Above the Vault, the Kingdom of Mimir shook.
It began subtly—at first a flicker in the sky, like the air itself remembered something terrible. Then the sun dimmed behind unseen clouds, and the soul-alarms—once long dormant—screamed across the capital.
High above, the Celestial Ring, the floating sanctum of Mimir's highest caste, shattered at its edge. Cracks spread like spiderwebs across the sky-embedded seal that had once been etched with divine light. The floating runes of warding, invisible to the common eye, flared scarlet, then vanished altogether.
All across the capital, the bloodbound felt it.
Not just the commoners. Not just the mages.
But the ancient houses—the ones who remembered the old pact.
The ones who knew the prophecy.
In the Tower of Ashen Quills, House Seridahl
Lady Henera Seridahl—the oldest living head of a noble line tracing its origins to the age of the First Flame—woke screaming.
She had not dreamed in decades.
