rellin droned, voice flat. "But scouts have reported no movement near Fallowshade for weeks."
"We can't sit idle!" Harren barked, slamming his jeweled fist on the table. "Action shows strength! Hesitation breeds rebellion."
Auren stepped forward from the shadows, his boots silent against the marble floor. The room quieted instantly—not out of respect, but surprise. Few expected the quiet scholar to interrupt matters of war.
"And what does blind action breed, my lord?" Auren said smoothly. "Graves. Unmarked, unremembered. But graves, nonetheless."
Murmurs rippled through the chamber. Harren turned toward him, eyes gleaming with disdain.
"You speak as if you've led armies, boy."
"I speak as one who has studied every war this realm has known. Including the ones you helped lose."
Seraphina, seated at the head of the table, tilted her head. Her crimson armor shimmered like embers in the candlelight. She said nothing, but her fingers drummed once on the hilt of her sword—her silent way of asking: go on.
Auren moved to the map. He plucked a piece of coal from a tray and marked three locations with calm precision.
"The Fallowshade rebels have no intention of engaging us head-on. They want you to believe they're hiding in the ridge. But if you compare the supply routes they've hit, you'll see they're preparing to strike here—south of the forest line, near the old quarry."
"That's a wasteland," Rellin said, frowning. "No roads, no fortresses."
"No eyes," Auren replied. "No defenses. Just a perfect place to slip through and gut the capital."
He straightened and looked directly at Seraphina.
"Move our forces north, and you give them exactly what they want."
The silence that followed was thick with tension. Then Seraphina spoke, her voice low but lethal.
"How do you know this?"
Their eyes met across the war table. The fire in hers was not just suspicion—it was recognition. She had been watching him longer than he realized.
Auren hesitated only a moment. "Because I've seen this strategy before. In a past life."
Gasps. A few chuckles from the older lords, who muttered about mad scholars and riddles.
But Seraphina's gaze didn't waver.
When the council finally broke, grumbling and uncertain but swayed, she rose and swept from the room. Auren followed.
They didn't speak until they reached the rookery tower—her favorite place, his too, though neither had admitted it aloud. The wind whipped through the open archways, carrying the distant scent of sea salt and smoke.
"You shouldn't have humiliated them," she said, not looking at him.
"I didn't do it for pride."
"Then why?"
"Because truth doesn't wait for permission. And because I'd rather make enemies than bury allies who died following fools."
She turned to him then, eyes unreadable. "You really believe you've lived before?"
"I don't just believe it," he said quietly. "I remember it. Every decision. Every betrayal. The dagger in my back, most of all."
Seraphina's expression faltered for a heartbeat. "Who were you then?"
"Auren Valen. High Strategist of the Ember Throne. The king's blade in the dark."
She stared at him as though seeing a ghost. In some ways, she was.
"And now?" she asked.
"Now I'm a shadow wearing a scholar's robe. But I've learned something I never understood back then."
"What's that?"
"That strategy means nothing without someone worth protecting."
Her breath caught—just slightly. She stepped closer, the space between them charged.
"You think I need protecting?" she asked, amused and dangerous.
"No," Auren said, voice low. "I think I do."
She didn't reply. But she didn't step back, either.
A sharp cry from above startled them both—a raven descending in a spiral, its feathers streaked with soot. It landed on the perch, eyes glowing a sickly green. The scroll it carried was charred, the seal half-melted.
Seraphina's hand moved fast, snatching it. She unrolled the parchment with a frown that deepened as her eyes swept the words.
Auren stepped beside her.
"What is it?"
She looked up, the fire in her gaze now a storm.
"The southern port has fallen. My uncle turned his banners. He's sided with the High Tribunal."
The wind howled through the tower like a beast unleashed.
"So it begins," Auren murmured.
"No," Seraphina said, folding the scroll. "It continues. He's been planning this since before my father's death."
She turned to Auren. "Can I trust you?"
The question was simple. The weight behind it was not.
"You already have," he replied.
And for the first time, Seraphina nodded—not as a princess, not as a warrior—but as a woman walking into war with the only man who might be able to win it.