The rescue plan collapsed before it even properly began.

Which, Seraphina thought distantly afterward, felt thematically appropriate for her life lately.

The Church held her beneath Saint Michael’s Citadel — an old fortress converted centuries ago into a sanctified detention complex for supernatural prisoners and political enemies inconvenient enough to disappear quietly.

The irony did not escape her.

Blackthorn trained her inside these halls once.

She used to walk these corridors carrying silver blades and righteous certainty.

Now silver chains burned against her wrists while execution bells rang faintly above the prison levels preparing for dawn.

Excellent character development.

The holding chamber itself looked almost disappointingly ordinary.

Stone walls.

Iron cot.

One narrow cathedral window high above the floor where snow drifted faintly against black sky.

No torture.

No interrogation.

That frightened her more.

Aldric wasn’t trying to extract information anymore.

He was making a statement.

Public execution.

Public purification.

Public proof the Church still controlled fear.

Seraphina sat silently against the wall listening to distant footsteps echo through prison corridors while exhaustion settled heavily into her bones.

Lucien was coming.

That knowledge lived inside her with terrifying certainty.

And somehow that scared her more than death itself.

Because Lucien in grief became catastrophic.

The prison door opened quietly sometime after midnight.

Seraphina looked up automatically expecting guards.

Instead—

her father stepped inside alone.

Matthias Van Helsing looked older than ever beneath the dim prison lanterns.

Not aged.

Worn down.

Like guilt finally became physically heavy enough to carry visibly.

The guards closed the door behind him without speaking.

Seraphina stared silently for several long seconds.

Then finally:

“Did they send you to convince me to repent publicly?”

Matthias flinched slightly.

Interesting.

She almost forgot he still reacted to pain.

“No.”

Seraphina looked away toward the narrow prison window.

“Then what?”

Her father crossed slowly toward the iron chair opposite her cell wall before sitting heavily into it.

For a moment neither spoke.

The silence between them no longer felt familial.

Just tired.

Finally Matthias said quietly:

“I should’ve told you the truth years ago.”

Seraphina laughed once under her breath.

“Bold timing.”

“I was afraid.”

“There it is again,” she whispered bitterly. “Everyone keeps using fear like it excuses what they became.”

Matthias closed his eyes briefly.

“No,” he said softly. “Fear explains it. It doesn’t excuse it.”

The honesty in the answer disarmed her slightly.

Because excuses would’ve been easier to hate.

Her father looked exhausted tonight.

Not like a commander.

Like a widower.

Like a man who spent years surviving his own cowardice badly.

Matthias leaned forward slowly afterward.

“Aldric approached me after your mother discovered the laboratories.”

Seraphina’s pulse slowed sharply.

“He offered silence in exchange for protection.”

The prison chamber felt suddenly smaller.

Seraphina stared at him.

“You made a deal.”

Matthias nodded once.

Painfully.

“He promised the Order would leave you untouched if Helena stopped investigating.”

Rage hit instantly.

White-hot.

“She died anyway.”

“I know.”

The words cracked.

Not loudly.

Worse.

Humanly.

Matthias rubbed one trembling hand across his face before continuing.

“Your mother refused to back down.” A weak, broken smile appeared briefly. “God, she was furious with both of us.”

Seraphina’s throat tightened painfully.

That sounded exactly right.

Helena Van Helsing refusing obedience while the men around her compromised themselves trying to survive institutions built from fear.

Matthias looked toward the prison floor.

“I thought I could control the situation quietly.” His voice hollowed out. “I kept believing there would be another meeting. Another chance to expose Aldric safely.”

Seraphina whispered:

“And then she died.”

Matthias nodded slowly.

Silence swallowed the room afterward.

Not empty silence.

Graveyard silence.

The kind built from years nobody could return and choices nobody survived cleanly.

Eventually Seraphina asked the question she’d been avoiding since finding Helena’s journals.

“Did she hate you at the end?”

The question visibly wounded him.

Matthias looked toward her with such naked grief that suddenly Seraphina regretted asking at all.

“No,” he whispered. “That was the worst part.”

Her chest hurt instantly.

Because of course Helena didn’t hate him.

She probably loved him anyway.

People stayed heartbreakingly human even while failing each other catastrophically.

Matthias reached slowly inside his coat afterward and removed a folded document sealed with old Blackthorn wax.

He slid it carefully across the prison floor toward her.

“Your mother left this hidden inside the archive vault.”

Seraphina frowned.

“What is it?”

