"To heal the world, you must first open the wound. Deeper. Wider. Until it screams the truth."
The world does not remember the dead. Not truly. But the wound does.
Tenrai City was a city carved in violence and stitched in silence.
Black iron framed every rooftop. Volcanic ash clung to every gutter. Heat leaked from cracked obsidian vents, rising in shivering waves as the wind howled through the deep. Steam met snow, and the streets hissed like breathing giants. Buildings stood shoulder to shoulder like soldiers—cold, sharp, armored in soot.
And somewhere in that smoke-soaked maze,?Osiris Coy?moved like a shadow taught not to be seen, but to be obeyed.
She was fourteen. Small for her age. But the way she walked—shoulders squared, eyes forward, steps deliberate—made grown men step aside.
Her skin was dusk-grey, like weathered steel. Her hair, magenta fire, curled loose on one side, shaved clean on the other. But it was her?eyes?that unsettled people.
They weren’t just red.
They were?cut-glass red.?Sharp, narrow, unblinking.
Watching. Always watching.
As if she were cataloging weaknesses, measuring every heartbeat like a predator not yet given permission to kill.
At her side hung a scroll tied with warcords—a retrieval order, signed in her father’s hand.
Retrieve the blade. Be home by dusk. Disobedience is death.
The sigil on the parchment matched the one inked into her collarbone: a split crescent wrapped around a fang. The mark of her father—General Varkas Coy, Warlord of Tenrai.
She could still hear his voice in her skull, even though he was nowhere near.
“Wounds make warriors. You will not leave this world soft.”
“Kindness is weakness.”
“Disobedience is death.”
He never yelled. He didn’t need to. His voice was blade-sharp, stripped of mercy. It cleaved through thought, leaving only command behind.
Osiris turned a corner. The air shifted.
The?War Plaza?unfolded before her—massive, tiered, circular. A pit carved into the city’s heart. It had once been an arena. Now, it was something worse.
She felt it in her bones before she saw it.
That pressure. Like standing on the throat of something buried and alive.
Crowds gathered in silence—soldiers, merchants, even children huddled under furs. No laughter. No chatter. Just waiting.
Then came the voice.
“By decree of the Frostmer Dominion, and by will of the Warlord himself...”
Osiris stopped at the edge of the plaza’s upper ring. Peered down.
A prisoner knelt in the center.
Male. Mid-thirties. Shackled in barbed iron, shirt ripped down the spine, dried blood crusting along his ribs. He did not tremble. But he did not speak.
Behind him, three?Varkhounds? snarled at their chains—hound-like, but wrong. Hulking bodies, plated in black scale. Jaws split twice along the side, barbed and leaking molten spit. Their breath smoked in the cold.
A soldier stepped forward—tall, armored in crimson, helm shaped like a snarling wolf. His glaive glinted with runes.
“This traitor fed classified information to Warlight insurgents. He has confessed. The punishment is death... by judgment of beasts.”
No one screamed. No one begged.
Not even the prisoner.
He lifted his chin. And?smiled.
A toothless thing. Bloody. Defiant.
“If truth is treason,” he rasped, “then this Dominion is built on rot.”
The crimson guard didn’t flinch.
“Then rot you shall.”
The chains dropped.
The Varkhounds?moved.
What followed wasn’t a death.
It was a message.
Teeth tore flesh. Bone snapped like kindling. The man did not scream until his legs were gone. Even then, it came out more as a gargle than a cry.
Osiris didn’t move.
The plaza didn’t stir.
Even the children watched—wide-eyed, silent.
The man died slowly. His blood soaked the obsidian like ink. The hounds circled once more before retreating, muzzles dripping red.
“Let this be a reminder,” the soldier intoned, “that mercy is for the conquered.”
The crowd began to thin.
Osiris didn’t.
She just stood there. Staring. Hands clenched in her coat. Nails digging crescents into her palm.
She tried to swallow. Couldn’t.
Something?hot?and?wrong?uncoiled inside her chest.
Not fear.
Not yet.
It was something else. Something brittle.
