~ Seraphina's POV ~
The night stretched on endlessly, that strange hour before dawn where time itself felt suspended, like the world teetered on the edge of breathless anticipation. Shadows clung stubbornly to the corners of my room, their shapes stretching unnaturally with every flicker of the dying fire.
The embers, barely alive, pulsed a dull orange, throwing skeletal patterns across the stone walls. Outside, the wind rattled loose branches against the windowpane in soft, intermittent knocks, like fingers tapping a warning I could no longer ignore.
I sat on the edge of the worn chair near the hearth, my bare feet resting against the cold stone floor. Despite the heat of my blood… which felt volatile, almost electric beneath my skin, a chill clung to me.
It wasn’t the kind of cold
