Chapter 2

She was just about to kneel when a commotion erupted behind her.

Seraphina turned. Roselyn was leading a massive crowd of Temple devotees, marching toward her in a great tide.

Roselyn stood at the front, head dipped, playing the picture of timid innocence.

"I'm sorry, Your Highness — I couldn't stop them."

Seraphina looked at the crowd behind Roselyn. They had clearly followed her footsteps here.

She almost laughed at the irony.

She used to treat Roselyn like a sister. Even that night — she'd gone running down a blizzard-covered mountain for a healer because she believed Roselyn when she said "the priest has been poisoned."

And the result? She later pieced together the truth: the drug in that wine had been placed there by Roselyn herself.

The only reason she'd let Roselyn live was because Caden had begged for her life — and because they'd grown up together since they were girls.

Her other handmaiden, Ivy, couldn't hold back any longer. She stepped forward, her voice sharp:

"Didn't the priest personally request a favor, leaving you to recover at the estate? And you claim you couldn't stop them? You led them here yourself, didn't you?"

Roselyn's eyes went red, tears trembling at the edges. "Ivy, I really didn't—"

She never finished.

A flash of white moved at the top of the steps. A figure descended.

Caden — white robes, ink-dark hair pinned with jade, his expression sharp as carved stone — strode down the steps and walked directly to Roselyn's side. Without a word, he unclasped his outer robe and draped it over her shoulders.

"It's freezing. Why did you come out?" His voice held a warmth Seraphina had never once heard him use with her.

Roselyn's eyes turned red, and she explained the whole situation — the petition, the crowd, the steps.

Caden frowned faintly, then glanced over at Seraphina with something close to reproach.

Something in Seraphina's chest went still. Then it clenched, slow and hard.

Roselyn could say anything and he would believe her.

She had spoken her true heart to him for years and years. He had never believed a word.

She didn't bother opening her mouth. She simply turned back toward the steps, bent her knees, and knelt. One step, one bow.

The crowd went silent for a breath — then the curses crashed over her like a wave.

And then, somewhere in the mob, someone threw the first stone. It struck her across the back.

More followed. Rocks. Clods of frozen earth. They rained down on her from all sides.

Blood ran from her temple, mixing with meltwater, blurring her vision. She didn't stop.

Caden instinctively moved forward — but a sharp cry rose beside him.

Roselyn swayed, her face draining to white, and crumpled against his chest.

Caden caught her instantly, barking orders at the acolytes behind him: "Fetch a healer."

As he turned to carry Roselyn away, his eyes drifted back once more to that lone figure on the steps.

A strange heaviness settled in his chest.

Before, whenever she looked at him, her gaze had burned. Fierce and hungry, like she wanted to consume him whole.

And she never called him by his proper title. Only ever: Caden. Or sometimes, when she was teasing, cute Caden

But just now — from start to finish — she hadn't looked at him once. The word that fell from her lips was his formal title: priest.

From morning she knelt. Through dusk. Into dark.

By the time the sun sank completely, Seraphina's knees had long since worn through to raw flesh, blood gumming her skin to the stone. Her shoulders were bruised and torn from the stones that had struck her. Blood had soaked through her robes.

When she crawled up the last step, her body pitched forward — and she collapsed in the snow before the gates of the Snowveil Sanctum.