Her breath hitched. Her throat felt tight.
Then—a hum.
It came from beneath her boots. Faint. Deep. Rhythmic.
The leyline.
It pulsed beneath the plaza like a buried heart too long ignored.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Her vision blurred around the edges. She blinked—and for a moment, the whole city?breathed.
Heat. Ash. Magic.
Alive.
“This isn’t justice.”
The whisper escaped her lips before she could catch it.
A woman beside her turned. Stared. Eyes narrowed.
“What did you say?”
Osiris blinked. Swallowed the words.
“Nothing.”
The woman held her gaze a moment longer, then walked on.
Osiris exhaled. Slowly. Controlled.
But her hands still trembled.
Not from cold.
From rage.
She turned, cloak billowing behind her, and started walking again.
The blacksmith guild wasn’t far. But the weight on her shoulders had doubled. Tripled.
Not because of what she’d seen.
But because of what she’d?felt.
The cruelty. The silence. The normalcy of it all.
It was inside her now. Lodged like a splinter in the spine.
And somewhere, far below the frost, something in Osiris Coy?cracked.
She didn’t yet know the word for what she was becoming.
But the city would.
In time.
They would all remember the day the match was struck.
The forge loomed at the edge of the lower quarter—half-buried in volcanic stone, its chimney belching black smoke like a beast chewing on its own bones. The name above the iron door was charred and unreadable. It didn’t need to be known. Everyone in Tenrai knew?Kael Ironscar, even if they pretended not to.
He was the Warlord’s chosen smith. The one who reforged traitors’ weapons into execution tools. The one who turned loyalty into steel.
Osiris stepped through the arched entry.
The heat hit her instantly—raw, throat-drying. Soot danced through shafts of amber light like burned-out fireflies. The forge roared at the far end, a pit of flame and fury. Sparks cascaded like miniature comets. Hammers rang in rhythmic violence—clang, clang, clang—each strike a heartbeat louder than the last.
Kael stood bare-chested at the anvil. Muscles corded and scarred. Beard split in two, bound with warbands. One eye white, the other gold. He looked like something carved out of the mountain and only half-human.
He didn’t look up when she entered. Just kept hammering.
“Little Coy,”?he growled, voice deep as a cave-in.
“Didn’t think they’d send the Warlord’s pup to run errands. Thought you had better uses.”
Osiris didn’t flinch.
“He wanted efficiency.”?Her voice was even. Quiet, but sharp.
Kael snorted.
“Means he didn’t trust anyone else not to steal the damn blade.”
The hammer stopped. He turned.
On the table beside him lay a blade wrapped in black cloth, humming faintly beneath the layers—like a predator pretending to sleep. A massive, single-edged sword carved from obsidian and fused demonbone. The hilt wrapped in frostwolf leather. Runed spine. Balanced for someone with brute strength and no fear of getting close.
“New execution blade,”?Kael muttered, wiping soot from his hands.
“For the theater.”
“Theater,”?Osiris repeated.
“That’s what this is, isn’t it?” she added—too fast. Too loose.
Kael raised an eyebrow.
“Didn’t know you were old enough to form opinions.”
Silence.
Osiris stared at the blade. The way it pulsed faintly beneath the cloth.?Like it wanted blood. Demanded it.
“It’s too heavy,” she said.
“It’s meant to be,” Kael grunted. “Warlord says pain is more important than precision.”
Another silence.
The blade hummed again.
And Osiris, still staring, asked:
“What happens when it’s turned on him?”
Kael froze.
The silence stretched too long.
The fire cracked behind them.
“What did you say?” he asked, voice low now. Not angry.?Careful.
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Osiris blinked. Straightened.
“Nothing. Just wondering if the balance would shift if the wielder didn’t favor brute force.”
“…You’re not your father, girl.”
“Not yet.”
He picked up the cloth and wrapped the blade tightly, sealing it with warcords.
“Here. Take it. He’s probably already tracking your heartbeat.”
She reached for the blade, but Kael didn’t let go.
“You ask dangerous questions,” he said.
His gold eye burned into hers. His grip was iron.
