Velmoria, the Kingdom of Eternal Night Era of the Sixth Blood Moon
There was a mirror in Seraphine Vale's chamber that refused to forget.
It stood tall and thin beside the obsidian-framed window, its silvered glass veined with a single crack that cut from top to bottom like a scar. Each time she passed it, the reflection inside hesitated only for a moment but enough to unsettle her. Her figure would appear clothed not in the modest silks she wore, but in a wedding gown scorched and smoldering, its hem trailing embers across the marble floor.
No one else saw it.
Not the maids who lit the red candles at dusk. Not the old priestess who whispered blessings into her tea. Only Seraphine. And only when she was alone.
She did not tell anyone. Not because she feared madness though that fear had begun to flicker like a low-burning candle in her chest but because, deep down, she recognized the girl in the burning gown. That face, tear-streaked and flame kissed, haunted her dreams more vividly than her waking hours allowed.
The dreams always began the same.
A chapel, high in a crimson mountain, veiled in ash.
A hundred roses blackened by flame.
A groom whose face was shadowed in velvet smoke.
And herself, standing at the altar, mouth agape as fire rose beneath her feet.
The screams never came from her throat—but from the walls, from the bones buried beneath the cathedral, from the ring on her finger melting into her skin.
She always woke up with the scent of smoke clinging to her hair.
---
It had been one month since Seraphine arrived at the eastern citadel of Velmoria, summoned by the Queen Regent to be presented to the Court of Eternal Blood. A formality, they said. A selection, others whispered. The first-born of the Vale family, a minor noble house known for their pale hair and unblemished line of human blood, had been called as one of the candidates to serve the Crown in the ancient rite known only as The Choosing.
She knew little of what it entailed only that it involved gowns, banquets, and endless nights beneath the red moon. And that she had no choice.
The queen had sent her a carriage lined with velvet.
The court had dressed her in silks the color of dead roses.
And the castle had welcomed her not like a guest, but like a sacrifice.
---
Her chamber was on the highest floor of the eastern spire a room untouched by time. The walls bled stories in their tapestries. The chandelier above her bed never flickered, no matter the storm outside. The floor creaked in patterns that felt like footsteps always pacing, never resting.
And the mirror watched her.
She had tried to cover it once, throwing a cloak over the frame.
It had caught fire.
No one believed her.
Not even Lucien.
"Dreams leave traces in Velmoria," he told her, voice soft as velvet and sharp as glass. "The castle feeds on memories, especially the ones you bury."
Lucien had been assigned to her as her personal escort a man too handsome to be trusted, with eyes like dying stars and a voice that carried regret in every syllable. He walked like someone carrying the weight of another man's sin, and when he looked at her, it was as if he mourned something he couldn't name.
"You act as though you know me," she had accused him once.
Lucien had only bowed. "No, my lady. But I remember your name being sung in flame."
She didn't ask what he meant. She didn't want to know. Not yet.
---
Tonight, the moon was bleeding again.
The Court called it The Veil's Descent the night when the veil between this world and the next thinned like silk torn by wind. The red moon pulsed above the towers, casting everything in hues of crimson and silver. Velvet shadows dripped from every surface, and the torches in the corridor burned with a glow too steady, too still, as though they too were watching.
Seraphine stood before the mirror once more.
She wore the dress they'd chosen for her: a deep burgundy gown with threads of black and a corset that bit into her ribs like fangs. Her hair was twisted into a crown of braids, laced with thorns of obsidian. No jewelry. No adornment. Only the silence of expectation.
And the mirror.
In it, she saw not herself.
She saw the bride again.
This time, the image did not flicker.
The bride stood barefoot on a floor of ash, her veil torn, her lips parted in a silent scream. Her eyes met Seraphine's through the mirror's crack. And for the first time, the flame in the vision moved—it reached outward, as if the fire were beckoning her to step inside.
Seraphine gasped and stumbled back.
But her hand was already warm.
She looked down.
Her palm bore a faint burn small, shaped like a ring.
---
A knock at the door.
"Lady Vale," said Lucien from behind the carved oak. "It's time."
She hesitated.
The burn pulsed once. Then faded.
Seraphine slipped her hand into a velvet glove, swallowed the panic behind her ribs, and opened the door.
Lucien stood in ceremonial black, his silver chain bearing the sigil of the Mourning Guard a half-crescent moon bleeding from its center. His gaze dropped briefly to her gloved hand but said nothing.
"The Queen awaits," he said.
---
The walk to the throne hall felt longer than it should have.
Torches lit the passageway in unnatural red. Statues lined the corridor brides in various states of agony: one wept into a veil of feathers, another clawed at her own throat, a third held a burning heart in cupped hands. At the end of the hall stood twin doors carved with roses and coffins.
Lucien pushed them open with both hands.
And Seraphine stepped into the Court of Crimson Flame.
The chamber was a cathedral of shadows.
High above, glass windows bathed in bloodlight painted the floor in shifting patterns of scarlet and black. Nobles stood in silent rows along the edges, their faces pale as marble, their eyes like dying embers. At the center, upon a throne of thorns and stone, sat Queen Ysara—the Widow of the Fifth Blood Moon, the Shadow Bride, and Keeper of the Choosing Flame.
She looked as though she had not blinked in centuries.
"Step forward, daughter of Vale," she intoned, voice like wind through crypts.
Seraphine obeyed.
The Queen's eyes flickered once toward her gloved hand.
"You saw it," she said.
Seraphine froze. "Saw… what, Your Grace?"
"The Mirror," whispered the Queen. "The Bride. The Fire."
There was a silence so thick it rang.
"She is returning."
The Queen rose slowly, lifting a small, charred crown from the folds of her gown.
"Velmoria remembers. The flame is never truly extinguished."
Lucien stepped forward, eyes wide. "Your Majesty, this is too soon. She has not yet chosen"
"She was chosen," said the Queen. "Long before she was born. The Cycle has begun again."
The nobles whispered behind gloved fingers.
The Queen looked at Seraphine.
"Will you burn again for love, child of ash? Or will you rise from the fire and reclaim your vow?"
Seraphine opened her mouth.
And the mirror cracked once more this time in the air behind the throne.