Chapter 133: SERAPHINE
Nyx backed out of the crystal a little at a time. A foreleg appeared first, then its head and shoulders.
By the time its hind paws touched stone, Miasma’s green light gave its body a clean edge again.
Aiden looked it over. Same pale eyes, same small body, no missing pieces.
"Good. I’d rather not explain to Cinder that I let a crystal eat half of you."
He crouched and Nyx jumped into his arms, its eyes curved with amusement. It rubbed its head against his chest and made a sound toward the fissure.
"Alright. You want to go be smug about it with her. Don’t overdo it."
The keeper stayed beside the crystal. "I’ve seen enough. Be at your fence before dark. She’ll come when she’s ready, not when you are."
Nyx led them back through the fissure and up the passage. The sheep remained where they had stood before. None followed.
Their heads turned as Nyx passed, then slowly turned again when Aiden and Miasma went after it.
Cinder found him at the edge of the deep grass.
She hit his side hard enough to push him one step sideways, then shoved her muzzle under his arm and checked him from chest to boots.
Heat rolled through his wet coat. By the time she finished, one side of him was almost dry.
"I’m fine."
Cinder pressed against his flank anyway. Miasma climbed back to his shoulder, and Cinder’s eyes followed her, then Nyx.
Her fire rose once as she looked from Miasma to Nyx, which made Nyx’s smug expression collapse for a breath. Then she pressed harder against Aiden’s side.
"Payback for worrying you? Fair." He rubbed the side of her neck. "But it’s not their fault you couldn’t come through."
Her ears flattened.
"I know. Still unfair."
Nyx took the front again. The fen let them reach the border without another detour.
The stones appeared through the grey light, and a woman was already waiting beyond them.
She wore an ivory field coat over fitted white-and-gold armor.
Pale metal plates protected her chest, shoulders, and forearms beneath a sleeveless Church tabard. The white cloth fell to mid-thigh, edged in muted gold and marked at the breast with the Church’s insignia.
A leather satchel hung at one hip. A sword rested at the other. She held a flat writing board in one gauntleted hand.
Her pale blond hair was tied tightly behind her head, leaving a narrow, composed face exposed. Her eyes were a light amber-gold.
Beside her stood a pale stag almost as tall as Cinder at the shoulder. Its near-white coat darkened slightly along the legs, ending in black hooves. A broad rack of antlers rose above its head, and faint gold light sat between the branches even while it stood still.
The woman kept writing as they approached.
Cinder moved in front of Aiden. Her mane rose, and heat rolled across the border until the grass between them dried and curled.
The stag stepped forward once in opposition. Pale gold light gathered between its antlers.
The woman finished the line she was writing before she looked up.
"Vigil."
The stag stopped.
"You can lower the fire."
Aiden glanced at Cinder. "I can ask."
Cinder’s mane rose higher.
"That’s her answer."
The woman looked at him for the first time.
"Seraphine. Grand Inquisitor. I read this fen for the Church. They’ve watched it for sixty-one years. I’m the one here now."
Aiden knew the name. Seraphine was the youngest Grand Inquisitor in Church history. He had expected someone older, not a woman this young waiting at his fence in field armor.
"Aiden Vell."
"I know who owns the ground."
Aiden nodded at the nearest border stone. "One more step and you’re on my ground."
He didn’t like the board in her hands. Too many people had written his name down before deciding what he was allowed to do next. He liked it even less at his own fence.
"I know." Seraphine tapped the border stone with the end of her pen. "I can watch from this side. I can’t cross without a warrant, and I don’t have one."
"That’s almost polite."
"It is polite."
She went back to her notes.
Miasma’s spines stayed half-raised. Her eyes moved from Seraphine’s face to her hands and back again. They never settled.
Aiden brought up Perception.
Silver motes drifted through the fen behind him. Gold crowded around Cinder’s heat. Green gathered close to Miasma’s spines.
Pale gold motes packed around Vigil’s antlers. Thinner strands ran from the stag toward the pale metal on Seraphine’s gauntlets, then disappeared.
None touched her skin.
Aiden frowned. He couldn’t tell what happened to them after that.
He let Perception fade.
"You knew the crystal woke."
"I felt it."
Seraphine finally looked past him at Nyx. Her pen stopped for a moment, then she wrote one word Aiden couldn’t see.
"There you are," Seraphine said.
Nyx did not react. It sat beside Aiden’s boot and looked back toward the fen.
"I had a short list of things that could wake that stone," Seraphine said. "You’re carrying one of them."
Aiden’s jaw tightened. "The keeper told me she didn’t know what Nyx is. You’re saying you do. So tell me."
"No." Seraphine closed the board against her chest. "If I tell you what it is, you’ll spend every night trying to prove me wrong. Don’t. Watch what it does instead."
"That’s very helpful."
"It’s the most helpful thing I’m going to say to you today."
Aiden looked at Nyx.
Night after night facing northeast. The fen opening for it. The sheep letting it pass. Voidglass disappearing around its body.
None of that changed the Nyx he knew. It stole his map and food, slept against his throat, and looked personally offended whenever daylight existed.
Whatever Seraphine called it, Nyx was part of the pack.
"You came all the way out here to refuse to answer one question?"
"No." Seraphine’s gaze settled on Nyx again. "I came because you let something you don’t understand wake a Church stone."
Cinder’s heat climbed. Seraphine noticed and did not move.
"I’m not here to take your claim, and I’m not crossing your line today. I’m here for the day that creature turns on you. When it does, I want to be close enough to see what’s left and write down what happened."
Aiden’s hand went into Cinder’s mane. The fire wrapped around his wrist without hurting him.
Cinder howled.
The grass at the border blackened in a line. She planted herself fully between Aiden and Seraphine, head low, fire running bright along her back.
Vigil watched Cinder. Disciplined. Ready to protect its tamer.
Aiden kept his hand in her mane. "Cinder."
She did not move.
"I know."
Her fire stayed high, but she held her ground.
"You sound very sure," Aiden looked back at Seraphine.
"I am."
"You won’t even tell me what it is, but you’re already certain how this ends."
Seraphine paused, then opened her board again. "I’ll tell the Church what woke the stone. If they want me across your border, they’ll send a warrant. Until then, I stay outside."
"How long does that take?"
"The Church is slow."
Aiden almost smiled. "Finally, something comforting."
"It shouldn’t be."
She turned to leave, then saw the cat.
It sat on Cinder’s shoulders, washing one paw.
Seraphine stopped with her pen above the paper.
The cat finished washing its paw and looked at her.
For the first time since she’d appeared at the fence, Seraphine didn’t write.
She’d written as soon as she saw Cinder. She’d even come expecting something like Nyx. The cat was the first creature that made her hesitate.
Aiden couldn’t help it. "Not on the short list?"
"No."
Aiden smiled. "Good."
"Dusk to dawn," Seraphine said as she closed the board. "I’ll be at this fence most nights."
"Watching Nyx?"
"Watching the fen." Her eyes dropped once more to the small shadow at Aiden’s feet. "And what comes out of it."
Then she walked away across the grazing land without looking back.
Cinder stayed in front of Aiden until Seraphine and her beast disappeared into the distance. Only then did her fire lower.
Aiden scratched the side of her neck. "See? Completely reasonable."
She bumped him hard enough to move him anyway.
Nyx still hadn’t looked after Seraphine.
Aiden looked down at it.
She knows what you are. I don’t.
Nyx’s pale eyes lifted to his.
You know too, don’t you?