"Third point of view "
The air cracked.
Reality frayed around Seraphine like silk unraveling in flame. Where she stepped, the stone melted. Her violet fire pulsed like a heartbeat — angry, alive, ancient.
Sebastian didn't move.
He couldn't.
Not because he feared her… but because a part of him still remembered her mouth on his skin, the way she whispered in the dark, the way she died screaming his name.
Lilith hissed. "She should be ash. I saw her corpse myself."
Seraphine smiled with fangs. "You saw what I wanted you to see, priestess. Death is so… boring. But betrayal?" She ran her hand over the broken altar, violet flame igniting along the stone. "Betrayal is divine."
The Archon had vanished — no retreat, no trace. Just gone. As if Seraphine's arrival had eclipsed even its malevolence.
Kaine, still bleeding, clutched her side. "Sebastian… who is she now?"
"Everything we tried to bury," he said.
Seraphine tilted her head. "You didn't bury me, love. You sacrificed me. Big difference."
His jaw tensed. "You wanted power. You stole from the vault of dreams. You opened the first gate without warning. You destroyed Veylaris."
"And now I've come to rebuild it," she said sweetly. "Together."
Zira spat. "You're not part of this. The harem was chosen. You weren't."
"Oh darling," Seraphine purred. "I was the first."
Her eyes shimmered with cosmic hate. "Before the rogue. Before the healer. Before the alchemist. Before the snake cult whore in white. I was the first to taste his psionics. The first to take his seed. I birthed this harem."
Elyra flinched as Seraphine turned to her. "And you, little flower? Still singing your cursed lullabies? Tell me, have you ever screamed his name while choking on a flame?"
Sebastian snapped. In a blink, he closed the space between them, his hand around her throat, lifting her off the ground.
"Do not speak to them."
Seraphine choked, laughing. Her hands wrapped around his wrist, but not in resistance — in possession. "There he is. My Forbidden King. You always loved pretending to be righteous. But I know what's under the mask."
Flames erupted along her skin.
Sebastian dropped her, leaping back just as a column of violet fire exploded where he stood. The floor cracked.
Seraphine hovered now, eyes glowing black, her voice laced with something ancient and feminine and hungry.
"I didn't claw my way out of the pit just to be silenced."
Lilith raised her staff, the runes at its tip glowing. "We should banish her. Before she roots herself in this realm again."
Zira drew her daggers. "I say we kill her. Slow."
Sebastian lifted a hand. "No. Not yet."
Kaine coughed blood. "You're going to let her live?"
He turned to them, calm as the storm before a warship's cannon. "She's already bound to the old rites. If we kill her wrong, the backlash could kill us all."
Seraphine's grin widened. "Still so clever. Still so doomed."
He faced her again. "Why now, Seraphine? Why return when the Gate is half-formed and the seal is cracking?"
She floated downward, her bare feet landing soundlessly. The flames receded slightly, like a cat curling its tail.
"Because something worse than me is coming," she whispered.
The room chilled.
"You think the Archon was early? He was pushed through the veil. Something opened it from the other side. A true god, perhaps. Or worse — a pretender with no face and too many mouths."
Zira scoffed. "You expect us to believe you're here to help?"
"I'm here," Seraphine said softly, "because if he wins, we all become slaves."
The chamber darkened. Not just shadow — something more.
Elyra stumbled. "The veil's thinning again—"
Lilith spun, eyes wide. "No. It's not the veil. It's here."
The throne cracked.
Obsidian splintered upward as if pierced from below. From the floor beneath the throne — the sealed prison of the Heart of Ashkara — something was rising.
Not fast. Slow. Deliberate. Like a beast that knew it could devour the world at its leisure.
Sebastian moved instantly, hands glowing, runes spinning around his arms.
"Form the sigil! Now!"
The harem moved — bloodied, tense, but trained. They formed the ancient shape around the throne: a diamond of desire. Each corner pulsed with one virtue — Lust. Loyalty. Rage. Rebirth.
Seraphine stepped beyond the line, violet fire twisting like petals in a storm. "You'll need me, Sebastian. You know it."
He didn't argue. That was the terrifying part. He just nodded.
"Stand in Rebirth," he said quietly.
She smiled and took her place.
The floor burst open.
A heart rose from the chasm — not a human heart, but something titanic and old. Black stone veins pulsed along its sides, chained in rings of rusted gold. It hovered in the air, throbbing. Beating.
And from behind it, a whisper began.
Not words.
Names.
Each harem member heard hers spoken in a voice only she knew.
Elyra's lips trembled. "That's… my father's voice."
Zira paled. "Mine's dead."
Kaine collapsed to one knee, nose bleeding.
Lilith gritted her teeth. "This is the Heart. It's… tempting us."
Sebastian's body pulsed with heat. He held the psionic circle in place, pushing energy into the ritual. Sweat dripped down his spine.
"Resist it," he snarled. "The Heart offers what we lost — not what we need."
Seraphine's eyes fluttered closed. She was swaying, as if dancing to music none of them could hear.
"What is it whispering to you?" Lilith snapped.
Seraphine opened her eyes.
She was crying.
"It said… our son still lives."
Silence.
Sebastian staggered.
Zira turned sharply. "What?"
Lilith spat. "Lies. She never bore his heir. The pregnancy failed."
Seraphine stepped toward Sebastian, trembling.
"You told me the child died inside me. But the Heart… the Heart knows. He was taken. Hidden. Raised in secret."
Sebastian's fists clenched.
He remembered.
The blood. The screaming. The priest who told him the child hadn't survived the ritual binding.
He never questioned it.
He should have.
"Who has him?" he asked.
Seraphine looked up — her fire dimming, for once — truly afraid.
"The God Without Form."
The chamber collapsed around them.
A rupture tore through the wall, black fire swallowing half the altar. Screams echoed from the corridors beyond.
Cultists.
Worshippers.
Guards.
Slaughtered in an instant.
From the smoke, a new figure stepped forward.
It didn't walk.
It hovered.
Wrapped in white rags, its head was covered in a mask of bone and ink. No face. Just a mouth carved down the center.
The air moaned around it.
The God Without Form had arrived.
And in its arms…
I was a boy.
No older than eight.
With Sebastian's eyes.