She didn't know the names of the first ten.
Only that they were chosen.
It had been decided by the Circle of Flame—the inner council of high priests and priestesses who ruled over temple law. They summoned Seraphina a week before and told her, calmly, reverently, that her work as Saintess would officially begin.
She had nodded once.
Then returned to prayer.
Chosen by the temple. Chosen by the priests who bowed low and spoke softly and asked without asking.
They called it a mercy.
A sacred rite.
A gift she had the power to give.
Seraphina didn't question it.
Will it hurt them? she thought.
Even though her hands trembled. Part of her wanted to refuse. Part of her was still that little girl in the alley, watching Kael fall. She remembered what the light could do when she wasn't in control of it—how it had consumed, destroyed, turned men to ash.
She was afraid. Afraid the Circle was wrong. Afraid that this wasn't healing—it was another path to ruin.
That night, she couldn't sleep.
When the others were gone, and the halls were silent, she knelt before the darkened hearth and whispered—not a prayer from scripture, not a verse from the Book of Flame. But her own voice. Shaking. Cracked.
"Kael," she whispered, her breath catching. "Kael, if you're still watching me... if there's anything left of you in the wind, in the light, in the stars—please. Please help me. I don't want to fail. I don't want to burn anyone else. Not again."
Her voice broke.
"Divine One, hear me too. If this is truly your will, then guide me. Not for glory. Not for the temple. But for them. The ones who hurt. The ones who hope. Please don't let me be wrong. Please... don't let me hurt them."
Her hands trembled as she pressed them together, tears falling freely beneath her veil.
"I'm afraid."
Then she bowed her head low.
And stayed there until morning.
"Will I hurt them?" she asks softly, voicing out her fears, as they are pour oil in her hands.
Naia shook her head. "No. They'll feel warmth. That's all."
Imara added, gently, "They'll be grateful, Lady Seraphina. You will ease what no medicine can."
Lina didn't speak. But her hands trembled as she brushed Seraphina's veil straight.
That was answer enough.
The room was small.
A quiet space, tucked into the south wing—lined with silk dividers and small cushioned mats. Warm, private. Clean.
Seraphina sat in the center, veiled in soft white, legs tucked beneath her. Her hands rested in her lap.
But inside, her heart thundered.
She was trembling.
She closed her eyes tightly, breathing shallow, and whispered into the silence of her own mind:
"Kael, if you can hear me, please… guide me. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't want to hurt them. I don't want to fail. Divine One… help me. Help me be what they need—not what they fear."
Her fingers curled slightly, digging into her palms as she tried to calm the shaking.
Then the doors opened.
Not until they arrived.
The first was a boy.
No older than nine. Eyes sunken. Coughing so weakly it barely stirred his lips.
His mother wept silently as she carried him forward, dropping to her knees in front of Seraphina without a word. The temple aide stepped forward to lift the boy from her arms and place him gently into Seraphina's.
She didn't know what to do at first.
Her arms were stiff.
The boy was so light.
She looked at Naia, who nodded once.
Seraphina looked down at the boy's face.
Closed her eyes.
And reached.
The power came gently.
Like water drawn from a still well.
It rose through her fingers, through her chest, through her heart, and poured from her skin into his. She didn't force it. She only opened.
Let it pass through her.
The boy gasped once.
Then sighed.
Then—breathed, deeper than before.
His color returned like ink drawn into parchment.
When Seraphina opened her eyes, his were already open—watching her, blinking, calm.
He smiled.
So did she.
Then the mother sobbed.
And Seraphina—
She felt her own tears hot behind the veil.
The second was an old man with shaking hands and a twisted spine.
The third, a blind girl with sores on her feet.
The fourth—a soldier with half his ribs broken and an infection that had turned his skin gray.
One by one, they came.
And one by one, she healed them.
It never hurt.
It never drained.
Each time felt like giving. Like lighting a candle and watching the darkness lift.
Their joy became her joy.
Their peace, her peace.
After the tenth person, she was still glowing.
Softly.
Her heart was calm.
Her hands, warm.
She looked to Naia, whose eyes were wet with unshed tears.
"I want to do it again," Seraphina whispered.
Naia stepped forward, kneeling beside her.
"You will," she said gently. "But not today."
"Why not?"
"Because even the well must rest."
They told her later that the ten healed had gone home smiling. That the blind girl danced in the garden. That the soldier had embraced his wife for the first time in months.
And Seraphina—
She felt alive.
Not like before. Not like the reckless laughter of her garden days. Not like the grief of the fire in the alley. This was something new.
She had given.
And they had smiled.
She wanted more of it.
They didn't let her go to them.
But they brought more to her.
Ten a month at first.
Then fifteen.
Then twenty.
Always the sickest. The quietest. Those no one else could save.
She never turned anyone away.
Not once.
Not even when her body ached.
Not even when her hands shook.
"I am full of light," she whispered one day. "If I don't share it, it'll rot in me."
Naia tried to protest. "You must rest, Lady Seraphina—"
"I do. When I give."
They didn't argue again.
Soon, people began camping outside the temple walls.
For days. Weeks.
Just for a chance.
They left flowers. Prayers. Pieces of cloth embroidered with names.
Mothers pressed their foreheads to the ground.
Men wept openly.
Children sang songs they made up, verses that rhymed with her name.
Seraphina, shining bright,
Turn the dark into the light.
If I dream and if I pray,
Will you take my pain away?
She heard them through the stone sometimes.
She smiled when she did.
Not because she felt holy.
But because they believed.
On her eleventh birthday, she healed twenty-seven people.
She asked for no gift.
Only that they let her do one more.
And then one more after that.
The temple was pleased.
The priests watched from afar, keeping records, studying her methods. They never saw her face.
Only the three priestesses did.
And even they never lingered long in her gaze.
Because her eyes now swirled with light even when she slept.
But when the doors closed…
When the prayers ended…
When the glowing dimmed and her body sagged beneath the silk—
She still turned to the corner of her room where no candle was lit.
Where the shadows lived.
Where she used to imagine Kael leaning against the wall with arms crossed, watching her with that tired grin.
She'd whisper, after every session, in a voice only she and the dark could hear:
"Did I do good today?"
And in her mind, he always answered:
"You did good, little star."