Chapter 207 Seraphine

Chapter 207 Seraphine
Dreams had become dangerous.

Not in the way nightmares were, no twisted beasts or horrifying phantoms lurking in the dark. The danger was stranger, more unsettling. Lately, I couldn’t tell where sleep ended and reality or whatever this was began.

One moment, I lay in the restored cabin, the rough-hewn ceiling glowing faintly under the moonlight filtering through the cracked window. The soft, steady rhythm of Amara’s snores floated across the room from the cot where she slept, a gentle reminder that some things remained unchanged. The world was still real, still safe.

And then... Suddenly, I was standing beneath an endless night sky, a vast cosmos sprinkled with glittering stars stretching infinitely in every direction. The air was cool and still, the kind of silence that felt thick enough to hold secrets.

My dragon rested nearby, curled beneath a familiar constellation I had come to recognize over these recent nights, a glowing map of light anchoring me to this strange dream realm. The peace settled deep inside me, and for a moment, everything was calm, perfect, safe.

Until the stars began to dim.

Not disappear, but fade, like a shadow creeping slowly between me and the heavens.

A presence moved through the darkness.

A shadow I knew too well.

I exhaled, the sound steady but laced with exhaustion. “You’re getting predictable,” I said, voice low and steady.

The Death Serpent appeared a few feet away. His dark robes shifted as if caught in a breeze that didn’t exist. His hollow eyes locked onto me immediately, unblinking and cold.

“You are becoming less frightened,” he said, the accusation plain in his tone.

I folded my arms, meeting his gaze without hesitation. “And you’re becoming less creepy.”

“Impossible,” he replied, voice dripping with false outrage.

My dragon huffed softly beside me, but the Serpent paid no attention or at least pretended not to.

Something was different. The usual smugness, the cryptic riddles, the detached amusement none of that was there tonight. Instead, he looked... troubled.

And that caught me off guard. “Something’s wrong,” I said, stepping closer.

His eyes narrowed, a flicker of vulnerability hidden beneath his eternal darkness. “You assume too much.”

“You look miserable.”

Silence stretched between us like a heavy fog.

Finally, in a voice lower and more uncertain than I’d ever heard from him, he admitted, “I am uncertain.”

The word hung in the air like a fragile thread.

Uncertainty. The Death Serpent. The two didn’t belong together.

“What happened?” I asked softly.

He hesitated, then finally said, “I do not know what to do about Thane.”

My eyebrows shot up. “Wow.”

“Do not,” he snapped.

“I’m just trying to process this.”

“You are doing so poorly.”

“Wait—are you asking me for advice?”

“I am not.”

“You absolutely are.”

He sighed. A real, human sigh that sent a shiver down my spine. “I was promised knowledge.”

“What kind of knowledge?”

His gaze drifted upward, toward the stars. “Death.”

I frowned. “What does that mean?”

“Thane claimed he could help me uncover how the blood laws were originally written.”

The blood laws... the ancient, arcane rules that governed the Dragonborn. Mysterious. Unknowable. Revered by all but understood by none.

“He promised answers.”

“And?”

“None have come.”

I stared at him. “You’re telling me you’ve been helping him all this time just because of a promise?”

His expression remained unreadable. “That’s an oversimplification.”

“No, that’s exactly what it sounds like.”

The stars flickered softly above, like hesitant witnesses to a confession.

For the first time since we met, the Serpent almost looked embarrassed.

“Because I believed he held information.”

“And now?”

“I no longer do.”

I sat down on the soft grass beneath the endless sky. The Death Serpent stayed standing as if rest was a foreign concept.

“Then let me tell you something you don’t know.”

His eyes snapped back to me.

I held his gaze steady. “Thane and Kael—they killed those women.”

Silence.

I pressed on.

“The Dragonborn females.”

The stars dimmed just a little.

“The ones who hadn’t awakened.”

His face darkened.

“They kidnapped them.”

His eyes narrowed.

“They experimented on them.”

The dreamscape chilled.

“They tortured them, trying to force a dragon awakening.”

Now his anger was unmistakable... a cold fire burning behind his hollow eyes.

The stars trembled with it.

“And most of them died.”

The weight of those words pressed down like a suffocating shadow.

Finally, he asked quietly, “You’re certain?”

“Absolutely.”

His jaw clenched, eyes drifting away toward the empty horizon where no stars shone.

“How many?”

I swallowed hard, the knot in my throat tightening. “Too many.”

He looked away, lost in thought for a long, heavy moment. Then, with a genuine confusion that surprised me, he asked, “Why?”

I met his gaze with harsh truth. “Power.”

His expression hardened in disdain. “That is a foolish reason.”

“Welcome to my whole point.”

Another silence.

Then, unexpectedly, I said, “I can awaken them.”

His head snapped back to me, sharp and immediate. “What?”

“The women,” I said quietly, “The Dragonborn.”

The stars brightened above us, as if curious.

He stepped closer, urgency burning in his voice. “Explain.”

“I can do it.”

“Without death?”

“Yes.”

“Without pain?”

“Mostly.”

His eyes widened, an expression of shock I’d never seen on him before. The first surprise he’d ever shown.

“Impossible.”

“Apparently not.”

He stared at me, unblinking.

My dragon shifted uneasily beside me.

Finally, he admitted, “I have never heard of such a thing.”

“Neither have I,” I whispered.

His attention sharpened, more alive than before. “How?”

I shrugged helplessly. “I honestly don’t know.”

Something deep inside me, the cosmic power, the priestess connection, the threads of fate understood. But why? That was still a mystery.

Slowly, the Death Serpent lowered himself onto the grass across from me. The sheer shock of that almost made me laugh.

“You sit?”

His stare was unimpressed. “You are insufferable.”

“Thank you.”

A faint twitch pulled at the corner of his mouth. Almost a smile.

Then his gaze locked on me again. “You were wrong.”

“About what?”

“You no longer see all decay as corruption.”

I smiled faintly. “No.”

An ancient tree appeared in my mind... a fading thread, a peaceful ending, a tiny seed sprouting new life where old life had ended.

“The voidbinder took me to a dying tree,” I said softly.

He listened quietly, so I told him everything, the thread, the lesson, the seed, the understanding.

When I finished, he remained silent for a long moment. Then finally, “You understand now.”

I nodded. “Some things end.”

“Yes.”

“But they aren’t gone.”

The Death Serpent looked upward, toward the stars, toward eternity. “It simply becomes something else.”

A strange expression crossed his face, approval. Real approval. The first since we met.

Then darkness returned to his features. “There is something else.”

I frowned. “What?”

The stars dimmed, the dream realm grew colder.

“The rot.”

My stomach clenched. “What about it?”

He looked at me directly. “I created it.”

I blinked. Twice. “What?”

“Not alone.” A pause. “Thane assisted.”

That only made it worse.

“What do you mean you created it?”

His hollow eyes stayed locked on mine. “The rot was never meant to destroy the world.”

I stared, thoughts flashing to the countless dying threads I’d burned, the forests, the land, the corruption. “Then what was it for?”

He hesitated, reluctant. “We were searching.”

“For what?”

“The truth.”

I frowned deeper.

“The blood laws.”

I froze. Again.

“The threads hold knowledge.”

My heart hammered. “What?”

“Thousands of years of it.”

The stars pulsed softly.

“The world remembers.”

A chill slithered down my spine.

“The threads record everything.”

The implication was staggering.

He continued. “We believed answers might be hidden within them.”

“And the rot?”

His troubled expression returned. “The only way to access the knowledge is to consume the thread.”