"About last night," she began, keeping her attention firmly on the uneven trail ahead. "It changes nothing. I still don’t trust you, and healing me doesn’t erase what you are."
"Understandable. You were imprisoned for months, and you’ve known me for two days. If you completely trusted me already, I’d probably question your intelligence."
Seraphina glanced sideways, seemingly surprised that I wasn’t arguing. "Good. As long as we understand each other. I still hate Succubi, and what happened between us doesn’t mean it’s happening again."
"Of course."
Her shoulders visibly relaxed, and the tension that had been following her for the last several minutes finally eased. I let another few steps pass while considering whether I should leave the conversation there.
I probably should have.
"So, do you want to fuck again tonight?"
Seraphina walked directly into a tree.
Her forehead struck the trunk with a solid thunk, shaking several violet leaves loose as she stumbled backward with a strangled curse.
One hand flew to the rapidly reddening spot above her eyebrow while I stood completely frozen, staring at the future Fallen Saintess who had just lost a fight against an unmoving piece of vegetation.
For one miraculous second, I managed to hold myself together.
"Pfft—"
Seraphina’s furious blue eyes snapped toward me, and whatever remained of my self-control shattered.
"PHAHAHAHA!"
I burst out laughing so violently that my stomach cramped, forcing me to double over while one hand braced against my knee.
Every time I tried to drag in enough air to speak, the image of her marching face-first into the fucking tree replayed in my head and another helpless cackle tore out of me.
"You—haha! You actually walked into the fucking tree!"
"Shut the fuck up!" Seraphina snarled, her cheeks blazing crimson as she furiously rubbed her forehead.
"I can’t!" I wheezed, wiping the moisture gathering at the corner of my eye. "Your fucking face!"
"I hope something eats you."
She stormed past me with as much dignity as someone who’d just been assaulted by a tree could manage.
"Which kind?" I called after her, still struggling through another burst of laughter.
Seraphina stopped so abruptly that my laughter began dying on its own. She turned around slowly, fixing me with a glare vicious enough to remind me of Lyra’s earlier warning about the other things roaming the Demon Frontier.
"Oh, fuck you."
A grin immediately pulled at my lips. "Maybe tonight."
"KIRA!"
Her furious shout ripped through the forest, startling something small from the underbrush as I burst out laughing all over again.
Seraphina stormed ahead with her face still burning red, refusing to acknowledge me for the next several minutes, while I followed behind with an aching stomach and absolutely no regrets.
By the time the trees finally opened onto a rocky hillside, my stomach still hurt from laughing at her. Whatever lingering amusement remained disappeared when I saw our destination rising from the stone ahead.
The Sepulcher of Saint Aurelia had been built directly into the hillside, its pale stone stained gray from centuries of exposure while curtains of thick vines hung from the upper terraces.
Six weathered statues stood along a broad staircase leading toward enormous bronze doors, each depicting an armored woman with both hands wrapped around the pommel of a downward-pointing sword.
I recognized it immediately.
What I didn’t recognize was how intact it looked.
My smile faded as memories of Roland’s arrival surfaced. He’d climbed over mountains of rubble to enter through a massive breach where the eastern wall had collapsed, and half the staircase had been buried beneath stone.
Right now, the staircase was completely accessible.
The eastern wall was still standing.
Even the bronze doors remained on their hinges.
"Oh, shit," I murmured as I approached the bottom step, my gaze traveling across architecture that shouldn’t have survived until the point in the story where I’d originally introduced it.
Seraphina moved beside me, her earlier embarrassment forgotten as she studied the ancient holy structure. "What?"
"We’re early."
Her head turned toward me. "Early for what?"
"It’s a little complicated."
"Kira."
I ignored the warning in her voice and started climbing the stairs. Roland wouldn’t discover this place for more than two years, which meant the Sepulcher I remembered exploring through him didn’t exist yet.
Whatever destroyed this place hadn’t happened, and there could be entire sections of the structure that were long gone by the time the original protagonist arrived.
That realization was both terrifying and incredibly exciting.
The massive bronze doors refused to move when I pushed against them, but the moment Seraphina placed her palm against the tarnished metal, pale golden light flickered through engravings hidden beneath centuries of grime.
Ancient mechanisms groaned somewhere inside the walls before the doors reluctantly separated, releasing a breath of stale, frigid air that carried the scent of dust, stone and something pungent.
"Show-off," I muttered.
"I touched a door."
"It didn’t open for me!"
"Maybe it has standards."
I narrowed my eyes at the back of her head as she stepped inside. Standards?! Fuck you bitch. Just wait until I get you alone again. I’ll shut that pretty mouth of yours.
The passage beyond descended beneath the hillside through a broad staircase lined with extinguished braziers.
Golden runes flickered to life along the walls as Seraphina passed them, reacting to her restored holy mana and illuminating murals depicting armored priests kneeling before a woman surrounded by radiant wings.
I recognized portions of the corridor from the original novel, but the deeper we traveled, the more differences appeared.
Then we reached the bottom.
The corridor Roland had eventually followed toward the Tear stretched to our right, and recognizing it sent a rush of relief through me. My memory hadn’t completely fucked us.
But there was another passage to our left.
I stopped.
"What?" Seraphina asked.
I pointed toward it. "That wasn’t there."
Her expression immediately hardened. "How would you know?"
"I—"
The excuse died before I could invent one.
At the end of the unfamiliar passage stood an enormous white-stone door covered from top to bottom in ancient holy script. Unlike everything else we’d passed, not a single crack marred its surface, and the surrounding stone had been carved with overlapping circles of golden runes.
Seraphina approached cautiously while I followed several steps behind. The closer she came, the brighter the inscriptions became, until golden light spilled across her face and reflected inside her blue eyes.
"Can you read it?" I asked.
"Some of it." Her fingers hovered over the central inscription. "It’s a warning."
That was never good.
"What kind?"
Seraphina’s brow furrowed as she translated. "Something about a guardian being bound beyond the seal."
"Maybe don’t touch—"
Her fingers touched the stone.
Golden light erupted through every inscription at once.
"—it."
Seraphina jerked her hand backward as the radiant gold surrounding the door abruptly darkened. Black smoke spread through the inscriptions like ink poured into water, corrupting the holy light until veins of black and gold pulsed across the entire seal.
A deep grinding noise reverberated beneath our feet.
Seraphina slowly looked at me and I stared back at her.
"You touched it."
"You were literally telling me not to as I did it."
"I feel like that’s worse."
Centuries-old mechanisms thundered behind the wall as the enormous door began withdrawing into the stone. A freezing gust poured through the widening gap, carrying the unmistakable stench of death.
Seraphina drew her sword.
I summoned Blighted Radiance into my palm.
For the first time since leaving Ashfall, neither of us had anything smart to say.
Something shifted in the darkness beyond the door, followed by the slow scrape of something heavy dragging itself across stone.
Whatever had been sealed inside the Sepulcher had just noticed us.