“Dangerous minds don’t last long in Tenrai.”
Osiris looked up at him.
“Neither do obedient ones.”
For the briefest moment—half a breath—Kael’s mouth twitched. Not a smile. But not disapproval either.
Then he released the blade.
“Go.”
She stepped back into the streets; blade wrapped in black across her back. The city wind bit at her face. The light had begun to change. Sunset bleeding through the smoke. Everything tinged red.
The execution plaza was empty now.
But in her mind, it still roared.
And the leyline beneath her feet still beat its slow, ancient rhythm.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Like something waiting to rise.
Velrok Fortress?was a jagged scar in the side of Tenrai’s volcanic spine—an obsidian citadel draped in iron banners and silent guards. It did not welcome. It consumed.
No one smiled in Velrok. No laughter echoed in the halls. The only warmth came from the braziers of blackflame—cold-burning, spiteful fire enchanted to keep out frost and keep in fear.
Osiris passed the outer gates without a word. The guards recognized her by posture alone. Small for fourteen. Too still. Too aware.
The execution blade hung on her back, drawing uneasy stares. No one stopped her. No one dared.
The moment she crossed the?Threshold Arch, the temperature dropped. Not literally—but in feeling. Like stepping underwater, pressure building against the ribs. The echo of her boots against the stone floor rang too loud. Velrok had a way of amplifying the sound of weakness.
She passed a row of mounted weapons: spears blackened with dried ichor, glaives that had ended rebellions, a shattered helmet said to belong to the?Crimson General of Emberfall.?All trophies. All warnings.
She hated this hallway most of all.
Because it whispered what it expected of her.
Become sharper.
Become crueler.
Or become nothing.
A servant bowed low as she passed. Never looked up. Her father taught them that.
She didn’t speak to him. Couldn’t. Her throat was too tight.
She reached the?inner chamber—the warroom.
A massive table carved from petrified bone split the room. Blood-sigils pulsed faintly across its surface. Maps of Frostmer’s mountain passes were etched in obsidian. Three caged frostcrows squawked from the corners—trained to detect lies.
Her father stood with his back to her. Tall. Unarmored. His silhouette cut sharp against the firelight.
General Varkas Coy.?Demonblood. Warlord of the Frostmer Eastern Front. Her father by blood. By will, by cruelty.
He didn’t turn when she entered.
“You’re late.”
His voice was smooth. Controlled. The kind of voice that didn’t rise when angry—it?lowered.
Osiris set the blade on the table with care.
“Kael finished the work. The weight is... deliberate.”
“Of course it is.”
Silence.
He turned.
Pale grey skin, cracked with the scars of froststeel duels. Eyes black as coal and twice as cold. His horns curved back like a crown. No warmth. No affection.
“What did you see in the plaza?”
A test.
Always a test.
She didn’t blink.
“Loyalty enforced.”
He narrowed his eyes.
“And?”
She hesitated. Only a fraction.
“And fear is effective.”
“Is it?” he asked, stepping closer.
“You think fear keeps order?”
She nodded once. A lie, but a rehearsed one.
“Fear makes people obey.”
“But it does not make them?loyal.”
He circled her now, voice low. Almost instructive.
“Loyalty must be carved. With purpose. With sacrifice. With legacy.”
He stopped behind her. She could feel the heat of him. Or maybe it was just the blade between them.
“You watched the man die today.”
“Yes.”
“Did it make you flinch?”
She didn’t answer.
He grabbed her shoulder. Fingers like iron clamps.
“I asked if it made you?flinch.”
Her jaw tightened. She met his gaze.
“No.”
“Good.”
He let go.
“Because one day, you’ll be the one holding the chain.”
Later—much later—she sat in her small stone room. No windows. No softness. Just a bedroll, a washbasin, and a cracked mirror.
The execution blade rested against the wall like a sleeping monster. She stared at it.
The images from earlier bled back in. The prisoner’s screams. The beasts. The roar of the crowd. The indifference.
Her hands were trembling.
She clenched them into fists.
Don’t flinch. Don’t speak. Don’t break.
