Serena
The night air didn’t cool the fire inside me.
If anything, it fed it.
Every breath was smoke, every heartbeat a warning.
They’d been watching her.
My mother.
The woman who had once kissed my forehead like she was afraid to break me, then walked away like I’d already been broken.
I wasn’t running, not really.
But the rage had nowhere to go, so my legs moved. Past the gates. Past the guards who knew better than to speak. Past the ache in my knees and the pounding behind my eyes.
She was alive.
She was being followed.
And none of us had known.
Not until tonight.
Not until I pulled a file from Dante’s vault and watched my world tilt sideways with a soft flutter of paper.
I had only one thought now, and it echoed with every step:
This is war.
Footsteps approached behind m
