The Sky That Bled FireThe night over Veyne refused to stay dark.Kael stood on the fortress wall, his armor half-unbuckled, his hands trembling against the cold stone. Beyond the horizon, streaks of red fire burned through the sky — not lightning, not aurora, but something alive. The flames twisted into serpentine shapes, coiling and uncoiling as though the heavens themselves were remembering pain.The soldiers called it an omen.The priests called it wrath.Kael called it guilt.Because Adrian was gone — and the world was changing.The Omen Above“Commander!” a scout’s voice broke through the wind. “The fires — they’ve reached the eastern ridge! The rivers are boiling, sir. Livestock are—”“Evacuate the lower farms,” Kael interrupted, his tone clipped though his pulse roared in his ears.“Get the healers from the inner quarter to assist the wounded. And keep the civilians away from the southern gate.”The young scout hesitated. “Sir… people are saying this is the end. That the Fi

The Flight from VeyneThe bells of Veyne rang not for prayer, but for war.Kael pulled his hood low as he and Ira slipped through the western gate, the infant Aren swaddled in a bundle against his chest.Smoke drifted above the rooftops like a black tide, carrying the cries of a city tearing itself apart.Behind them, the flame-marked walls pulsed faintly — remnants of the celestial fire that had birthed the child.The same runes that once glowed as protection now flared red with fury, as though the city itself was bleeding.Every toll of the bell was another death.Every scream, another soul lost to the serpent’s promise.The Uprising BeginsBy the time dawn broke, the streets of Veyne had become a battlefield.The Sons of the Serpent, fanatics who believed the firestorm was divine judgment, marched through the lower quarters, burning every home of those who refused to kneel.Across the river, the Iron Guard, loyal to Kael’s absent command, struggled to contain them — leaderless, ou

The Voice Beneath the FlameWhen the firestorm died, silence took its place — a silence so heavy it hummed in his bones.Adrian remained on his knees, chest rising and falling, the echo of his roar still trembling in the air. The molten sea had gone still, as though stunned by its own reflection.The shaft of sunlight that had pierced the void flickered once — then dimmed — but did not vanish.It remained, faint and trembling, like a promise whispered through chaos.Adrian forced himself to stand. The ground beneath him had cooled into obsidian glass, veins of gold glowing faintly beneath the surface.Each step sent ripples through the light, as if the world itself were aware of him.Then he heard it — not a sound, but a resonance deep within his chest.A slow, endless heartbeat.Not his own.“Do you hear it?” a voice murmured, smooth as smoke. “The pulse that keeps the world from falling apart?”Adrian turned sharply. The figure of the Serpent was gone.In its place stood a woman —

The Heart RemembersThe ruins of Oramar slept beneath a shroud of mist.Once a citadel of kings, now nothing but stone skeletons and whispering ivy.Selene had learned to love the silence here — the kind of stillness that didn’t judge her.The kind that let her forget that she was once queen of shadow and flame, that her name had been whispered like both prayer and curse.But tonight, even the silence trembled.She felt it in her bones first — a low, distant thrum that echoed through the ground, through her scar, through the very air she breathed. It was faint, but unmistakable.Adrian.Selene’s breath caught. Her hand went to her chest where the old wound still glowed faintly beneath the skin, a scar that had once been her crown and her curse.For months it had lain dormant. Now it pulsed with life — gold light threading through the black veins of shadow.She rose from the stone where she’d been sitting and turned toward the sleeping child wrapped in linen and ash beside the hearth.

The Keeper of the NorthThe snow began to fall long before Selene reached the gates.Not the gentle flakes of peace she remembered from her childhood in Veyne, but cold razors that cut through the mist, stinging her skin and biting through her cloak.Her horse had long since fallen behind, exhausted by the climb through the frost-veiled passes. Now she walked, her boots cracking ice over the dead stones of the forgotten northern road — the old road to the Citadel of Orren.Few remembered Orren now. Fewer still dared to go there.The place had been abandoned decades ago after the Great War — a fortress built by men who once swore loyalty to Adrian’s bloodline.Her steps echoed hollow between the cliff walls, the sky dimming to the bruised purple of near-night. Every sound made her twitch — the scrape of her blade at her side, the hiss of her breath through her teeth. She knew she was being followed.The serpent’s scouts never stopped hunting.Still, she pressed on. The scar beneath