The Far West. The Witch City.

2352.

49th Year of the Reign of King Caspian X.

Rilian.

The sky above the Far West burned green.

It was not natural fire – not even the witches' magic dared burn like that.

The Silver Chair.

Rilian knelt, his arm around Sapphyre's shoulders as she slumped against him, her breathing shallow, her skin blazing with flickers of blue flame. He gripped her hand tightly, as if sheer will might anchor her to life.

Her fingers twitched weakly in his.

She had been giving the Chair her magic. He knew that – felt it in the way her energy had drained slowly, subtly, over the last day. She'd thought she could help the witches. She'd believed that offering the Chair a portion of her own magic might would help them – for their leader was to use it to create a haven for them, a portion of the world where they would be safe, protected by the Silver Chair.

But Emerylda had come to retrieve her sister.

And now, the world was aflame.

A scream split the sky. Emerald fire erupted from the heart of the encampment like a dying star imploding. Emerylda stood at the center of it, unrecognizable, her silhouette rippling with raw power. The flames pouring from her hands were not hers—not entirely. They had been twisted by the Chair, magnified, made monstrous.

Magic had always been her weapon, not like this.

Now it bent to her rage with terrifying ease.

Tents vanished into cinders. The earth cracked and belched steam. Witch after witch fell to their knees or fled – some screaming, others silent as they disintegrated under the green blaze.

And through it all, the Silver Chair pulsed – throned and waiting, amplifying the destruction like a wicked conductor.

It was little more than a tool.

It had been crafted with the intention to help.

Sapphyre stirred in his arms, moaning. Her face was tight with pain, her body too hot with magic. Blue flames licked along her skin like frantic birds trying to take flight.

Rilian looked once more to the Silver Chair, the source of it all. Its dark frame shimmered faintly beneath the lashing green and blue flames, like it was breathing.

No more.

He bent low, slid one arm beneath Sapphyre's legs and the other behind her back, and lifted her from the cursed throne.

She didn't resist, though her eyes fluttered open in confusion, lips parted in protest. "Rilian… no—"

"I will not let you die here," he said, voice tight with emotion. "And I will not let the deaths of these witches weigh on your soul."

Because he knew that even thought the flames were Emerylda's, she would blame herself.

The air thickened as he carried her through the chaos. Emerylda's magic flared wildly, reacting to Sapphyre's absence from the Chair. Flames coiled like serpents, hunting for something to devour.

Rilian pressed forward, shielding Sapphyre with his body, the heat licking at his armour, his boots crunching through scorched earth and ash. The witches fled or crumpled, helpless in the wake of Emerylda's wrath.

At last, he reached her.

Emerylda stood atop a rise, the burning ruins of the encampment behind her, her emerald flames roaring like a storm. She turned toward him, eyes glowing with unbridled power—and something else.

Something he hadn't seen in her face before.

"Sapphyre," Rilian shouted over the howl of fire. "She's here. She's alive. Look!"

He knelt and laid Sapphyre at her feet.

The flames halted.

The green inferno dimmed, quivering midair.

Sapphyre stirred, raising her head weakly.

Emerylda's eyes widened. The green light in them fractured, like glass beneath a hammer.

"Sapphyre?" she breathed.

Her flames collapsed all at once, sucked back into her hands like smoke through a chimney. The wind died. The ground stilled.

For the first time since the Silver Chair had begun its pull – there was silence.

Rilian stepped back as Emerylda dropped to her knees beside her sister, hands trembling.

Rilian said nothing. He only watched them, heart thundering, scorched by more than fire.

For now, she was safe.

But the Chair still pulsed behind them.

And Emerylda had felt its power.

Cair Paravel. The Parlour.

Rubi.

The steam curled in languid tendrils above the water, clinging to the air in the dimly lit room. The scent of salt and lavender lingered, a small luxury Rubi had not known in weeks. Smooth stone walls held the warmth of the bath, enclosing her in a cocoon of quiet – a stark contrast to the cold halls of Cair Paravel, where watchful eyes had followed her every step.

Diamande had insisted she not stay in the castle.

Even Drinian had agreed. The tension there was too thick, the whispers too dangerous. The Parlour was safer, a modest sanctuary tucked away in the eastern quarter of the city. The rooms above belonged to Eithne's pod-sisters, selkies who kept their secrets close.

In the Parlour, she could move unseen.

She eased herself from the bath, water streaming down her skin as she wrapped herself in a thick cloth. It was Eithne's doing, a hidden luxury. Selkies needed water. Rubi was no selkie, but she had needed it too.

As she reached for her clothes, the sensation struck. A violent, twisting wave of magic, thick and burning, crashing through the air like a storm breaking against the cliffs. Her breath hitched. Her fingers clenched the fabric.

It was not just magic – it was a rupture, a wound splitting the very fabric of power. It roared through her veins, hot and acrid, leaving the taste of burnt copper on her tongue. Her vision blurred as a chorus of distant screams echoed in her mind, not of the living, but of the spells unravelling, the protective wards of her coven breaking apart. A sickening pull, like an undertow in the deepest part of the ocean, dragged at her magic, trying to rip something vital from her.

Her coven.

They were under attack.

Pain lanced through her skull, her knees buckling as the sheer force of the magic overwhelmed her senses. Her breath came in ragged gasps, her pulse thundering in her ears.

And she knew immediately the cause.

The Silver Chair had been her idea. Ardisia had helped shape it, to make the enchantments a part of its very essence, but the foundational magic – that had been hers.

And now it screamed.

A violent shudder ran through her, rippling the still surface of the water. The Chair's power had been unleashed – no longer a slow pulse of siphoned energy, but an eruption. Like a dam torn apart.

She stood, droplets cascading down her body, limbs slick and gleaming under the glowing stones. She reached for the nearest cloth, but her hands trembled.

Something was wrong.

The Chair had been designed to channel power. To amplify a witch's will, like the Heart of Atlantis once had. But the magic she felt… it was not amplification.

It was annihilation.

She felt the tether between herself and the artifact fray – snap – and something cold unspooled in her stomach.

"No," Rubi whispered. "No, no, no…"

Magic rolled across her senses like thunder. A clash of green flame and blue fire, layered in pain, in fury, in desperate love.

The witch-city was burning.

And her creation was at the heart of it.

She had poured herself into that Chair. It had been a tool, not a weapon. Not meant for this.

But the magic she felt from it – twisting, fraying, burning through its vessel – was not her own.

It was Emerylda's.

Rubi gripped the edge of the pool, knuckles pale. Her breath caught, shallow and ragged. She didn't need to scry to know what had happened. She felt it.

The witches' camp in the Far West was burning.

Rubi staggered to her feet, water trailing like spilled starlight across the stone floor. Everything in her screamed to run. To storm west and tear through the fire and take back what had been stolen. Her creation. Her friend. Her vengeance.

But she did not move.

Not yet.

Patience.

Control.

She wrapped the robe tighter around her body and turned away from the pool. There was a plan. There had to be. Emerylda's power would twist the Chair into a monster, yes – but monsters could still be killed. Ruin could still be undone.

And she was not alone.

Diamande was already working in the shadows, setting traps in Emerylda's path, unravelling her alliances thread by thread.

Together, they would destroy her.

The woman who had once laughed with Rubi in the hidden libraries of Atlantis. The one who had called her friend. The one who had betrayed everything.

The water hissed as Rubi's bare feet touched the warm stones, her body already drying in the rising heat of her own brewing magic.

There would be a reckoning.

And Rubi would not wait much longer.