The wind howled through the Imperial Capital like a predator on the hunt. Though the city bustled with its usual routines—markets alive with merchants, guards pacing their routes—an invisible tension pulsed beneath the surface.

  It was subtle. Like the tremor before a quake. But those who truly held power could feel the shift.

  Kael Arden stood on the marble balcony of his estate, his gaze sweeping across the sprawling city. Torchlight shimmered like restless stars, casting elongated shadows that danced across stone and steel. The night felt alive—hungry, waiting.

  Behind him, Ilyssia emerged from the darkness, silent as always.

  “Something stirs,” she murmured, her voice no louder than the wind.

  Kael did not turn. “Yes.”

  She stepped closer, arms folded beneath her cloak. “Lucian is no longer in the dungeons.”

  That drew a flicker of interest. Kael’s golden eyes narrowed, the faintest curl at his lips. “Escaped?”

  “Released,” she corrected. “By Emperor Castiel himself.”

  Kael let out a soft, amused breath. “So, he’s begun moving pieces already. Good. Desperation makes men predictable.”

  Ilyssia remained silent, watching his face. She had witnessed this countless times—the slow turn of Kael’s mind, the effortless way he consumed information, processed consequence, and reshaped fate.

  Finally, he turned toward her. “And Seraphina?”

  “The Empress is learning quickly. Several nobles who once resisted her… reconsidered their positions after some unfortunate ‘accidents.’”

  A brief, satisfied hum escaped him. “She’s beginning to understand. Fear is a tool. Loyalty must be carved, not requested.”

  He looked back toward the horizon. The air smelled like the beginning of a storm.

  Because the real war had not yet begun.

  In the heart of a forgotten wastend, shrouded by withering trees and broken stone, the ancient temple ruins pulsed with dark energy. Nature itself recoiled from the pce.

  Lucian Vancrest stood shirtless among the fallen pilrs, his body carved with scars both physical and ethereal. Silver hair, now streaked with veins of bck corruption, framed crimson-glowing eyes that no longer belonged to a man of light.

  The shadows coiled around him, whispering like serpents in the dark.

  “You have accepted it,” came the voice—silken, cruel, eternal. “Good.”

  Lucian’s fists clenched. Every breath drew in power he once would’ve rejected. But the boy who believed in honor was dead—sin by betrayal, by the weight of false justice.

  Now, only the bde remained.

  “What is it you desire, Lucian?” the voice asked again.

  His lips curled, slow and cold. “To destroy him.”

  Kael Arden.

  The name echoed like thunder through his bones.

  The shadow-ced entity chuckled, ancient and pleased.

  “Then rise, our chosen bde. And let the world tremble.”

  Lucian exhaled, and power erupted around him in a halo of corrupted light. Ash lifted from the ground, pulled into the swirling energy that wrapped his form.

  Tonight, a new being was born—not hero, not vilin.

  A weapon.

  Back within the Imperial Pace, Seraphina sat upon her throne beneath the glow of dusk nterns, the scent of scented oils and old parchment lingering in the air.

  A single envelope y before her. No seal. No crest.

  Only a name.

  Kael Arden.

  Her fingers traced the ink slowly, her expression unreadable. She had thought she understood him. She had thought she could match him.

  But this letter wasn’t a request. It was a summons.

  She felt it in the very phrasing of the words—a silent command cloaked in courtesy.

  She was Empress.

  But even she knew:

  She could not refuse.

  To Be Continued…