Darkness again.
But this time, it wasn't the cave.
This darkness was colder, heavier. Riven stood ankle-deep in ash. The air was silent except for the distant cry of something dying—or something born. Emberfall had vanished. The stone beneath his feet cracked with every step.
He looked down.
His hands were soaked in blood.
Not fresh.
Old. Drying. Flaking with each breath.
And in those hands, the hilt of a blade.
He knew this dream.
The moment always came after fire. After death. After orders followed without question.
The image never changed. The same field of blackened corpses. The same red sky.
A woman knelt before him.
Eyes wide.
A child behind her.
His blade dripping.
The woman's mouth moved, but no sound came.
Please.
His hand moved without his consent.
The blade rose.
And the world bled.
Riven bolted awake, breath ragged, sweat cold on his spine. His hand went to his side on instinct—for a weapon. But it wasn't there. Just rock. Just the sound of slow breathing nearby.
Liora.
He blinked against the firelight. She was curled with her back to him, flamelight playing across her features. Her expression, even in sleep, was tight. Wary. Ready.
He leaned back against the cavern wall, hand trembling.
How many times had he killed for the Queen?
How many of them had faces he could no longer remember?
He pressed his palm to the scar at his chest—the old mark, where the Queen's blood had mixed with his, sealing the oath that made him her weapon. Her shadow.
But not always.
It had begun in the ruins of Calveryn.
He had been thirteen.
The Ember Wars had reached his village two weeks before his birthday. He remembered the scent of burning grain. The screams of his neighbors. The sound of flame tearing through wood and bone.
He'd survived by hiding beneath the body of his older brother, whose blood had cooled by morning.
They found him three days later.
Soldiers in red and obsidian armor. The Queen's soldiers. Cleaning up what the rebellion hadn't burned.
They dragged him out, half-starved and shivering. A soldier raised a sword.
But then she came.
The Queen.
Hair like a crown of flame. Eyes molten with something too sharp to be called pity. She looked at Riven like he was a broken toy she might still fix.
"This one burns differently," she said.
And he did.
He remembered the heat inside him. Buried. Banked. Waiting.
She cut her palm. Then his.
Their blood mingled.
And Riven screamed as flame filled his lungs and branded his soul.
From that moment, he belonged to her.
Back in the cave, the scar on his chest throbbed.
He looked at Liora again.
She burned differently too.
Not like him.
Not like anyone.
She was chaos. Untamed. Wild.
And she made him remember the boy who once wanted something else. Something more than obedience. Something other than silence.
He stood slowly, pain lancing through his leg. He could feel the Queen in his bones—the pull of her summons.
Soon, she would know he'd hesitated.
That he hadn't killed Liora when he had the chance.
And she would send the Infernos.
Not to retrieve.
To destroy.