Chapter 134 Seraphine
Candles were meant to be kept. Protected. Held close. Everyone knew that, even without rules being spoken.
Sevrin rolled his shoulders as if shedding weight, then stepped away from the table, empty-handed, and angled himself toward Myra.
My dragon’s voice sharpened instantly.
He has abandoned his flame. That is not confidence. That is contempt.
Myra didn’t notice him at first. She was still standing near the edge of the floor, both hands cupped around her candle, her attention fixed entirely on the fragile light she was guarding. Her flame burned small but resolute, like it had chosen endurance over spectacle.
Then Sevrin spoke.
Too softly for the crowd.
Too softly even for me to hear.
But I didn’t need the words.
Myra stiffened.
Her shoulders drew in. Her flame trembled.
I leaned forward on my throne, fingers tightening against the armrest.
Rhevik noticed at the same moment I did.
He was closer to Myra than the others, his stance already angled outward, protective without being possessive. His own candle burned lower than before.
“Careful,” he said louder this time, voice carrying just enough. “That looks fragile.”
Myra swallowed.
“I’m managing,” she said, but her voice shook.
Sevrin smiled.
Then he moved.
Not toward her, past her.
He brushed hard into a passing couple, deliberately breaking their rhythm. The dancers stumbled, skirts flaring, bodies colliding.
Air rushed in to fill the space.
A sharp, sudden current tore across the floor.
Myra gasped as the wind lunged for her candle, the flame bending violently, nearly snuffed.
Before anyone else reacted—
Rhevik stepped in front of her.
He turned his body sideways, raising his arm to shield her flame, using his own back and shoulder to block the draft.
The wind hit him full force.
His candle—still in his hand—sputtered.
Flickered.
Shrank to a trembling point of light.
A murmur surged through the hall, voices overlapping in alarm.
Rhevik hissed through his teeth as heat scorched his skin, but he didn’t move.
Didn’t look down.
Didn’t waver.
“Breathe,” he said to Myra, voice tight but steady. “Focus on the flame. Not him.”
Myra obeyed.
Her candle steadied.
The wind died.
Rhevik’s flame guttered dangerously low, then caught again, weak but burning.
Relief rippled through the room.
I exhaled slowly, my dragon’s approval rolling through me like distant thunder.
He risked himself for another. He understood the cost.
Across the floor, Sevrin clapped once, slow and mocking.
“Well done,” he said lightly. “Very noble.”
I turned my gaze fully on him.
He felt it.
His smile faltered just a fraction as my attention settled, heavy and unmistakable. His candle—still sitting unattended on the marble table behind him—flickered uneasily, its flame bending despite the lack of wind.
Interesting.
He doesn’t guard what he claims to deserve, my dragon murmured. He expects power to wait for him.
I let my gaze drift—not just to Sevrin, but to the others.
To Rhevik, now breathing hard, standing close to Myra without touching her, his body angled protectively while his own flame struggled.
To Myra, whose hands still shook, but whose eyes were clear now. Angry. Focused. Unbroken.
And then—
To Maerith.
She stood apart from the chaos, exactly where she had been before.
Her candle burned perfectly. Steady. Untouched.
Not because she’d shielded it.
Not because she’d helped anyone.
But because she’d positioned herself where nothing reached her.
She watched the scene unfold with cool, unreadable eyes, expression flat, gaze flicking from Sevrin to Rhevik like she was observing variables instead of people.
No outrage.
No concern.
No satisfaction either.
Just… assessment.
My dragon went quiet.
That silence was worse than anger.
She does not fear loss, my dragon finally said. But she does not honor it either.
Sevrin glanced back at his candle, still burning where he’d left it.
See? his posture seemed to say. It survived without me.
I rose to my feet.
The movement alone stilled the hall.
I didn’t speak yet.
I didn’t need to.
I was watching.
Watching who guarded their flame.
Watching who guarded others.
Watching who believed power was something you could abandon and still claim.
And watching who stood apart, untouched by fear or compassion, weighing everything without stepping in.
The Unending Flame was doing exactly what it was meant to do.
It was revealing them.
That's when it happened.
The flame went out without warning.
No wind.
No jostle.
No provocation.
One moment Maerith’s candle burned clean and unwavering—tall, precise, almost arrogant in its steadiness—and the next it simply… wasn’t.
The wick smoked once.
Then nothing.
The sound it made was barely there, a soft hiss of extinguished heat, but the room reacted like a scream had been torn loose.
Gasps rippled through the hall.
Music stuttered, faltered, then softened instinctively, as if the Between itself had leaned in.
Maerith stared at the candle in her hands.
Not in panic.
In disbelief.
Her fingers tightened around the base, knuckles whitening as she lifted it closer to her face, as if proximity alone might will the flame back into existence.
It didn’t.
A thin trail of smoke curled upward, bitter and final.
“What?” she breathed.
That single word cracked something in the air.
She hadn’t moved.
Hadn’t been challenged.
Hadn’t been tested the way the others had.
And yet—
Her flame was gone.
Slowly, deliberately, Maerith lowered the candle and set it down on the nearest table.
Right beside Sevrin’s.
The contrast was brutal.
His flame still burned, smaller now, unsteady, but alive, while hers sat dark and inert, wax already cooling, final in its silence.
Maerith straightened.
Her shock hardened into something sharp and ugly.
I felt it before I saw it.
Hate.
Pure, concentrated, directionless at first—then it found its mark.
Her gaze snapped to Sevrin.
If looks could kill, he would have been ash.
“You,” she said quietly.
Sevrin turned, brows lifting in feigned surprise. “Me?”
“You did this,” she accused, voice low but vibrating with fury. “You disrupted the room. You shifted the air. You set the tone.”
Sevrin laughed softly. “I never touched your candle.”
“You didn’t have to,” she snapped. “You turned this into a spectacle.”
Around them, people had gone still.
Rhevik’s jaw tightened.
Myra watched Maerith with wide, uncertain eyes, her own candle clutched protectively to her chest.
I didn’t move.
Didn’t speak.
This moment mattered.