But alone, in the silence, she let herself whisper:
“What if I don’t want the chain?”
No answer came.
Only the hum of the leyline deep beneath Velrok.
Still beating.
Still waiting.
The stone room blurred at the edges.
Cold seeped into her spine.
Then… silence.
Not the kind found in empty rooms.
The?old? kind.
The kind that felt like standing on the edge of a cliff blindfolded—
knowing something waited in the dark beneath.
Osiris opened her eyes.
She was in the plaza again.
But it was night.
The chains from the execution still hung in the air—floating, twisting, glowing faintly with embers.
No crowd.
No guards.
No father.
Just her.
And the beasts.
Not chained this time.
They crouched in the far corners, eyes like molten iron, breath curling from their fanged maws. Watching. Not moving. Not attacking. Waiting.
She stepped forward.
The ground shifted beneath her—ash instead of stone.
It puffed up around her boots in soft clouds.
When she looked down, she saw footprints.
Not hers.
Smaller. Barefoot.
She followed them.
The ash thickened. The air grew heavy. The chains now reached down toward her like vines—each whispering as they swayed.
“Obey.”
“Endure.”
“Become.”
“Be worthy.”
She passed under them, but they didn’t strike.
They watched.
She came to the center of the plaza.
The execution stage.
Only now it wasn’t a stage.
It was a mirror.
She looked down—
—and saw herself.
But older.
Taller.
Eyes glowing with red light, magenta hair flickering like fire.
Blood soaked her hands.
She was smiling.
Not in victory.
In?relief.
“You’re not ready,” her reflection whispered.
Osiris stepped back.
The mirror cracked.
From the cracks, black water began to seep.
It crawled toward her boots, alive and thick and humming with power.
The beasts moved.
Not toward her.
Around?her.
Forming a ring.
The leyline pulsed. Once. Twice.
Then, a voice—not hers—breathed through the ash.
“What will you do when the chain is around?your?neck?”
The beasts bowed.
The chains fell like rain.
She jolted awake.
Heart pounding.
Hands clenched.
Blood in her mouth from biting her tongue in sleep.
The forge blade still rested where she left it.
Unmoved.
But somehow… heavier.
Outside her door, the fortress creaked.
Inside her chest, something stirred.
Not fear.
Not pain.
Possibility.
A sharp knock shattered the silence.
Not a servant’s knock.
Not a guard’s.
Three strikes. Slow. Intentional.
Osiris rose, still half tangled in sleep. Her skin felt tight, like the dream had left marks beneath it. She crossed the cold stone floor, pulled open the door—just a crack.
A tall figure stood beyond.
Clad in obsidian armor lacquered with frost-veined etching.
No insignia. No voice. Just a gauntlet extended.
In it: a scroll. Black wax.
Pressed with a sigil she didn’t recognize.
Not her father's mark.
Not the Dominion's.
“For the blood-born,” the messenger said.
His voice was gravel and fog.
Not human. Not demon. Something else.
Then he turned and vanished down the corridor without a sound.
Osiris stared at the scroll for a long moment.
The wax shimmered faintly—like it was?listening.
She broke the seal.
Inside, one line:
“The mirror cracked. We saw it. Come to the hollow at dusk.”
No signature.
No demand.
No explanation.
But her fingers trembled as she rolled it closed.
Because the ash from the dream still clung to her skin.
And she?knew—this wasn’t coincidence.
Someone had seen inside her head. Or worse…
They’d put the dream there.
Osiris sat on the edge of her cot, the scroll clenched in her hand like a weapon.
Whoever sent it—knew?things.
Knew she was watching.
Knew the mirror cracked.
No one was supposed to see that. Not even her.
Her eyes flicked to the sealed window. A veil of frost blurred the outside world, casting long shadows across the floor. The walls of her room felt closer now. Too close.
Trap.
Test.
Bait.
Her mind catalogued the options, fast and precise. Father didn’t trust riddles. He trusted obedience. If this was from him, it would’ve come with blood and branding.
This was something else.
A flicker of emotion stirred—
not fear.
