POV: The Defector – Serae
They called her Serae once.
Now they called her nothing.
That was the cost of walking away.
Of opening her eyes.
Of remembering who she was before blood and shadow and silence.
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The underground chamber where she waited was far from the sanctuaries of the Crimson Faith. Far from the voice of Valtheran. Here, the air didn't burn with sigils or ritual ash. Here, she could breathe again—though she was no longer sure if she deserved to.
She pulled the hood from her face, revealing pale skin marked by burns that no healing had erased—sigils etched by fire, carved into her temple and collarbone in the name of initiation.
They had told her the flames would set her free.
All they had done was make her obedient.
Until now.
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Two hours ago, she'd sent the message.
A name. A meeting point.
The name: Esmé Loredan.
The meeting point: beneath the old arches of the Ponte Vecchio, where the Veil trembled but had not yet torn.
She hoped it would be enough.
Because if she was caught… Valtheran wouldn't kill her.
He would make her forget herself. And that was worse.
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She closed her eyes and listened to the past.
Voices. Smoke. A hundred blood-soaked nights of chanting.
Let the memory be undone.
Let the blood speak.
Let the fire rewrite what flesh has forgotten.
She had believed him.
Valtheran.
The Father.
The Unburned.
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He hadn't always been a tyrant.
Once, he had spoken with the voice of mourning. Of purpose.
She remembered sitting before him in the first chamber—bare stone, wet with morning mist. He had read from the Book of Names.
"We do not destroy the world," he had said. "We save it from its own forgetfulness."
And she had believed.
Believed the Council had hidden the truth.
Believed the Veil was a prison.
Believed Esmé's kind had turned their backs on balance.
Now she knew better.
Now she had seen the Heart Below.
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It had not called to them with hope.
It had screamed.
Every time Valtheran drew near it, the Veil twisted. It resisted. It bled.
And he called it purification.
But Serae had felt the truth.
He wasn't purifying the world.
He was remaking it.
In his own image.
With a truth only he could write.
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Footsteps echoed from the corridor.
She stood slowly, hood back in place.
A figure entered the chamber—a woman with red-gold hair, braided, her posture tense but steady.
Esmé.
Behind her, cloaked in darker shadows, followed Luca.
Serae's breath hitched.
The vampire's gaze cut through her.
But it was the girl who stepped forward first.
"You sent for me," Esmé said. "Why?"
Serae knelt.
Not out of submission.
But choice.
"Because you're the last light I remember before I burned."
They sat across from one another in the stone chamber. Luca watched from behind, silent, still.
Serae lifted her hand and revealed the scar across her palm.
"I bled for him," she said. "I stood at the altar. I wore the mask."
Esmé's voice was quiet. "And now?"
"Now I carry names no one else remembers."
She unwrapped a cloth.
Inside were five pendants, each carved in obsidian.
"His inner circle," she said. "The Five Pillars. He doesn't rule alone."
She pointed to the first pendant.
"This one is Mirex. He builds the rituals, crafts the censer smoke that severs memory. Without him, Valtheran's illusions fail."
She pointed to the second.
"Caedra. She binds the lost souls. She's the one who marked your father. She can sever memory or restore it."
Third.
"Belleroth. Strategist. Assassin. He moves between cities. If you're still breathing, it's because he allowed it."
Fourth.
"Thorne. Keeper of the Codex. He controls Valtheran's recorded scripture. He's rewriting the Veil one symbol at a time."
Fifth.
She hesitated.
Then touched it.
"Severen," she whispered. "Valtheran's first. His favorite. His shadow. I believe he's no longer alive—not as we know it. I believe he's what the Heart Below made when it was first opened."
Esmé paled.
"And Valtheran?"
"He thinks he can become more than Veilborn. He wants to become Memory itself."
Luca stepped forward.
"And why now?" he asked. "Why betray him now?"
Serae looked at Esmé.
"Because she isn't just a Catalyst. She's a counterweight. And if you don't stop Valtheran soon, he will bind the world to his version of history—and burn everything else."
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As she left the chamber hours later, cloak heavy with the knowledge Serae had shared, Esmé didn't look back.
She held the pendant of Caedra in her hand—the scarred obsidian warmed by her grip.
"She marked my father," she said to Luca. "Then she can unmark him."
Luca nodded.
"We have names now," he said.
"And a path."
They stepped into the night.
And the Veil trembled—like it was waiting for a decision only she could make.