**Six years ago**
Screams, fire, blood, and death filled the night. Young twelve-year-old Isaldora stood with tear-filled eyes, looking around with sheer horror. The air was thick with the stench of burning wood, blood, and smoke.
Around her, the world she knew was being torn apart. Flames swallowed the once prosperous land of Aetherwyn. Her hands shook with fear. She couldn't do anything to save them. Could only watch as her world was ripped apart. Bodies—lay in heaps, the ground slick beneath them. Somewhere, a child's laughter, now turned to screams.
"FATHER!"
Isaldora's voice tore out of her throat, her small feet pounding against the blood-slick ground. She saw her father—silver-eyed, strong, unshakable—now slumping forward as a werewolf and a vampire sank their teeth into his neck, clawing at his sides.
From her peripheral view, she saw her mother, hurling spells at the werewolf and vampire, disintegrating them to ash, as she ran and slumped to the ground.
Her father slumped, gasping in her mother's arms, as she clung to him, trying to heal him, blood matting her hair, staining her clothes.
"No!" Isaldora stumbled toward them and flopped beside her father, heart pounding so hard it seemed to leap out.
Her father caught her trembling hands, his grip weak. His lips formed a faint smile, even as the light in his eyes flickered.
Then the silver in his gaze dulled to gray. His chest stopped rising.
Isaldora froze.
"No… no… no!" The words came out small, broken, useless. She couldn't believe.
Beside her, her mother's scream shook and tore through the ground and sky. It was so loud, so raw, it felt like the world itself flinched.
All around, the enemy closed in. Wolves barring their fangs, vampires with lips slicked red, even witches and warlocks that once were trusted allies—faces that were quite familiar, who dined with them with smiles now twisted into something cruel.
Isaldora turned her head around—and her heart stopped as she saw her elder brother fall to the ground with a thud.
"Ivan!" she screamed. Her feet moved before she could think. She skidded to her knees beside him. Claw marks and deep gashes painted his body in crimson. His throat was slit, the wound wide and merciless, spilling dark red across the stone.
She pressed her hands against the wound. "No—no—stay with me—please—IVAN!" Her voice cracked. She shook him, desperate, as if sheer will could force life back into him. But his skin was already cold.
Somewhere behind her, her mother's voice called, broken and weak. Isaldora turned to see her limping toward them. Her wounds were deep, her face pale, her robes soaked through.
"Mama…" Isaldora's voice cracked. She stumbled to meet her, half-holding her upright, trying to keep her from falling.
Her mother's bloody hands cupped her face. "Listen to me, my little star. You must go."
"No! I can heal you—I have to—don't make me leave you—"
Her hands glowed faintly as she pushed power into her mother's wounds. It was useless. The bleeding didn't stop.
"You can't," her mother whispered. "There's no time."
"I'm not leaving you! I couldn't save any of you—"
"No." Dorathe's tone was fierce despite her fading strength. "You must survive. You are the last of us. Our blood. Our light. The world's only hope."
Her mother pressed her forehead against hers, their breaths mingling. "You are more than you know," she whispered, tears rolling down her face. "One day, you will know and you'll rise again."
Tears blurred Isaldora's vision. She shook her head, clinging to her mother like a child refusing to wake from a nightmare. "Please… don't leave me…"
"I'll never leave you," her mother whispered, though her voice shook with pain. She pressed a blood-slick hand to Isaldora's chest, right over her racing heart. "Swear to me… you'll live."
"Swear that you—" Her words broke off in a violent cough, blood spilling from her lips.
Isaldora's throat closed, breath hitching. "I swear," she choked out, the word tasting like glass as she clung to her mother.
Her mother's trembling hand lingered on her back for a heartbeat longer. Then her voice dropped to a ragged whisper. "Then, go."
Isaldora hesitated; she didn't want to leave. Tears fell from her eyes, and then with a heart-wrenching sob, she turned and vanished in the air.
A hush settled over the ruined grounds of Aetherwyn—not peaceful, but suffocating. Heavy with smoke, ash, and silence. The kind of silence that only follows screams.
From the smoke, the last attackers emerged, looking around the marred land.
"They're gone now. The scum who thought they could rule us," one spat, scanning the fallen.
