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The air smelled of iron and fire.
Seraphina Nightborne, just nine years old, crouched behind a marble pillar in the throne room of the Northern Territory. She could hear it all-the screams of her coven, the clash of steel, the crackle of flames consuming everything her family had built for centuries.
Blood had a scent she would never forget. Sweet, coppery, suffocating. The kind that lingered in the air long after death claimed the body.
"Seraphina!"
Her brother, Lysander, came rushing through the smoke, sword in hand. His eyes were wide, panicked. "This way! Now!"
The child clutched his arm as he dragged her toward the secret passage under the castle. Her mind struggled to process what was happening. Her parents? Her coven? The family that had raised her, protected her... destroyed before her eyes?
"Where's Father? Mother?" she gasped.
Lysander's grip tightened. "We don't have time. Someone we trusted... betrayed us. They wanted us gone. You must survive!"
A shadow moved behind him. Seraphina froze.
It was one of the Nightborne's own-a vampire they had trusted, someone who had sworn loyalty to her father. Now, he wielded a sword with a casual ease, his eyes cold and unreadable.
Lysander turned, facing the intruder. "You will not take her. Not while I breathe."
Steel clashed.
The next moments were a blur. Lysander fought with the ferocity of a lion, but numbers and betrayal were against him. Seraphina watched in horror as the man, once an ally, drove a blade through her brother. His hands were bloodied as he fell, and in the moment before darkness could claim him, he pressed his face to hers.
"Run," he whispered. "Live. Remember."
The world collapsed around her.
Seraphina ran, dodging flames, broken stone, and falling bodies. Her small hands clutched her dagger, useless against the carnage but a reminder she had to fight. She did not look back, even when the cries of her coven echoed in her ears, even when the life of her brother faded from memory.
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