chapter 6
1055 Words
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Chapter Six: A Stirring Beneath the Skin
Seraphina didn’t speak of the dream.
Not to Almond, who had watched her wake gasping with sweat and moonlight clinging to her skin.
Not to Richard, who stormed into the hallways that morning demanding answers for the mark’s glowing flare.
And not to Alfred—especially not to Alfred—whose gaze had turned sharper, heavier, ever since the ash ward appeared.
She kept the vision buried deep, locking it behind trembling lips and half-truths. Because how could she explain it?
When the three bleed for you, the fourth will rise.
Even thinking about it made her stomach twist.
---
The morning was thick with a growing tension.
Servants moved slower.
The birds didn’t sing.
And the forest surrounding Duskfall felt... tight, as though every tree was holding its breath.
Seraphina wore a simple gray cloak as she walked through the inner courtyard, hands clasped before her. Her thoughts were tangled like the ivy above her. She had spent hours sketching symbols from her dream in the pages of her journal. Runes. Trees. Teeth. Three wolves encircling a burning tree.
She didn’t know what it all meant.
But she knew someone else was watching her.
Always.
---
Alfred stood in the upper balcony of the west wing, arms folded, his gaze on her like a hawk watching prey it had no intention of killing—yet.
He had noticed the change in her. The silences. The stilted answers. The way she flinched when someone said “bond” or “future.”
And Alfred didn’t like questions he couldn’t answer.
“She hides something,” he said to himself, voice low.
Behind him, his Beta, Elian, shifted uncomfortably. “Maybe she’s just overwhelmed.”
Alfred’s silver eyes didn’t blink. “The last time the Moon flared like that, a queen died. A realm broke. Prophecy does not sleep for long.”
Elian hesitated. “Then what do we do?”
“We watch,” Alfred murmured. “And we don’t let the others get too close.”
---
Meanwhile, Richard stormed through the training fields.
His fists hit the practice post again and again, the wood splintering with every punch. Sweat slicked his back, his chest rising like a beast caged too long.
He had felt it last night—like his bones were being scraped by frost, like his blood burned with fire not his own.
His dreams had been full of war. And her.
Always her.
Seraphina, bound in silver chains, her eyes glowing with light too bright for the world.
He’d woken screaming.
“What the hell are you doing to me, Moon Girl…” he muttered between strikes.
The wood post cracked.
Then broke.
---
Almond hadn’t spoken much since the dream either.
But his silence was different.
He had returned to the moon stones in the garden—tiny altars carved centuries ago by the first Lunar priestesses. His fingers traced old words, prayers that hadn’t been said aloud in generations.
He whispered to the wind, the roots, the ancestors.
But the answers that came were only echoes.
“She’s shifting,” he whispered, eyes closed. “But into what?”
---
That night, the Alphas were summoned to the Hall of Breath.
It was Miriam who called them.
The oldest living keeper of Duskfall stood before the stone table, the moon symbol burning faintly on her throat.
Seraphina sat beside her, quiet, unreadable.
“I didn’t ask for this,” she had whispered earlier.
“And yet it arrives,” Miriam had replied. “You are not here to ask. You are here to become.”
The three Alphas entered the room, one by one.
Richard, still seething, dragging the scent of pine and sweat with him.
Almond, expression closed but eyes flickering with worry.
And Alfred, who said nothing—only watched Seraphina like a book he was almost done reading.
Miriam spoke first.
“There is a stirring beneath the skin of this realm,” she said. “Magic long buried is waking.”
She turned to Seraphina.
“And it begins with her.”
---
Seraphina kept her expression neutral.
But Alfred was not so easily fooled.
“Something changed,” he said quietly, his voice slicing through the room. “The night of the flare. Your mark reacted. But not to an enemy.”
Everyone turned to her.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Seraphina said carefully.
Alfred stepped forward. “Lying doesn’t suit you.”
Richard growled, stepping protectively beside her. “Back off, Blackthorn.”
Almond placed a hand gently on Richard’s shoulder. “Let her speak.”
But Seraphina stood.
Straightened.
“I had a dream,” she said, heart hammering.
A half-truth. One she could manage.
“I was in a place made of light. A woman was there. The Moon Goddess, I think. She said the mark is waking, and that danger comes from within, not just without.”
That was all she gave.
No bleeding Alphas. No fourth shadow.
Just enough.
It was enough.
Miriam nodded, her face unreadable.
But Alfred’s stare didn’t soften.
---
Later that evening, she stepped out into the cold air, breathing deeply.
The stars above flickered faintly. The same way they had before they fell in her vision.
And behind her, Alfred appeared from the shadows.
“I know you lied,” he said.
She didn’t turn.
“I didn’t lie,” she replied. “I just didn’t give you everything.”
“Why?”
“Because prophecy is a trap,” she said. “Once you speak it, you live in fear of it. And I refuse to be ruled by fear.”
Alfred was quiet.
Then, to her surprise, he stepped beside her.
“You’re not what I expected,” he said. “I thought you’d be soft. Easy to sway.”
“And now?”
“You’re dangerous,” he said softly.
And then—
He leaned in.
Not a kiss.
But close enough.
So close.
“Tell me the truth one day, Seraphina,” he murmured, “and I will not let the prophecy destroy you.”
Then he left her in the starlight, alone with her secret.
And the knowing that danger wasn’t coming.
It was already here.
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- Writer
