She crouched low in the dense shadows of the Black Forest, her crimson cloak blending perfectly with the twilight-stained undergrowth around her. The damp, musky air clung to her skin as a flicker of torchlight wavered in the distance. Seraphina von Eltz brushed a stray curl of ink-black hair out of her face, the soft silk of her hood sliding back just enough to reveal her angular jawline and storm-gray eyes. She tightened the leather straps of her brocade bodice—patterned in shades of deep red and silver—and adjusted the ornate dagger on her hip. Tonight, she was no countess. Tonight, she hunted like the wolf they all whispered her to be.
From the first moment she entered the secluded meeting hall of Vogelsang Abbey that morning, she carried the unbearable weight of betrayal in her chest. They told her it was a simple errand… escort a treaty, a mere ceremonial delivery to ensure the empire's alliances held steady despite the recent crumbling of Bismarck’s iron-fisted legacy. But the moment she laid eyes on the gilded, iron-bonded scroll sealed in blood-red wax, she knew. This wasn’t diplomacy. This was war cradled in elegant parchment.
The memory sliced through her as she pressed her back to a towering oak, listening to the marching boots nearby. She hadn't known about the ambush until she overheard the whispers of the very men accompanying her along the cobbled forest road. Their plan was simple: kill the diplomat, steal the document. The rest didn’t matter. A clever twist of lies would shroud their treachery on behalf of a rival faction. It was only because of her acute instincts—so much like her late mother’s—that she overheard the poison creeping through their words. That was when she fled.
Now, the trees seemed to close in, their gnarled limbs stretching like claws over the narrow path ahead. Behind her, the voices rose—a drunken mix of jeers and curses. Seraphina’s lips curled. Men like them always imagined power flowing through their veins, yet their spines bent so easily under the weight of ambition. There were five of them; she had counted earlier. She didn’t have the element of surprise, but she had truth, cunning, and enough hatred to forge thunder out of the night.
Drawing her dagger, its silver hilt glinting in the faint moonlight, Seraphina pivoted silently around the oak and flanked the group. Her pulse thundered in sync with her boots pressing soft into the soil. Just as she closed the gap, the largest of the traitors, a broad-shouldered brute called Marcus, raised his torch high, splintering the black beneath the canopy. The sudden light painted his face in stark angles, his sunken eyes filled with greed. “Split up!” he barked. “The she-wolf can’t have gone far.”
Something sharp cracked within her ribcage—an ancestral fury passed down through generations of her family, a lineage that carved its mark into the empires of old. Without hesitation, Seraphina surged forward, her blade slicing the torch from his hands. The fire tumbled into the underbrush, hissing out with an embered gasp. In the ensuing darkness, she moved faster than they could track, bleeding into shadow and striking like the night itself.
Marcus lunged blindly, his heavy axe cleaving through empty air. But Seraphina was already behind him, dragging her dagger against the vulnerable seam of his leather armor. As he collapsed with a strangled cry, the others panicked. A clatter of steel met the earth as one of them dropped his sword. Cowards, all of them.
“Stop!” a voice rang out—commanding, desperate. She froze mid-stride, her cloak spinning softly around her. Arnold, her oldest and most trusted guard, stood at the edge of the scene, his spear lowered, but his free hand raised in surrender. His armor was battered, his helmet missing, as if he had wrestled with the loyalty in his heart far harder than swords or shields could strike. “Don’t… don’t do this, my lady. It’s me. Arnold.”
Her heart clenched. Somewhere deep within her, she had known he was part of this. He had been quiet, too quiet, as they traveled the winding eastern roads. Yet hearing his voice now scraped her raw.
“Why?” she asked, a trembling rage in her voice. “Why did you sell me to vultures?”
Arnold faltered, his shoulders sinking. “It was never meant for you. It was the empire—the gods-forsaken empire! They shred us for profit, my lady, leave us nothing but dust. Have you ever wondered why men like me grow old with broken hands and empty stomachs?” He took a cautious step forward, his spear tip lowering further. “We’re tired, Seraphina. They tell us what to take, what to fight for, and then they burn men like Marcus and me alive when it suits them.”
“And your answer is treachery?” she snapped, her glare cutting through the dim spaces between them.
He nodded grimly. “Treachery is the only language this empire understands.”
For a moment, silence stretched wide between them, as though the forest itself were holding its breath. Arnold dropped his spear, his arms hanging limply by his side. “I’ll kneel here as your prisoner,” he whispered, “but answer me this: when does loyalty to ghosts end, and loyalty to the living begin?”
Her grip on the dagger tightened, the silver biting into her palm. Behind her, the distant drumming echoes of the empire’s cavalry approached. Reinforcements had arrived—her father’s men, no doubt sent after her abrupt disappearance. They would want her alive, the treaty intact, and the conspirators executed without question.
But Seraphina realized, in that suspended eternity, that decisions born of fury and terror—those were the tools of tyrants. And the empire’s iron grip had poisoned every one of them. Even her.
“No one dies tonight,” she said firmly, lowering the blade. Her voice rang like tempered steel.
Arnold’s eyes widened, his lips trembling with either gratitude or disbelief. The cavalry closed in. She would face their questions later, many of which she didn’t yet have answers for. Yet in that moment, Seraphina reasoned, the only way to keep her soul intact was to accept the truth: the empire would crumble beneath its own corruption, but it needn’t claim her with it.
Genre: Historical Fiction
The Source...check out the great article that inspired this amazing short story: A Shocking Transformation in Germany That You Won't Believe!
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