Flames did not roar. They whispered.
In the once mighty city of Arkael, a sacred empire built by immortals and ruled by divine bloodlines, the sky wept crimson. Ash blanketed marble streets, choking the silence. The people had already fled or perished not by blade, but betrayal.
At the heart of it all, he knelt a god with broken wings.
His white robes, once symbols of justice and divine order, now hung in tattered, blood soaked shreds. His body trembled, not from pain, but disbelief. Behind him, embedded in his back, was a blade etched with the sigil of his sect the very one he created.
"Why" he rasped, his voice hoarse, hollow.
"You were supposed to protect us."
The words came from a woman who had not spoken in centuries. She, the Oracle of Starfall, who had watched over the timelines in silence. Her eyes, silver like frozen moonlight, were wet with ancient grief.
The god tried to move. Couldn't.
A shadow stepped out from behind a broken pillar.
It was his disciple his first. His closest. His sworn brother in a past life, born of the same heavens, raised by the same master.
The betrayal was not in the sword. It was in his eyes eyes that once sparkled with admiration, now hollowed by loss.
"You abandoned everything," the disciple said softly, as if mourning. "For her."
The god's mouth parted. "I"
But before the words came, the fire consumed him. His body turned to dust, his soul, shattered.
And the heavens above split open with a scream no mortal could hear but every immortal felt in their bones.
A god had died.
And with him, the balance of realms.
[TWO ERAS LATER — MORTAL REALM, EDGE OF THE AZURE WASTES]
Rain pelted the cracked rooftops of a remote mountain village nestled beneath a dead sky. No stars. No moon. Just storm and silence.
A girl awoke with a gasp, clutching her chest.
Her name was Nyelle.
She was seventeen. Mortal. Or so she thought.
Sweat slicked her ash gray hair to her forehead. Her eyes, an unusual shade of rose-gold, shimmered with fear and something ancient.
The dream hadn't been a dream. It was too real.
The feel of the flames. The blade in her back. The silver-eyed woman. The betrayal.
But she had never been there.
Had she?
She looked around her one-room cottage dimly lit, poor, and quiet. Everything was where she left it except a cracked blade now rested beside her cot. Long, old, and etched with symbols she couldn't read but recognized.
It pulsed with energy that made her skin crawl and her blood sing.
As she reached out, a voice echoed in her skull.
Cold. Familiar. Furious.
"You made a vow across lifetimes. Don't you dare run from it again."
She jolted, snatching her hand back.
The blade didn't move, but the voice whispered again, quieter this time:
"Remember your name before it's too late."
[MEANWHILE — IMMORTAL REALM]
In a celestial chamber sealed from time, beneath a blood-red sky and clouds shaped like claws, a lone figure stood in front of a rusted gate sealed with seven blood oaths.
His face was hidden beneath a hood, but the eyes glowed a furious crimson. His aura cracked the ground beneath him with every breath.
He pressed his palm to the gate. It burned.
A mark appeared on his skin a phoenix devouring its own heart.
"She's returned," he whispered. "I felt her soul stir."
A pause.
"This time, I won't let fate take her from me."
Behind him, shadows gathered.
And the countdown to war began again.