Flames of BetrayalThe betrayal didn’t come with a scream.It came with a smile.Lian should have known better. Trust, in this world, was always sharpened into a weapon before it was handed back to you.They were gathered in the lower refuge chamber—the last safe place the rebels still believed untouched. Stone walls etched with warding runes flickered faintly as torches burned low. Mira stood near the map table, pale but resolute, her fingers tracing escape routes with mechanical focus. Serah lingered by the archway, arms folded, her face carefully unreadable.And Kairo stood beside Lian.Too close.“You’re bleeding again,” Kairo said quietly, glancing at the faint red glow seeping through the cracks in Lian’s mark. “You should rest.”Lian exhaled slowly. “I don’t have that luxury.”Kairo nodded. “None of us do.”The words sounded right. Too right.Lian felt it then—a pressure behind his eyes, a tightening in his chest. The Blood Key pulsed once. Twice. Not in warning.In recognition

THE PRICE OF BLOODThe room smelled of iron and burned herbs.Lian stood motionless beside the stone slab as Serah worked, her hands steady despite the tremor in her breath. Mira lay unconscious, her skin ashen, the dark blade still lodged deep in her shoulder. Black veins crept outward from the wound like roots searching for a heart.Too slow.Every second they waited, the Blood Key inside him throbbed harder—as if it recognized the poison. As if it was approved.“Move,” Lian said quietly.Serah didn’t look up. “If I pull it out too fast, the poison will spread.”His jaw tightened. The shadows around him stirred, restless and sharp-edged.“She’s dying.”“I know,” Serah snapped. Then, softer, almost breaking, “I know.”Lian turned away before the darkness inside him answered for him. He could feel it—coiling, hungry, eager to fix this the only way it knew how. Let me take it, the Devourer whispered. Her pain is nothing. Her life is expendable. Power is not.Lian clenched his fists unt

THE RISING STORMThe rebellion was no longer a single voice.It was a storm of whispers—sharp, fearful, angry—colliding in the dark chambers beneath the ruined quarter. What had once felt like a fragile family now trembled on the edge of fracture.Lian stood at the center of it, silent, watching.Torches burned low along the stone walls, their flames unsteady, casting warped shadows that crawled across familiar faces. These were the people he had saved. The people who had followed him when he was nothing more than a rumor wrapped in black cloth.Now they looked at him like he was something else.Something dangerous.“We’re losing control,” one of the fighters snapped, slamming a fist against the table. “Every time the Blood Key flares, the palace tightens its grip. Patrols double. Arrests triple.”“And whose fault is that?” another voice shot back. “Without Lian, we’d still be slaves waiting to die.”A woman near the back shook her head violently. “You didn’t see what I saw last night

The Broken SealThe first crack was not seen.It felt.A deep, shuddering vibration rippled through the ground beneath Lian’s boots as he stood at the edge of the ruined watchtower, staring toward the distant mountains. Birds burst from the treeline in a screaming black cloud. Somewhere far off, the stone collapsed. The air itself seemed to recoil, thickening, pressing against his lungs like a held breath that had gone on too long.Lian clenched his jaw.The Seal was failing.He had felt it for days now—subtle at first. A distortion in the flow of power. The Devourer inside him had grown restless, pacing the edges of his consciousness like a caged beast sensing weakness in its bars. But this—this violent tremor—was no whisper.It was a warning.Below him, the valley writhed with movement. Villagers fled along the road, their carts abandoned, faces pale with terror. Smoke rose from a distant farmstead, curling into the bruised sky. Even the light looked wrong—too dim, as though the sun

The Queen’s GambitThe palace had not seen this many candles lit since the coronation.They lined the marble corridors in disciplined rows, their flames trembling as if they, too, sensed the tension coiled beneath the celebration. Silk banners fell from the vaulted ceilings—royal blue, blood-red, gold threaded with sigils older than the kingdom itself. Music drifted through the air, soft and ceremonial, yet every note rang too sharp in Serah’s ears.Tonight was meant to reassure the court.Tonight was meant to project strength.And tonight, Serah intended to gamble everything.She stood at the center of the Hall of Crowns, spine straight, chin lifted, her expression carved into calm perfection. Nobles bowed as they passed her, whispering behind jeweled fans and gilded masks. They saw a composed queen regent presiding over a sacred rite.None of them saw the storm inside her.If I misstep tonight, she thought, the kingdom burns.Her gaze slid to the man standing near the eastern pilla