Rain fell like ash over Nocturne City.
It streaked down the glass towers, turning neon lights into bleeding halos. The air tasted of smoke, ozone, and secrets — the kind only this city could keep. Somewhere in the distance, sirens howled like wounded ghosts, swallowed by the rumble of midnight trains cutting through the underbelly of the skyline.
Kael Varyn stepped from the train platform, his hood low, his gloved hands buried in his coat pockets. He hadn't been home in seven years. Yet the city still whispered his name.
Varyn.
It echoed off alley walls, down wet streets, into the static hum of flickering billboards. The heir had returned — and the shadows remembered.
He walked through the old quarter, where the streets were narrow and cobblestones still bore scorch marks from the last magical war. His boots left prints in the puddles — faint ripples of red shimmered where they touched. The mark of his bloodline. He cursed under his breath and pulled his gloves tighter.
His father's funeral would be held at dawn, but Kael wasn't coming for grief. He was coming for answers.
The message that summoned him had been simple:
> Your father is dead. You're next.
No signature. No mercy. Just inevitability.
---
The Varyn estate sat on the edge of the city's industrial heart — a cathedral of steel and silence. Once it had been the seat of Nocturne's most feared family. Now, its gates sagged and its wards flickered weakly in the rain.
Kael paused before the iron doors. The moment he placed his palm on the metal, the old magic stirred. The wards flared crimson, scanning the signature of his soul.
Welcome home, heir of shadows.
The voice wasn't real — more like an echo in his blood.
The doors groaned open. Inside, dust and decay ruled. The portraits on the walls had blackened eyes, and the chandeliers hung like broken bones. His father's empire had rotted from the inside — just like the man himself.
In the great hall, the coffin lay open. No mourners, no priest. Only a body — pale, untouched, and somehow defiant even in death.
Kael stared down at it.
"I told you I'd never come back," he murmured. "And yet, you still find a way to drag me here."
From behind the pillars, a voice replied — low, female, and steady.
"You're late."
Kael turned sharply. A woman stepped from the shadows — tall, wrapped in a long black coat, her hair silver under the candlelight. Marra, his father's lieutenant. She looked older, but her eyes still cut like knives.
"Didn't think I was invited," Kael said.
"You weren't."
"Then why the message?"
Marra's gaze didn't flinch. "Because they think you killed him."
He froze. "What?"
"Someone made it look that way. A ritual gone wrong, a signature only you would leave behind. The council believes you're tying up loose ends before claiming the throne."
Kael laughed without humor. "Throne? He never ruled — he controlled."
"And now you're expected to do the same," Marra said quietly. "The families are restless. The demons in the slums are stirring. If you don't step up, someone else will — and they'll burn this city down to prove a point."
He looked back at his father's body. For a moment, something twisted in his chest — regret, maybe, or anger pretending to be grief.
"I'm not him," he said.
Marra's expression softened, but only slightly. "No. But you carry his curse."
She tossed him a metal pendant — a blood-red sigil carved into it. The family seal.
"Keep it," she said. "You'll need it when the council calls."
Kael caught it but didn't put it on. The pendant pulsed faintly in his palm, alive, hungry. His power stirred — a whisper under his skin. The shadows shifted at the edge of the room, responding to him.
He clenched his fist until the light dimmed.
---
Outside, the rain had turned to mist. The city never slept; it only changed masks. Kael made his way toward the district once called The Hollow, where the old magic users hid in the ruins of broken churches.
He didn't notice the girl until she nearly collided with him.
She stumbled out of an alley — drenched, shaking, clutching something to her chest. Her eyes were wild, glowing faintly amber in the dark. Kael's instincts flared; that glow wasn't human.
"Easy," he said, catching her by the arms. Her skin was cold, pulsing with strange energy.
"Don't—" she gasped, "they'll find me—"
Before he could ask who, the ground behind them cracked. A shadow peeled itself from the wall — tall, clawed, and whispering in a language that burned Kael's ears. A wraith.
The creature lunged.
Kael reacted without thinking. The pendant in his pocket ignited, and power surged through his veins. He threw out his hand — and the world rippled.
Dark light exploded, swallowing the wraith in a burst of shadowfire. When the smoke cleared, the alley was scorched, the rain evaporating off blackened stone.
The girl stared at him, eyes wide. "You're one of them."
Kael stepped back, breath ragged. "No. I'm trying not to be."
She clutched the item in her hands tighter — a small glass orb, cracked and glowing faintly blue. "Then you shouldn't have come back," she whispered. "They'll kill you for what you just did."
"Who?" he asked.
She hesitated. "The same people who killed your father."
---
They found shelter in an abandoned bookstore nearby, its windows boarded, air thick with dust. Kael lit a dim lantern and finally got a better look at her. She was younger than he thought — maybe twenty — with black hair streaked with pale silver, eyes full of storms.
"What's your name?" he asked.
She hesitated, then said, "Lira."
"Lira what?"
"Just Lira."
He didn't push. Her hands trembled as she set the orb on the counter. Inside it, light pulsed — not steadily, but like a heartbeat.
"That's magic," Kael said quietly. "Old magic."
She nodded. "I found it in the ruins under the Glass Quarter. It called to me."
"Called to you?"
"I don't know how else to explain it. It's… alive."
Kael watched it flicker. There was something in the energy that felt familiar.
"What do you want from me, Lira?"
"Protection," she said simply. "And answers. You're the only one left who can give them."
He stared at her. "You don't even know me."
"I know what you are," she said. "You're the Shadow Heir. And if the orb chose me, that means our fates are already tangled."
Outside, thunder cracked — deep and hollow. The pendant burned in Kael's hand again, and for a heartbeat, he thought he heard his father's voice in the storm.
> The city is waking, my son. And so are you.
He turned to the window. Nocturne City stretched before him — endless lights, endless hunger. Somewhere out there, power was shifting. Someone had orchestrated his father's death, framed him, and unleashed forces too old to control.
Lira's reflection stood beside his in the glass — her gaze steady, uncertain, but alive.
Kael exhaled slowly. "If we do this," he said, "you follow my lead. You don't run, no matter what happens."
Lira nodded. "And if you lose control?"
He almost smiled. "Then you run."
Outside, lightning split the sky. In its glare, the sigil on his pendant blazed crimson.
The heir had returned — and with him, the storm.