"Master will be pleased," another grinned. "Might even reward us."
Their laughter was low and cruel as they turned and disappeared into the trees.
When the last sound faded, Isaldora reappeared in the courtyard.
Her knees hit the bloodstained stone with a thud. The silence pressed in on her. She crawled to her brother's side, gripping his hand. Cold. Still.
Her gaze shifted to her parents. Both gone.
No sound escaped from her mouth—only a breath that felt like it scraped her lungs raw. The sob caught in her chest stayed there. She lowered her head and wept like the world had ended. Because it had.
Pain. Grief. Helplessness.
That was all she felt.
She clutched her chest. It cracked. Kept cracking. She couldn't breathe.
And then—
Something inside her broke.
The tears didn't stop, they kept falling, but her gaze hardened.
"I'll kill them," she whispered as her hands grasped a fistful of dirt. "Every last one."
Her voice rose, fierce. "I will make them bleed. I will make them suffer. I will tear their world apart like they tore mine."
A scream ripped from her throat—raw and primal, shaking the air. The sky answered with a shudder, a storm rising.
Heat surged under her skin, power awakening as lightning struck the sky. Glowing silver runes spiraled over her arms, collarbone, spine—marking her in the ancient magic of her bloodline.
Her hair lifted in windless air. She summoned a dagger, slit her palm, not feeling any pain. She pressed her hand to the scorched ground.
"I, Isaldora Vaneese Aetherwyn, swear on my blood, on my family, on the fallen blood of Aetherwyn… I will give them back everything they gave me. I will not rest until they are dead. I will become their doom."
The ground trembled, sealing her oath.
She spoke words older than the world itself, casting a curse over the land:
"Let this soil burn their flesh. Let their bones splinter, their lungs choke on ash. Let them go mad with the echoes of what they destroyed. May this place bleed them dry."
The sky cracked open, thunder roaring, rain lashing the earth like a punishment. Aetherwyn's light dimmed under her spell, its beauty swallowed by shadow. And it vanished from sight, replaced by barren, cursed wasteland.
In its center stood Isaldora. Small. Soaked in rain and blood. No longer a child. No longer innocent.
Once, she had believed in kindness. Believed people were good. Believed kindness was truth. Now, she knew the truth—goodness was never enough. She looked one last time at the bodies of her family. Then she turned, vanishing into the storm.
Far off, later, wolves' howls shattered the night—long, hollow, and aching with something unnamed but painful. It rolled across the darkness, bleeding through the silence.
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**Three years later**
Isaldora sat firmly behind the desk, eyes fixed on the now trembling young woman before her, who was like around nineteen, maybe twenty — wide-eyed, pale-shaken, and tears rolling down her face, completely mortified.
"Now, Ms. Renna," Isaldora said, tilting her head, "do you accept the job? Because one way or another, you will. You don't have a choice either, you die or live."
The woman hesitated, her eyes rimmed red, but then nodded slowly, her head low, defeated.
"Good girl," Isaldora said, satisfied with her response.
She flicked her fingers, and a neat, crisp parchment and a thin silver spindle appeared in front of the woman.
"Sign."
"Oh, you'll need to prick your finger and drop a few drops of blood where your name appears." She added, noticing the confusion in Renna's eyes, which now looked would drop out of her sockets.
Renna gaped at her, horrified. "Blood?!"
Still shaking, she reached for the spindle. The prick was small, but the few drops of blood that fell onto the glowing line felt like a point of no return. The parchment shimmered—then vanished. The invisible hold on her vanished. She shot to her feet, bolting for the door—only to drop to her knees as a sharp, searing pain tore through her.
"Don't be dramatic," Isaldora sighed, shaking her head, standing from her chair. "You just signed a blood contract," she said in a duh tone. "You're bound to me now." She crouched beside Renna, her voice low, "Try to run, and you'll be dead before you comprehend what's happening."
She could see the sheer terror plain etched on her face, breath coming in shallow, shaky gasps.
"But serve me well," Isaldora continued, returning to her seat as if nothing had happened, "and you'll be paid enough to rebuild your life."
An envelope slid across the desk with a muted thud.
"Your first payment. Welcome to Aether Enterprises, Ms. Vane."