Not quite.
Loneliness.
A flicker she buried instantly beneath strategy.
Someone sees me.
Which means someone wants something.
She turned the scroll over in her hands again. The wax shimmer was gone now. Just hardened seal and old parchment. Harmless. Almost.
Almost.
She tucked the scroll into the lining of her cloak, under her belt where the guards wouldn’t search. Her thoughts spiraled tighter with every step toward the door.
She didn’t need this.
She didn’t need?anyone.
But still… she opened the door.
And slipped into the stone corridor—silent as breath.
The outer hallways of the Coy estate were mostly abandoned at this hour—draped in frostlight and shadow. Osiris moved like smoke, silent against the cold obsidian stone. Her boots barely touched the ground.
Ten steps to the courtyard.
Five to the servants’ exit.
Then—
"You're not as quiet as you think, little shadow."
A voice. Cool. Unhurried.
Softer than a knife, but twice as sharp.
Osiris froze, back straightening like a soldier caught out of line.
Her mother stood at the end of the corridor, framed by a sliver of moonlight and blue-veined glass. Loralie Coy. The Ice Warden of Velrok. Clad in a gown of layered steel-thread and frostwoven silk, the scent of spiced myrrh clinging faintly to her like old memory.
Those eyes—silver, slitted like a serpent’s—watched her with quiet disapproval.
"You’re up late," Loralie said, taking a slow step forward. "Or early. Hard to tell, these days."
Osiris said nothing.
She didn’t flinch. Didn’t breathe. Her hands remained loose at her sides, as if this were just another casual conversation in the dead of night.
"I thought your father had you running errands in the forge quarter."
“I finished early.”
“Mm.” A pause. Calculating.
Loralie’s gaze dropped—not to the scroll hidden beneath Osiris’s cloak, but to her boots. Dust from the city. Ash caught in the seams.
"You’re not going to see that scrap-monger again, are you? The one who fills your head with fairy tales about rebellion and cracks in the sky?"
"No." Smooth, unblinking. "He’s dead."
"Are you sure?"
Osiris didn’t answer.
Another step closer. Loralie was only feet away now. Her shadow touched Osiris’s toes, cold and sharp. Still not close enough to touch—but close enough to strike.
"You’re too curious for your own good," she said softly, brushing a strand of silver hair behind her ear. "One day, it’ll burn you."
"I was made to burn," Osiris said.
The words slipped out too fast. Too true.
For a second—just a second—Loralie’s mask cracked. Not with emotion. With?calculation. As if running a thousand possibilities through her mind and seeing, for the first time, one she hadn’t accounted for.
Then she stepped back.
"You’re becoming your father," she said. “But colder.”
And with that, she turned and vanished into the darkened hall.
Osiris didn’t move until the silence swallowed everything again.
Then—swift and silent—she slipped out the servant’s gate and into the bone-cold night.
Tenrai stretched before her, frost and fire. The Hollow awaited.
Not a place, but a fracture in the undercity.
A place of whispers, forgotten truths, and leyline scars that never healed.
A wound.
And tonight, Osiris was the scalpel.
The Hollow wasn’t on any map.
It wasn’t a place one simply?found. It revealed itself—when the world above thinned, and the blood of the city remembered what had been buried.
Osiris moved past the last marker of the legal world: an old well tucked behind the ruin of a watchtower, where moss crept over stone like rot on bone. She slipped inside through the broken grate, boots skimming along an iron ladder slick with frost. Down. Down.
The air grew dense, thick with leyline static. It hummed beneath her skin, a silent scream locked in stone.
After three minutes of descent, her boots hit ancient tile—worn, cracked, etched in runes older than any Dominion tongue. The walls pulsed faintly with violet light. Not torches. Not magic.?Residual energy. As if the Hollow remembered what had been done here, long after the world forgot.
It smelled of scorched bone and wet iron.
Perfect.
She unwrapped the scroll from her cloak—and dropped it into one of the leyline vents. It hissed, curled, then vanished in a whisper of embers.
That wasn’t why she came. That was just the cover.
