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## **Chapter 8: Letters from the Grave**
Rain misted over the capital, turning cobblestones to mirrors and lanternlight to ghosts. The world looked quieter in the wet—a city wrapped in mourning, even if it didn't yet know what it had lost.
Seraphina sat alone in her study, draped in midnight blue, her hands gloved though no one was watching. On the desk before her lay a bundle of letters, aged by time, corners frayed, each sealed with wax long since cracked.
They were not hers.
They belonged to her mother.
Duchess Elyria de Alvere had died over a decade ago—formally from illness, unofficially from heartbreak, privately from treason. Her name had been scrubbed from court whispers, but the walls of Alvere still remembered.
And so did Seraphina.
The letters had been found by Felix during a recent "inventory" of the Alvere archives—tucked behind a false panel in the library, preserved alongside a single locket and an unfinished poem. He had handed them over without a word. He never asked questions about ghosts.
Seraphina broke the first seal with care.
> *"My darling Sera,*
> *If you are reading this, it means I failed to rewrite my fate. I hope you are stronger than I was. I hope the court hasn't taken your soul the way it took mine."*
She paused, fingers curling slightly. The ink was faded, but the voice was fresh in her mind—a voice like winter roses, soft and cold and unforgettable.
> *"They accused me of loving too much. Of knowing too much. I suppose that's what women like us are punished for in the end. Not sins. But strength."*
There were seven letters in total. All of them written in the final months of her mother's life. Each one peeled back layers of the court Seraphina had spent her life mastering. Names, conspiracies, betrayals that had long been buried.
And one name stood out above all:
**Alaric Thorne.**
The current High Cardinal. A man of silk sermons and bloodied hands. Respected. Feared. Untouchable.
He had been her mother's friend. And executioner.
Seraphina closed the final letter slowly.
So that's where the rot began.
---
That afternoon, she donned mourning black—not for show, but for war—and summoned her steward.
"Felix."
He stood at attention, already braced for another game of courtly fire.
"I want everything on Cardinal Thorne. His allies. His debts. His confessions and sins. If even one priest whispered his name with doubt, I want the echo."
Felix nodded once. "It will be done."
"And send a letter to the Queen Mother. Handwritten. Inform her that the Cardinal's sermons are no longer aligned with the throne's vision of virtue."
"She'll want evidence."
"She'll get it. And when she does, I want a knife in one hand and a pardon in the other."
Felix's eyes darkened. "You're not planning to have him—"
"No," Seraphina said coldly. "Not yet."
She turned to the rain-blurred windows.
"I'm planning to **unmake** him."
---
That night, the cursed history book whispered again.
She opened it with trembling fingers, half-afraid of what she'd find.
The page about Cardinal Thorne had always been vague.
> *"The church stood untouched, even as noble lines fell. The High Cardinal's name was never challenged, and his words outlived kingdoms."*
But now—
> *"For the first time in recorded history, the High Cardinal faced inquiry under royal decree. His sermons no longer echoed without shadow. And the Duchess of Alvere... began to cut into the church."*
Her breath caught.
Another change.
Another thread pulled from the tapestry of fate.
Another ghost avenged.
She closed the book gently. Then rose to her feet like a dancer before the final act.
Time was still ticking.
But she was beginning to believe she could outdance death itself.
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**End of Chapter 8**