The sky above Valdareth was sick with ash.
Smoke curled across the city like dead men's fingers, choking the light from the moons. Somewhere above the black towers of the Whiteflame Sanctum, the screams had already begun. Screams of children. Of chosen. Of lambs led to slaughter.
Riven Thorne stood beneath the shadow of the Sanctum's spires, chained to two iron pillars by wrists already blistered from resisting. His face was half-caked in dirt, half in dried blood. Fifteen winters old. Bones too visible. Eyes too alive.
A priest in white and gold stood before him, reciting verses from the Book of Flame.
"From ash we rise. By blood we bind. With sacrifice, we sanctify."
Riven coughed blood. "You sanctify nothing. You butcher children."
The priest didn't look up. "Your impurity will serve a higher calling, street-rat. Be grateful your death feeds the worthy."
The gathered nobles in the viewing balconies above chuckled softly. Men and women in velvet cloaks and gold-threaded gowns. Watching. Always watching.
Riven didn't scream when they dragged him into the Sanctum's bowels.
There were twenty-three others in the cage with him. Boys and girls from the gutters. A few wept. Some muttered prayers. One tried to bite his own tongue off and failed.
Riven sat silently.
He'd known this would happen. The moment he saw the mark carved into his doorframe two nights ago—a burning sun pierced by seven swords—he knew he'd been selected.
The Whiteflame Trial.
He'd seen it before. Children dragged off in chains, their families screaming behind them. No one returned. Ever.
But Riven was different.
He remembered things he shouldn't. A voice that spoke in dreams. Visions of a darkened sky torn open by violet flame.
The others in the cage feared the end.
Riven had been waiting for it.
They brought them into the Ritual Chamber before dawn.
A cavern carved from obsidian, lit by hundreds of soulflame braziers. At its center stood the Blood Altar—a great slab of crimson-stained stone upon which all sacrifices were laid.
They came for Riven first.
He didn't resist.
They strapped him down. Drove silver nails through wrists and ankles. Painted forbidden runes across his chest in his own blood.
Then the High Inquisitor arrived.
A towering man with six pupils in each eye, robes that whispered blasphemies.
He raised a dagger made from a dragon's fang. Spoke the incantation.
"May your soul feed the Sanctum."
The blade pierced Riven's heart.
He died.
But not completely.
In the moment his soul unraveled, he fell. Not into death, but into something else. Something far below.
A place made of screams and starlight. Shadows wrapped around him, cold and hungering. And then he heard it.
The Voice.
Not human. Not divine. Something ancient.
"You are broken. But broken things become sharp."
"Do you wish to transcend?"
He couldn't speak. But the answer thundered in his soul.
Yes.
"Then give me your fear. Give me your name. Give me your mind."
"In return, I will give you power."
He screamed. Not from pain. From becoming.
When Riven opened his eyes again, he was no longer strapped to the altar.
He was standing.
Around him, corpses.
The High Inquisitor's skull lay cracked at his feet. Soulflame braziers had turned black, flickering like dying stars. The other children had vanished—or become part of him. Their souls whispering in his blood.
He felt it. A pulse inside his chest. A Soulbrand.
Madness Echo (Rank I):
Ability: Reflects mental attacks. Amplifies pain into magical feedback. Can fracture weak minds upon eye contact.
Riven touched his chest. The wound was gone. Replaced by a pulsing brand of violet and silver.
He turned toward the exit.
Guards flooded the chamber.
"He lives! Kill him!"
Riven moved faster than thought.
He spoke no spell. Made no sign. But the room trembled. Shadows twisted. Screams erupted as their minds cracked open like overripe fruit.
He left the chamber drenched in stolen power.
At the Sanctum's upper halls, another boy waited.
Lucien Velgrave, heir to the Flameblood Dynasty. A prodigy. A monster in golden skin.
He had come to absorb the soul-ashes of the condemned.
Instead, he found Riven.
"You're not supposed to be alive," Lucien sneered.
"Neither are you," Riven replied. "Let me fix that."
Lucien summoned fire. Divine, golden, blazing.
Riven walked through it. Unburnt.
He reached forward. Touched Lucien's chest.
Bloodline Devourer: 3%
Lucien screamed as his soul burned. His bloodline—once sacred—ripped from him. Eaten. Made Riven's.
The fire died.
Riven stood over his first noble kill.
Outside, the city bells began to ring.
"A heretic walks the Sanctum!"
"Seal the gates!"
Riven smiled for the first time in years.
He walked toward the light.
"You thought I was nothing." "You made me a sacrifice." "Now you'll watch me become your end."
[End of Chapter 1]
Chapter 2 Preview:
Title: Ashes Have Teeth
Riven flees into the city underworld
Meets the Hollow Mask, a cult of broken mages
First test of his new power: facing a Bloodhound Knight
Hints of a deeper war stirring beneath Valdareth