The sky above House Vaelora never truly darkened.
High atop the citadel of Solenne, the light of ancient enchantments bathed the estate in a perpetual twilight glow, as if the sun itself deferred to the nobility that ruled beneath it.
Zerina Vaelora knelt before the flame-shrine with aching knees and closed eyes. The ceremonial robe clung to her slender frame, stitched with threads of ember-gold and phoenix feathers. She'd worn it every week since she was seven.
Her fingers wrapped tightly around the carved hilt of a ritual dagger. She could feel the warmth of the sacred fire flickering a breath away from her bowed head, yet it never burned her — not once in all her years.
A part of her had always wondered why.
"Fire does not burn its kin," the priestess had told her once.
"But it devours the unworthy."
Before her stood the Mirror of Fire, an ancient relic from the days before the fracture — a time long erased from history books, when the world had Kings and Queens not chosen by bloodlines or war, but by something far older.
The mirror did not reflect her image.
It never had.
Instead, she saw flame — dancing, shifting, whispering truths in a language just beyond comprehension.
And today, something changed.
Today, the flames parted for a heartbeat — and she saw eyes in the mirror.
Dark.
Knowing.
Familiar.
She gasped, and for a brief moment, the mirror cracked with light.
Zerina was the daughter of High Lord Theron Vaelora, second most powerful noble in the Dominion Circle, and heir to one of the oldest magical lineages still recognized by the Crown Parliament. In public, her family was revered — ancient, unshakeable, untouchable.
In private, it was a throne built on ice.
Dinner conversations were held in ritual formality. Joy was reserved for victory. Silence was preferred over questions. Her education began before she could walk and never ended.
Her mother died when she was four.
Or that was what they told her.
She didn't remember her face — only warmth, like the memory of summer wind. Since then, her father's house had raised her as one might raise a sword: for display, for power, for war.
She became what they needed.
Perfect posture.
Perfect silence.
Perfect flames.
But lately, something was breaking through the steel of her training.
Dreams. Feelings. A calling that had no name in any of the textbooks or histories she'd been given.
She was beginning to question her place.
She was beginning to wonder if House Vaelora was her origin at all.
It began the morning of her eighteenth birthday.
Zerina woke at dawn, shivering.
Not from cold — from vision.
She had seen a forest burning under a bleeding sky, a woman cloaked in black fire standing alone, her eyes like shadowed moons. Around her, five figures — regal, ancient, ageless — each wreathed in different elements.
She knew them.
She knew herself among them.
"We fell," the voice had whispered. "But we return."
When she woke, her bed was scorched. Her sheets, ash. Her hands glowed with golden flame for three full minutes before dimming.
She said nothing to the attendants. She cleaned it herself. She burned the remains.
And she never spoke of the dream.
Leaving House Vaelora wasn't a matter of packing and farewells.
It was ceremony.
At the grand gate, dozens of nobles stood in silent rows, cloaks flaring, house sigils shining under torchlight. Her father stood ahead, flanked by his advisors, a thin hand resting on a silver staff.
He did not embrace her.
He handed her a single scroll — a forged letter of commendation, addressed to the School of Ascension.
"You go not to learn," he said, voice cold and precise, "but to remind them what blood still rules this world."
"Yes, Father."
"The name Vaelora is your blade. Do not tarnish it."
"No, Father."
Her younger brother, Leo, peeked from behind a pillar. He gave her a small smile — the only softness in the entire courtyard.
Zerina let her eyes linger on him a heartbeat longer.
Then she stepped into the silver-bound carriage, doors sealing behind her with a hiss of ancient magic.
She didn't look back.
The trip to the School of Ascension took three days by land — or four hours by skycoach, a luxury few outside the noble houses could afford.
Zerina sat alone in the cabin, her fingers gliding across the windowpane as the world blurred below her.
She passed mountains, ruins, cities forgotten to time. But her thoughts were elsewhere.
Lately, her hands tingled. Not in pain — in potential.
Runes she'd never studied etched themselves into her mind. Old songs rose on her tongue, unbidden. She could hear whispers in stone, feel emotion in water, see echoes in flame.
This is not Vaelora magic.
This is older.
A mirror in the coach's corner showed her a glimpse of her face — pale gold skin, dark lashes, perfect braids wound into ceremonial loops.
But she didn't feel like the girl in the mirror.
She felt like someone becoming.
The skycoach descended on a sun-drenched platform carved into the side of the mountain.
Zerina stepped out, cloak flowing behind her like smoke.
The School rose before her — an architectural marvel of obsidian and skyglass, spires woven with magic, stairways that shifted in response to thought. Students were gathered in clusters across the terraces, a dozen languages floating on the breeze.
Some students turned to look as she passed.
Her name traveled faster than her footsteps.
"That's Zerina Vaelora."
"The fireborn?"
"Heir of Solenne."
She ignored them all.
She walked like flame — steady, composed, inevitable.
Her room was high in the eastern tower. Two beds. One untouched.
Zerina took the one nearest the window, already tracing the ley-lines in the wall with her fingertip. The architecture whispered — this tower was built atop an old magic wellspring.
She would need to explore later.
Her first class was Runes and Ritual Focus. Students were instructed to inscribe the word truth using raw intent. Most scribbled. A few made faint light.
Zerina burned hers into stone.
The instructor didn't speak for a long moment.
"Remarkable," he finally said.
She bowed slightly and returned to her seat.
Later that night, walking the glass bridge toward the central tower, she overheard something.
"—a girl in Elemental class—"
"No name. No bloodline. But the orb flared when she touched it."
"They say it burned golden."
Zerina paused.
Her heart didn't race — but something inside her shifted, like metal moving toward a magnet.
"What was her name?"
"Avenya."
A simple name. Unfamiliar.
But it resonated.
Avenya.
Zerina whispered it under her breath.
Somewhere deep inside her — a door opened.
And behind it, the echo of four other names yet to be remembered.