Far beyond the whispering forests and veiled cities, past rivers etched in starlight and valleys that glowed blue at dawn, stood the Sanctuary of Istari — a temple built into the cliffs of the Skyroot Mountains.
It was not drawn on maps.
It was not spoken of in common tongue.
It existed in silence, in sacredness, in isolation.
The temple had no nameplate, no door, and no windows. Only a thousand bells that hung from chains carved into the rock, from the highest towers to the smallest archways, their music stirring only when the winds of fate chose to blow.
And in the heart of that sacred stillness lived Serenya.
She was not born into the temple — she had been found, swaddled in fire-colored silk, left at the eastern gate during the blood moon eighteen years ago. The High Matrons believed it was a sign.
They raised her as a Vow-Sister, a silent daughter of the Flame Doctrine. From age three, she was forbidden to speak except in chant. From age seven, she memorized the Codices of Light. At ten, she could walk barefoot across fire-heated stone and not flinch.
By sixteen, she was a Seer-in-Waiting.
By eighteen… her fate would change the world.
Serenya's days followed rhythm, carved in ritual.
She rose with the sun and knelt in the Sanctuary of Echoes, where the sacred flames burned blue and white. She swept ash with reverence, fasted with honor, copied glyphs by hand onto bone-scrolls, and bathed in scented oils drawn from moon-drenched orchids.
She was graceful. Beautiful in a way that didn't belong to this century — skin like burnished gold, eyes like quiet storms, and long hair always bound in braided firecords. Her voice, when allowed, could move stone to tears.
But she was not happy.
She was… waiting.
She didn't know for what.
A shadow in the fire. A name in the smoke.
Sometimes in meditation, her fingertips burned — tiny sparks that didn't blister, didn't leave marks, but made her tremble.
"You are chosen," the High Matron often whispered.
"But your time has not come."
Serenya wasn't so sure.
Because one night, it did.
It began with bells.
All of them.
Every bell in the temple — from the sacred sky-bells to the rusted wind-charms on the novices' cloaks — began to sing in perfect harmony. A sound like light given shape. Like stars breaking.
The Matrons dropped to their knees. Some wept. Others screamed.
"It is not time," one sobbed.
"She was meant to stay hidden until the Seal was gone!"
Serenya stood at the center of the Hall of Flame, her eyes wide, her body trembling.
The fire — the sacred eternal flame that had burned for a thousand years — turned black.
And then white.
And then rose in the shape of a woman.
Cloaked. Hooded. Crowned in light.
The fire-figure opened her arms and whispered a name Serneya had never heard before… but recognized deep in her bones.
"Avenya."
The flames exploded into a thousand white petals, and the bells went silent.
Serenya collapsed to her knees.
The fire had entered her.
For days, she could not eat. Her skin glowed faintly. Her voice cracked when she spoke. When she touched stone, it warmed. When she prayed, the flames now followed her movements — like servants greeting a queen.
The Matrons refused to look her in the eye.
"You must leave," one of them said, finally.
"We cannot hold you. You are not ours."
Serenya felt it too.
She had outgrown the temple.
Not because she was arrogant. Not because she was angry.
But because the silence no longer satisfied her.
The world was calling.
And the sky had bled red.
On the morning of her departure, the Matrons gifted her a ceremonial cloak — woven from sky moth silk, embroidered with sun-metal thread. They gave her a satchel of maps and old prophecies.
But no goodbyes.
Only bowed heads.
Serenya walked barefoot from the temple, down the cliff path carved into the stone by ancestors she had never met. Shade clung to her steps. She didn't know where she was going — only that her dreams now burned with faces.
A girl with silver eyes and a wolf at her side.
Another with storm-colored skin and a crown of frost.
A circle of five.
And always, at the center, a figure of shadow and fire.
The Black Queen.
As she traveled the lowlands, strange things began to happen.
Children stopped crying when she walked past.
Animals knelt.
Old men whispered of the Flame Reborn.
But Serneya didn't feel powerful.
She felt haunted.
Because she was beginning to remember.
Not clearly — not fully — but in fragments:
The clang of ancient armor.
A throne in a kingdom hidden beneath a sky of stars.
Sisters… not of blood, but of soul.
And a betrayal that shattered them all.
The pain echoed in her bones.
As if the scars of a life she hadn't lived were still fresh.
At dusk, two weeks into her journey, she reached a field of withered trees where the grass had grown black.
There, in the center, stood a traveler — a young man in a scholar's cloak, holding a map upside down.
He looked up, saw her, and laughed.
"You wouldn't happen to know how to get to Glaethwyn School, would you? I'm told all gifted children go there."
Serenya froze.
Glaethwyn.
The school. The academy. The proving ground.
The first name she had seen in her dreams.
The place where her true journey would begin.
She smiled faintly, firelight flickering behind her irises.
"Yes," she said softly.
"I believe I do."