She stepped further into the Hollow. The silence wasn’t silence. It?breathed. The air shifted with every step. Cold winds brushing against her cheek like unseen hands.
There were murals here fractured across the walls. Demons chained to spires. A red star bleeding above a fractured city. Eyes—too many eyes—etched into every wall.
Her heartbeat matched the hum beneath the stone.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Then—movement.
She spun, hand flicking toward the dagger at her hip.
A figure.
Not fully there. Not?now. Faint as mist, but darker than shadow. Tall, faceless, wrapped in something that flickered between robes and wings. Watching.
Then it was gone.
She stood still.
Not afraid. But not unshaken.
Something?else?lived in the Hollow. Not beast. Not spirit.?Possibility.
She moved on.
At the center of the Hollow lay an altar—cracked, but humming with unstable leyline current. She knelt. Pressed her hand to it.
And the world?shifted.
A boy with a horned mask screaming as flames consume his village.
A white-eyed girl dragging a broken glaive through a battlefield of corpses.
A blade falling.
A name spoken in reverse.
A blood moon rising over Tenrai’s spires.
A red-eyed girl—herself—standing alone in a throne room of bones.
Osiris recoiled.
The leyline had bitten her back.
It?saw?her.
But more than that—it?recognized?her.
And for a moment… she felt less like a girl. More like a fracture. A threat.
She staggered to her feet, eyes wide. Breathing shallow.
And then—clang.
Metal, above.
Someone had opened the grate.
Not her mother.
Worse.
The sound of claws scraping stone.
Breath—wet and heavy.
She wasn’t alone anymore.
The Hollow had stirred.
A chain dragged across stone.
Not metal.?Bone.
Osiris stepped back—too late.
The Hollow remembered her blood.
Her pulse thundered in her ears, deafening and relentless as her hands scrambled for the dagger at her hip. But the air… it?shifted. The heavy, stagnant atmosphere thickened, growing colder. It wasn’t the natural chill of the Hollow. No. This was the sudden, oppressive drop that came with the scent of?danger.
A low, rasping sound echoed from the darkness ahead. Like breath pulled through shattered ribs. The bone chain rattled again, scraping against the floor. Then—movement.
A shadow, too fast, too fluid. It didn’t belong here, but it was already here, sliding between the columns like smoke weaving through the cracks of a burning room.
Osiris’s fingers tightened around the hilt of her blade, her heart thrumming like the hammer of a forge. She had fought beasts before—demons, wraiths, even her own past. But this… this was something else. Something?old.
It was here for her.
The thing came closer—closer.
She could feel it now, the cold air tightening around her like a noose. Its presence wasn’t just physical. It was… familiar. Like the remnants of a dream, she couldn’t fully recall. A memory of something she wasn’t ready to remember.
The sound of bone scraping stone came again, this time louder.?Closer.
Her eyes darted to the shadows, catching only glimpses—too brief, too evasive—until—
A?flash?of white, a glimpse of claws, long and sharp, scraping against the wall, seeking her out.
Osiris’s breath hitched. She couldn’t see its face, but she could feel its eyes, burning into her skin like a brand.
The Hollow was alive, yes. But this thing—this?creature—was part of it. A guardian. An ancient hunter. And it had just found its prey.
Her hand tightened on the dagger’s hilt, ready to strike, but something in the leyline?shifted?again. It hummed louder, sharper. And the air thickened with the weight of an inevitable conclusion.
The bone chain dragged once more.
And then—the darkness split.
A scream—loud and fractured—ripped through the silence, and for one brief, heart-stopping moment, Osiris?felt?the weight of the world bearing down on her.
Then, a single whisper, cold as frost.
"Run."
The chain dragged again, louder this time, an overwhelming sound that filled the Hollow, filling Osiris’s chest with a creeping sense of suffocation.
Her mind was screaming—fight.?Run.?Anything. Do something.
But she couldn’t move.
Not yet.
The Hollow was calling. And Osiris Coy, for the first time, realized that the blood she carried was not a gift, but a burden.
And the Hollow would always remember her for it.
