The cold stone beneath Seraphina's feet thrummed with the echo of approaching chaos. The fortress was alive with sound—boots hammering the ground above, commands being shouted through corridors, blades drawn from their scabbards with sharp rings. The Order was here.
But Seraphina was no longer the girl who trembled in the shadows of her fate.
She emerged from the catacomb's stairwell into the heart of the old war chamber, now abandoned and crumbling from decades of silence. Moonlight streamed through the broken stained glass windows, casting fractured colors across the ancient battle maps strewn on the long table. Caius followed at her heels, his own blade drawn, eyes darting to every sound. But Seraphina walked like a queen in her own funeral procession—unflinching, unbowed.
As she crossed the chamber, her hand clenched tightly around the crown. The power within it thrummed against her skin, as though it too sensed the bloodshed to come. She didn't place it on her head. Not yet. Not until the moment demanded it.
The first clash came suddenly—two cloaked warriors of the Order crashed through the side doors, blades glowing with runes that shimmered blue. Caius reacted instantly, moving to block them, but Seraphina raised a single hand. The air cracked. A pulse of raw energy burst from her palm, slamming into the intruders and sending them crashing against the stone walls with bone-shattering force.
They didn't rise again.
Caius froze, stunned. "That wasn't shadow magic," he said breathlessly. "That was... something else."
Seraphina turned to him, her voice cold. "Something older. Something buried." Her eyes glowed faintly, a remnant of the storm still whispering beneath her skin. "Whatever they tried to seal away inside me… it's awake now."
The chamber doors burst open again—but this time, it wasn't just foot soldiers. It was High Commander Thalos, draped in obsidian armor etched with blood rites, the highest enforcer of the Order. His expression twisted in satisfaction at the sight of her.
"At last," he growled. "The cursed heir walks freely."
Seraphina stood her ground, the crown still in hand. "And you walk into your end."
"You were meant to be locked away. Hidden. Erased. The prophecy was never meant to be fulfilled."
Her smile was faint, and deadly. "Then you should have killed me when you had the chance."
The battle ignited in a storm of steel and sorcery. Caius engaged Thalos's guards while Seraphina faced the commander alone. Their clash shook the ancient walls—his blade against her fire, his runes against her will. But with every strike, Seraphina grew stronger, as though her power fed on resistance.
And then, in the final moment, as Thalos raised his sword for a deathblow, Seraphina placed the crown upon her head.
The air exploded with light and darkness intertwined.
The room warped. Her scream of fury split through stone and soul alike. Thalos faltered. Just for a second—but it was enough.
Seraphina raised her hand, and from the very shadows beneath her feet, a torrent of magic surged forth. The commander was ripped from his footing and thrown back across the chamber, crashing through one of the stained-glass windows in a shower of glass and blood.
Silence followed.
Caius lowered his sword, panting. "He was one of the strongest. And you—" He stepped forward, hesitant. "Seraphina… you're changing."
She turned toward him. Her eyes were no longer just glowing—they were burning, golden and black swirling like a dying star. "I was never meant to fit in this world, Caius. I was meant to break it."
And then, from far above, a low hum resonated through the air. Not from the Order. Not from the fortress.
A new force was arriving.
Caius tensed. "That's… not them. That's something else."
Seraphina looked up toward the dark sky through the shattered glass, the crown pulsing on her head.
"The real war," she whispered, "hasn't even begun."
The low hum grew louder, no longer a mere vibration in the air—it was a tremor deep in the bones, the kind of sound that signaled something ancient and unnatural stirring. Seraphina turned her gaze to the skies beyond the broken stained glass, where clouds twisted unnaturally, forming a spiral of shadows lit from within by flickers of violet lightning.
Caius stepped closer, his voice barely a whisper. "I've heard of this… the Devourer's Wake. It's a sign from the Old World. A rift is opening."
The name tasted bitter on Seraphina's tongue. The Devourer. A force mentioned only in forbidden texts, a shadow that predated even the first kings of the realm. A harbinger of collapse… or rebirth.
The runes on the walls of the chamber—forgotten wards and protective circles—began to glow faintly, pulsing in warning. The fortress itself recognized the threat long before they could fully understand it.
Suddenly, the stones beneath their feet groaned, and a wind blew inward—not from the doors, but from the very center of the chamber. The floor cracked. A thin, glowing line of light emerged in the middle, like the beginning of a tear in the fabric of reality.
Seraphina felt it before she saw it: a pull, deep in her chest, like her soul was being yanked toward that rift. The crown on her head pulsed in sync with the glowing crack, and something inside her responded—an echo from another world, a voice not her own whispering her name.
She staggered back. "It's calling me."
Caius reached for her, alarmed. "Don't listen. That thing… it's not a god. It's a prison. A test. You touch that rift, and we may lose you forever."
"But what if that's where the truth is?" she murmured, eyes wide. "What if that's where I came from?"
A silence fell, heavy and cold.
And then—the floor shattered.
The light exploded upward, engulfing them both. The last thing Seraphina saw before being consumed by the light was Caius reaching for her, his face twisted in fear and something deeper—regret. And just as the world went white, her own name echoed back from the rift, spoken by a voice she had never heard before.
But it knew her. It knew everything. And as the chamber vanished from sight, Seraphina realized she wasn't falling.
She was being summoned.