“Blackthorn succession records.”

She unfolded the document carefully.

Then froze.

Her breath caught sharply.

Helena rewrote Blackthorn command authority before her death.

If the Order became corrupted beyond redemption—

leadership transferred directly to Seraphina.

Not the Church.

Not Aldric.

Her.

A second document fell loose behind it.

Helena’s handwriting.

Short.

Uneven.

Probably written shortly before she died.

If you’re reading this, then Matthias failed to protect us.

Try to forgive him anyway.

He loved us the best way he knew how.

That was simply not enough.

Seraphina stopped breathing.

God.

Tears blurred the words instantly.

Across the cell, Matthias lowered his head into shaking hands for one horrible second before recovering again.

Too late.

She saw it.

Saw the man beneath the commander finally collapsing under grief years too late to matter.

Then suddenly—

alarms exploded through the prison fortress.

Both of them looked up instantly.

Not Church alarms.

Impact alarms.

Distant explosions shook the citadel walls hard enough dust rained from the ceiling overhead.

The prison corridor outside erupted into shouting.

Gunfire.

Screaming.

Seraphina’s pulse slammed violently upward.

No.

No no no.

Lucien.

Matthias stood immediately.

“He came.”

Of course he came.

The realization terrified her instantly.

Because Lucien wouldn’t attack strategically tonight.

He’d attack personally.

Another explosion shook the prison halls.

Closer now.

The corridor lights flickered violently.

Then the prison door burst open.

Not Lucien.

Church execution units.

Three guards stormed inside with silver rifles raised.

“Commander Van Helsing,” one shouted toward Matthias. “The citadel’s been breached—”

A shadow hit the corridor behind them.

Fast.

Terrifyingly fast.

The first guard died before finishing the sentence.

Blood sprayed violently across stone walls.

The second barely managed firing one sanctified round before Lucien tore the weapon away barehanded.

The silver burned through his palms instantly.

He ignored it completely.

God.

Seraphina had never seen him look like this before.

Not angry.

Apocalyptic.

Black blood stained his shirt from multiple silver wounds already while something feral and grief-stricken lived openly behind his eyes now.

The third executioner raised a weapon toward Seraphina’s cell.

Matthias moved first.

The silver bullet meant for her entered his chest instead.

Everything stopped.

Seraphina screamed his name.

Matthias staggered hard against the prison bars before collapsing to one knee.

Lucien killed the guard immediately afterward.

Too quickly to follow.

Then silence crashed violently through the prison chamber.

No one moved.

Blood spread slowly beneath Matthias across the stone floor.

Too much.

Way too much.

Seraphina dropped beside the bars instantly reaching desperately through the iron gaps toward him.

“No no no no—”

Matthias grabbed her hand weakly before she could finish spiraling completely.

His breathing already sounded wet.

Silver rounds.

Fatal.

Lucien stood frozen nearby.

Still covered in blood and violence and rage—

yet suddenly looking horribly human again.

Matthias looked toward him slowly.

“Get her out,” he whispered.

Lucien crossed the cell immediately afterward and tore the prison door clean off its hinges.

Seraphina barely noticed.

She stayed beside her father on the floor while panic hollowed her chest apart.

Matthias reached shakily toward her face.

Exactly the way Helena used to.

God.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

The words destroyed her instantly.

Because he meant all of it.

The lies.

The fear.

The years.

Everything.

Seraphina gripped his hand hard enough it hurt.

“You should’ve told me.”

“I know.”

Tears finally slipped down his face then.

Quietly.

Like even grief in him learned restraint too late.

“You deserved better from all of us.”

Another explosion shook the prison fortress overhead.

Closer.

The rescue mission collapsing into chaos around them.

Lucien crouched beside Seraphina silently afterward.

Not rushing her.

Never rushing grief.

Matthias looked toward Lucien then.

And for the first time since they reunited—

no hatred existed between them anymore.

Only exhaustion.

Only shared love for the same impossible woman.

“Don’t let them turn her into a weapon,” Matthias whispered weakly.

Lucien answered immediately.

“I won’t.”

Matthias nodded once.

Then looked back toward Seraphina one final time.

His expression softened strangely afterward.

Not commander.

Not hunter.

Just father.

“I loved your mother from the moment she broke my nose during training,” he murmured faintly.

Despite everything—

despite blood and death and alarms screaming through the collapsing fortress—

a broken laugh escaped Seraphina anyway.

Matthias smiled weakly hearing it.

Then the light slowly disappeared from his eyes.