Chapter Eight: Her Name Was Lysandra

The palace was quieter than usual.

Not the kind of quiet that comes after peace, but the kind that settles in after something unseen has shifted. Like the air was waiting for the next scream.

Seraphina moved through the halls as if she didn't feel it.

But she did.

The bond pulsed differently now. Ever since the mark appeared on her collarbone, it responded like a second heartbeat, one that didn't always match her own.

It didn't hurt.

It just... knew things.

What she was feeling. What she was hiding.

What she wanted.

She found Elion in the old solar wing alone, standing in front of a scorched window that looked out over the east gardens. The dawn hadn't arrived yet, but the sky was pale with the idea of it.

She didn't speak.

He didn't turn.

"It wasn't supposed to pick you," he said finally.

Seraphina crossed her arms. "Then who?"

"No one."

"That's not how curses work."

Elion's jaw tightened. "This one wasn't meant to work."

He turned slowly, eyes finding hers like they always did, quietly, but with weight.

"You're wearing the same mark Lysandra had when she died. Did you know that?"

She shook her head once.

"I watched it appear on her. One night, she woke up screaming. The sigil was glowing like it wanted to burn its way through her chest."

"And you didn't stop it?"

"I tried. I failed."

"Do you think I'll end the same way?"

Elion didn't move. "I think… you'll rewrite it. Or destroy it."

Seraphina held his gaze. "I'm not here to survive this, Elion. I'm here to win it."

She left him with those words.

Not for effect.

Because she needed space to think, and she could feel the bond humming harder every time they were close.

Too many feelings. Too many histories layered over one another.

She needed facts.

And facts, in Lunaris, lived in the places no one wanted to go.

---

The Restricted Archives were buried six floors below the main palace, tucked behind a mosaic of an eye with no pupil.

It didn't open with a key.

It opened with magic.

And now with her mark, it opened to her.

It felt like the mark led her to where she should go.

The room smelled of wet stone and dried ink. Candles lit themselves as she entered, flickering like they recognized her.

She found it after half an hour of digging:

"Soulbinding and the Crowned Curse: Unrecorded Cases"

Inside were names. Dates. Diagrams.

And Lysandra.

She wasn't a mystery anymore.

She was a woman, real and flawed and brilliant.

Once the Queen's advisor. Once heir to the Vale line before it was severed by scandal and blood.

And once, deeply, irrevocably in love with Elion Blackmere.

Her writings weren't just observations, they were records of battle. Of begging. Of betrayal.

And worse...

Of trying to break the bond.

 Entry 11

"He doesn't see it. The bond isn't chaining us to each other, it's chaining something else to us. It speaks to me now, in dreams. It knows my name. It knows his fears."

Entry 17

"Tonight, I tried to sever the ring from his finger. The blade shattered. The magic retaliated. My shadow no longer moves when I do."

Entry 23

"I kissed him again. Not because I needed to. Because I missed the way he looked before the bond changed us. He kissed me like he knew I wouldn't last the week."

Entry 31

"I saw her. The girl who comes next. Her name is fire. Her fate is ruin. If you find this, Seraphina, please don't love him. You can't save him. You'll only lose yourself."

Seraphina closed the book with shaking fingers.

Something crawled under her skin...grief, anger, fear.

She knew what it was now.

This wasn't just about Elion.

It was about what chose him. What chose her.

And why the bond always wanted more.

She left the archives at dusk and went straight to the one person who might understand:

The Queen.

She didn't ask for permission. She barged into the Queen's observatory, where the stars hung low and the air tasted like fate.

The Queen didn't flinch. "You found it."

"Yes."

"She warned you."

"Yes."

"Do you believe her?"

"…I don't know."

The Queen poured two cups of something warm and dark and quietly magical. She handed one to Seraphina.

"Lysandra was my friend," she said after a long silence. "But she was wrong about one thing."

Seraphina raised a brow.

"She thought loving him was the curse. It wasn't."

"What was it?"

The Queen looked her in the eyes.

"Surviving him."

---

That night, Seraphina dreamed again.

But this time, it wasn't memory.

It was warning.

She stood on a blood-washed balcony, wearing a crown made of shadow and glass. Elion stood below her, in chains of light.

The court burned around them.

The bond flickered across the sky like a second sun. Fractured and flaming.

And from the fire, a voice rose:

"You are not the first to wear the ruin. You are just the first to dare shape it."

When she woke, the mark on her collarbone was glowing again.

And she wasn't alone.

---

Elion was at her bedside.

Eyes red. Breathing uneven.

"I felt the dream," he said. "All of it."

She sat up slowly.

"I think it's happening again," she said.

"What is?"

"Someone is trying to sever the bond."

He froze.

"Where?"

"I don't know. But it's close."

---

The palace exploded in motion within the hour.

The Queen's guard searched every wing. The mages locked down the grid.

And in the northwest tower, they found the source.

A spell circle, carved in blood, powered by cursed moonstone.

Someone had tried to separate them.

Not to kill, but to unbind.

And Seraphina knew exactly who it was.

---

Lord Caelum Mor stood with his hands behind his back when she confronted him in the council hall.

"I did what the people were too afraid to do," he said simply. "The bond is a threat to the realm."

"You were going to kill us."

"I was going to free you. Funny how no one sees the difference."

The Queen stepped forward.

"You've committed treason."

"No," Caelum said, smile thin. "I committed mercy."

---

That night, after he was dragged to the dungeons, Seraphina and Elion sat beneath the stars in the east garden.

They didn't speak for a long time.

Then Seraphina said, "He wasn't wrong."

Elion turned to her. "About what?"

"This bond. It is dangerous."

"I know."

"And we can't trust anyone to protect us."

"I know that too."

"So what do we do?"

He reached for her hand. Didn't rush it. Just offered it.

"We fight smarter. We find out who made this curse. Why it keeps choosing us. And we make sure we're the last ones it ever marks."

She laced her fingers through his.

"Then let's start tomorrow."