—Nyra's First Chains—
The room smelled of sulfur and silence.
Heavy stone walls bled with faint runes, glowing red with each pulse of her heartbeat. Nyra Moirel, just nineteen, sat cross-legged on a circle etched in ash and salt. Her wrists bore silver cuffs, inscribed with holy spells—designed to burn anyone born of Lucille's cursed blood.
She had stopped screaming weeks ago.
Now, she simply stared.
The Crimson Order did not torture her with whips or fire. They tortured her with rituals. Chants. Binding circles. Dreams they forced into her skull. Each night, she saw a shadowed throne—and a man with no face whispering, "You were made to wake him."
She didn't know who "him" was.
Not until last night.
"Lucifer," one of the cloaked acolytes had murmured with reverence. "Our dark god. You are of Lucille's line. You are the key."
She spat in his face.
Now she sat, bruised and barely clothed, as the chamber doors opened again.
A man entered—tall, robed in deep blood red, his eyes glowing a soft garnet hue. He was not like the others. He smelled… ancient.
"You were born with the fire of Dracon," he said. "I can feel it. Your ancestors set the world ablaze once."
Nyra met his gaze. "Then why do you chain fire?"
"Because we are shaping it."
He crouched beside her and set a small black flame in the center of the circle. It pulsed like a heart.
"This is your gift. In time, you will feed it. One day, you will be the Vessel of Revival. You will bring back the one who will unmake the heavens."
Her lips trembled. Not from fear.
From rage.
"I will burn this Order to ash," she whispered.
The man smiled.
"We are counting on it."
---
Meanwhile…
Miles away, beneath the silver woods of the north, Maika stood alone at the cliff's edge—eyes burning with black flame. In her grip, the Moriel Clan's last rune pointed toward the mountains of Dorsh.
"Nyra…" she whispered. "I'm coming."
The moon hovered low, shrouded in veils of cloud. In the dead silence of the Dorsh Mountains, Maika Landon moved like a shadow cloaked in scentless spells and night-black fabric. Her boots made no sound against snow-laced stone.
Before her rose the Crimson Fortress, carved into the mountain like a scar. Its towers glowed faint red, pulsing with dark energy.
This is where they're keeping her, Maika thought.
The girl with Dracon's blood. The one who might wake Lucifer.
She adjusted the obsidian ring on her finger—the one forged by Lady Ayaka of the Haru Clan. It cloaked her aura, masking her black flame.
I am no one, she reminded herself. No threat. No mage. Just shadow.
With a flick of her fingers, she vanished into the mist, moving along the outer wall like smoke.
She had one goal: Find the girl. Free her. Destroy the source of the flame.
---
Deep Inside the Fortress…
Nyra pressed her back against the cold stone wall. Her cuffs had not burned today. Something was changing. Something… inside her.
Last night's dream had been different.
In it, a woman with dark hair—eyes glowing with the same black fire Nyra had glimpsed in her reflection—reached for her. She said nothing, only extended a hand, flames licking her palm.
Nyra had taken it.
And when she woke, one of the chains had cracked.
She stared now at the mark glowing on her wrist. A tiny rune in the shape of a crescent moon… and wings.
"What are you?" she whispered to herself.
As if answering, the flame in the center of the circle suddenly flickered.
Then died.
---
Elsewhere in the Fortress…
Maika stood in a high corridor, behind a tapestry woven with old Moirel clan symbols. Her senses pulsed. She could feel it—the heartbeat of another black flame.
Her blood stirred.
A ward sigil lit faintly ahead. She crouched and whispered in the forgotten language of the elders. The sigil blinked once, then fizzled out.
Down another corridor. A left turn. Down a spiral stairwell, deeper and deeper until the walls began to sweat with heat.
And then—
A girl.
A cage.
A flicker of wild, untamed power.
Found you.
---
Nyra's Chamber
The chains rattled. Nyra's head snapped toward the door.
She expected another acolyte. Maybe a priest.
But it wasn't.
A woman stood in the threshold—tall, cloaked in darkness, hair falling like a waterfall of ink, eyes burning softly like her own.
"You…" Nyra gasped. "You were in my dream."
Maika's eyes narrowed. "And you… were calling to me."
She raised a hand.
The chains burst apart in black flame.