SERAPHINA’S POV

Sleep did not come gently that night.

It dragged me under with the quiet insistence of deep water, pulling me away from Kieran’s warmth, from the familiar weight of his arm around my waist, from the steady rhythm of his breathing against my hair.

One moment, I was lying beside him in the dark, counting the soft cadence of his breathing, and the next, the world shifted.

The scent reached me first.

Sterile metal. Salt. Old stone. Witchcraft.

My eyes opened to a room I had never entered, yet somehow recognized.

It was small, too elegant to be called a cell and too cold to be called a bedroom.

Pale walls curved slightly at the edges, giving the space the seamless look of something built deep underground, where sunlight had never been invited in.

A narrow bed stood near one wall, dressed in clean white sheets that looked more like a performance of comfort than comfort itself.

A tray of untouched food sat on a low table beside a glass of water. There were no windows, only a panel of reinforced metal for a door and a faint silver circle etched into the floor around the bed.

Margaret Lockwood sat inside that circle.

I couldn’t move.

She looked thinner than I remembered, her face sharper, her shoulders held with the careful dignity of someone who refused to let captivity steal the last pieces of herself.

Her hair had been combed neatly, but streaks of exhaustion threaded through the silver at her temples, and her hands rested in her lap as if she had trained them not to tremble.

“Mother,” I breathed, trembling.

She lifted her head, and her eyes met mine.

“Sera?”

The sound of my name broke something open inside me.

My eyes widened, and I stumbled backward. “Y-you can see me?”

She rose so quickly that the chair scraped the floor behind her. She pressed her hands to her mouth, her eyes wide, her features briefly transformed by a raw emotion so intense that, for a moment, she looked nothing like the cold woman who had once watched me from across Frostbane halls years ago, as if she had already decided that love was a privilege I did not deserve.

She looked like a mother staring at a miracle she had never believed she would be allowed to touch.

“You’re here,” she whispered. “Moon above, Sera, you’re actually here.”

I stepped toward her, reaching out, but the room wavered beneath my feet. The walls blurred at the edges, and the silver circle around her flared faintly, resisting me as though even the dream carried Catherine’s barriers.

Mother noticed at once. “Don’t force it. The distance is too great, and Catherine’s wards are woven through this place.”

“This is a dream,” I said, my voice sounding strange, stretched thin by the space between us. “I’m asleep at Nightfang.”

“Yes.” Her eyes shone as she looked at me, taking in my face with aching longing. “And somehow, you found me.”

“I didn’t mean to. I only felt...” I pressed a hand against my chest, where my pulse beat too hard. “I felt something pulling me, like a magnet.”

Mother gave a small, broken laugh. “Then your bloodline has awakened more fully than I dared hope.”

The words struck through me. “You know what this is?”

“I know pieces.” Her gaze dropped, and shame moved across her face, old and heavy.

“Not enough. Never enough. Your grandmother knew more than I did, and I was too proud, too angry, too willing to believe power was something to survive rather than understand.”

“Mother.”

She looked up sharply, as if she expected accusation.

But there was no room inside me for that tonight. Not with her standing before me in Catherine’s prison.

Not with all the years between us suddenly reduced to this fragile thread of moonlit consciousness.

“I don’t want to waste this on blame,” I said softly.

Her lips trembled. Then she nodded, once, as though accepting a mercy she had not expected to receive.

“You’ve changed,” she said, her voice soft. “No, not changed. You’ve become what you were always meant to be.”

Her voice lowered with awe. “I can feel it even through the dream. Your power has settled in you. You’re anchored.”

My throat tightened. “Sovereign.”

Mother closed her eyes for a moment.

When she opened them, tears had gathered along her lashes.

“My daughter,” she whispered, “my precious little girl, whom I was too blind and too scared to protect, became the thing ancient bloodlines prayed for and feared.”

The words hurt, but not cruelly. They entered old wounds like clean water, painful because they touched places I didn’t even know had never healed properly.

“I’m still learning,” I admitted. “Sometimes it feels like the world is too loud. Every life. Every emotion. Every thread of power.”

“That is because you are listening outward first.” Mother stepped closer, stopping just short of the silver circle’s edge.

“Listen inward before you reach. Bloodline abilities are not only force, Sera. They are inheritance. Memory. Pattern. When you touch a dream, don’t chase the person. Call the blood to remember its way home.”

I frowned, trying to hold on to every word. “Call the blood?”

“Yes. Your power keeps reaching like a hand. Make it move like breath instead. Inward first, then outward. Anchor in what is yours before you cross into what is guarded.”

The room flickered, and for a terrible second, Mother vanished.

Panic shot through me. “Mother!”

“I’m here.” Her voice returned before her face sharpened again. “The connection is rough. Catherine’s wards are distorting it.”

“Then tell me quickly.”

This was all I’d wanted since my power was revealed—my mother’s unique guidance.

Mother’s expression steadied, and beneath the exhaustion, I saw the woman she might have been if fear had not driven a wall between us.

“Dreams obey symbols more than distance,” she said. “If you need to reach me again, don’t search for the room. Search for Sylvia. My wolf is weak, but she still knows you. She recognized you before I had the courage to.”

Something inside me clenched, and I felt Alina stir within me, like she, too, recognized my mother’s wolf.

“Sylvia can help?”

“She can answer if I cannot. And Sera...” Mother leaned closer, her eyes suddenly fierce.

“Never enter Catherine’s mind directly unless you have no other choice. She leaves doors open on purpose. She makes cages look like invitations.”

A chill slipped down my spine.

“I know.”

“No,” Mother said, and the urgency in her tone made the silver circle flare again. “You know she is dangerous. You do not yet know how patient she is. Catherine does not simply trap people when they are weak. She waits until they become strong enough to believe they cannot be trapped.”

The warning settled heavily between us.

Then I heard it: a sound beyond the dream.

Footsteps.

Mother heard it too. All the color drained from her face.

“She’s coming,” she whispered.

My heart lurched. “Catherine?”

Mother turned toward the door, every line of her body tightening. “You have to go.”

“No.” The refusal tore out of me before I could stop it. “I just found you.”

“Sera, listen to me—”

“I’m coming for you.” My voice shook, but the promise inside it did not. “I swear to you, I’m coming. Kieran, Ethan, all of us—we know where she is now. We will find that island, that lab, wherever she has hidden you, and we will bring you home.”

Mother looked back at me, and the love in her face was so sudden, so naked, that it nearly broke me.

“I know,” she said. “I truly believe someone is coming for me.”

The footsteps drew closer.

The dream began to crack.

Mother lifted both hands, and faint, faded light gathered around her fingers, silver-gray and fragile, but warm.

“Remember,” she said quickly. “Inward first. Then outward. Find Sylvia if you need me. Trust the blood, but do not let it rule you.”

“Mother—”

“I love you, Sera. I will spend the rest of my life regretting that you ever believed otherwise.”

The words hit me like a blade wrapped in silk.

Before I could answer, Mother thrust both hands forward with sudden force, and the dream shattered around me.

I woke with a gasp in Kieran’s arms, moonlight spilling across the bed and silver fire racing beneath my skin.

Kieran was awake instantly.

“Sera?”

I clutched his wrist, breathless, trembling, feeling the fading echo of Mother’s room slipping away from the edges of my mind.

“We have to go,” I whispered.

Kieran went utterly still. “Go where?”

I looked up at him, tears burning hot in my eyes.

“We have to save my mother.”