Chapter2

"In that case, the wedding is off." I looked at Valerie, who was still nestled in Nathaniel’s arms, and kept my voice perfectly flat. "From this day forward, I have no ties to your family whatsoever."

Deep within my bloodline, that primordial voice gave a faint tremor. It felt like a red-hot iron branding itself into my consciousness—scalding, yet resolute. It was telling me I was right.

The color drained and flushed in Edmund’s face. Right in front of a hall packed with guests, he dropped to his knees, his voice quivering. "Seraphina, please, calm your anger. I’ll make this worthless wretch apologize to you."

He whipped his head around to glare at Nathaniel. "Get on your knees!"

"Kneel for what?" Nathaniel pulled Valerie tighter against him, his gaze scraping over me with pure disdain. "It's not like I even like her. My heart belongs to Valerie. Even if we got married, she'd only be fit to be locked in a cage in my house. I’d still live my life with Valerie."

A wave of blistering fury detonated deep within my veins. It wasn’t my own—it was the wrath of long-dead Phoenixes, generations upon generations of rage etched into my marrow. It surged up like a tidal wave, desperate to tear its way out of my flesh and incinerate the arrogant, oblivious man standing before me. The stronger the anger, the more uncontrollable the flames became. If I let go in that moment, the entire floral hall would be reduced to ash.

Edmund went deathly pale, as if he could physically sense the radiating heat. Nathaniel froze as well, his arm wrapped around Valerie going rigid in midair.

I took a deep breath, forcing the inferno back down.

Not because I forgave him. I did it because I refused to let a room full of innocent people become collateral damage for this wretched pair.

A bitter smirk tugged at the corner of my mouth as I turned back to Nathaniel. "The wedding is canceled. Guard your precious sweetheart well. Next time she threatens to slit her own throat, try not to lose your composure."

Nathaniel’s face contorted with rage. He raised his hand and swung.

Smack.

I slowly turned my head back from the force of the blow. I gave him a single, deadened look, picked up my glass of wedding champagne from the nearby table, and splashed it straight into his face.

The pale liquid dripped down his forehead and splattered onto Valerie’s dress, causing her to let out a piercing shriek.

Nathaniel completely froze, his eyes wide with sheer disbelief—as if he couldn't fathom that I had actually done it.

"Here is a toast to my youthful ignorance," I said.

I maintained dead-level eye contact with him. "Thank you for stepping in to take the bite when the estate hounds lunged at me when I was ten, promising to protect me for the rest of my life. Thank you for standing under the mango tree when we were fifteen, personally vowing to marry me as soon as we came of age."

Right at that moment, Valerie, who had been shrinking against his chest, violently shoved him away. She pulled a knife from her clutch purse and pressed the blade flush against her own throat. Tears spilled down her cheeks in an instant, but her gaze locked onto me with a sinister, icy glare.

"Nathaniel, if you side with her, I will kill myself right now."

The blood drained from Nathaniel’s face, his voice violently shaking. "Put the knife down!"

Valerie’s hand trembled. The sharp edge pressed into her flesh, coaxing out a thin bead of crimson blood. She wasn't looking at him. Her eyes were locked dead on mine, and a faint, mocking smile tugged at the corner of her lips—an expression meant only for me.

"Do you choose her, or me?" she demanded.

Nathaniel didn't hesitate. He lunged forward, snatching the blade from her grip and hurling it to the floor. Wrapping his arms securely around her, he led her to a seat and began carefully pinning a bridal veil into her hair with his own hands.

From start to finish, he didn't spare me a single glance.

But for a fraction of a second, his fingers paused while adjusting the veil. In that briefest of moments, his eyes went entirely blank, as if he were listening to someone speaking.

I was the only one who noticed.

I watched the two of them with glacial detachment before turning back to Edmund. "Your son is certainly a devoted lover. Uncle, I think we can consider this arrangement permanently dissolved."

Sweat beaded heavily on Edmund's forehead. He scrambled forward, desperately grabbing at my hand again. "Seraphina, you two grew up together! A bond forged over more than a decade—how can you just sever it like this? Everything you’ve done for this family... I know the truth of it all. What is that woman compared to you? You are the only one I acknowledge."

A cold, silent laugh echoed in my mind.

This family owed its current prosperity entirely to me. That foul thing trapped beneath the estate, the abomination that stirred during the blood moon every three years—I was the one who kept it subdued for them. His precious son had taken my First Feather, pawning it off to demons in exchange for wealth and status. Did they really think I was oblivious to that?

When I was twenty-two, Nathaniel wanted to see exactly how powerful a Phoenix's full combustion could be. He deliberately provoked a coven of dark sorcerers, then shoved me straight into the inferno. When I finally dragged myself out of the ashes, he was standing off to the side, recording it on his phone.

When I was twenty-three, he wanted to test if Phoenix tears could truly erase old scars. He drugged me and handed me over to an underground club. The agonizing memory of those grasping hands, those licking tongues... It was profoundly repulsive. I incinerated that defiled body altogether, rebirthing myself from the ashes. He took the solitary, agonizing tear I shed and used it to smooth away a cosmetic scar on his cheek.

And then there was the poisoned wine, and the unborn Phoenix egg in my womb.

Three times I underwent Nirvana and was reborn, emerging covered in agonizing scars each round. Every single time, I crawled my way back out of the ashes. And every single time, his heart remained as cold as stone.

I blinked hard, casually wiping a flake of dried blood from the corner of my mouth. When I spoke, my voice was unyielding. "Uncle, when I say it's over, it's over. From this moment on, we owe each other nothing."

A final trace of warmth rippled from the deepest recesses of my bloodline. It felt like a phantom hand gently patting my back—immaterial, yet overwhelmingly comforting.

I turned on my heel and walked toward the grand doors.

Sunlight flooded in from outside, stinging my eyes and making me squint.

I did not look back.

Just as I stepped over the threshold, Edmund's voice called out from behind me. "Seraphina, wait."

His tone had shifted. It was no longer pleading, but something else entirely—taut, heavy, like iron chains dragging across paving stones.

I stopped in my tracks.

He pulled a yellowed piece of parchment from his coat. The handwriting on it was blurred by the passage of time, but the red wax seal preserved upon it remained flawlessly intact.

"Take a look at this," he said.