Sleep took Thalia falling through ink – Slow at first, then all at once.
She didn't remember closing her eyes. One moment she stared at the wooden beams above her bed, the next, she was standing in a field of broken mirrors, red liquid, and ashes. Stars above her head bled in strange colours and every reflection whispered different names. None were hers – but all of them knew her.
"Saviour of the new era," a voice whispered behind her.
Thalia spun around and saw nothing but only the emptiness of the field she stands on, her expression of unease and confusion.
"What is this place?" She murmured under her breath before turning around and decided to explore this unknown realm.
She treads the ground carefully, watching her step and hoped to herself she will not take the wrong path. She crept across the floor, walking slowly as she carefully placed her foot down until she recklessly placed her foot on to a glass shard, biting into her heel — she gasped—she winced in instinct but felt no sudden jolt of pain.
She looked behind her and eyeballed at her foot, there was nothing there as if the broken glass shard was never there.
She looked up again and the field had changed. The mirror shards were gone. In their place, white lilies bloom in ash, red roses gleamed in scarlet, black tulips glow in bright white, yellow, blue, green, violet, rows upon rows appeared in front of her, each in different colours.
A bell tolled in the distance — low, mournful, impossibly loud. Her name echoed with it.
"Thalia…"
A cloak stood ahead of her now. Cloaked in a wind that didn't blow, face hidden by a mirror for a mask. "You are late," they said, voice layered like two people speaking at once.
"We don't have long."
Thalia opened her mouth but the ground below her began to crack. Whispers rose from the fractures – soft, pleading, accusing.
"Failure," they hissed. "Unworthy."
She took a step away, hands shaking — but the sky split open like torn paper, revealing a violet eye behind the stars staring at her.
The sky dimmed and the scenery changed in a flash, a tower rose from the ashes, one tall, reaching the skies above her. One Thalia remembered from a book in class.
A sword of violent crimson and violet flames hovered before her, its blade pulsating with raw, volatile energy. Forged in an ancient alloy, one mixed of all elements of magic, its edge shimmered with power drawn from all known forces.
Flame, Water, Earth, Wind, Light, Dark, and Arcane – the seven pillars of common magic.
Illusion, Teleportation, and Control – Rarer disciplines born from bloodlines and forged through the fusion of Light or Dark with Arcane.
Necromancy, Chronomancy, Bloodroot, Voidchant, Volcaryn Surge, Solaris's Rift, Black Tongue, Veil Fracture – arts of the ancients, birthed by divine hands and mastered only through sacrifice: the death of the body, or the unravelling of the mind.
As thalia took a step closer, the sword vibrated in the air, a low hum rising like a heartbeat. Her name, or something like it, whispered across the air — not in sound, but in feelings. Her hand inched forward before she realised what she was doing and pulled her hand back.
Then something behind her moved.
Then a voice, low and ancient, spoke behind her.
"You're not supposed to be here."
A figure emerged from the shadows — faceless, eyes glowing with a dull ember.
"And yet… the swords calls out to you."
The figure moved closer to Thalia, she took a step back.
"Who- who are you?" she asked, voice tight, her fingers curling into fists.
The figure didn't answer right away. Its shape wavered, like smoke barely holding together.
"Names have power," it said at last, voice echoing from everywhere and nowhere. "And I've surrendered mine long ago."
It stepped closer, each movement silent but weighty — like it belonged to another world.
Thalia's breath hitched. She took another step back, however the ground beneath her shifted, mirrors cracking underfoot without sound.
"Why am I here?" she asked, glancing at the suspended sword. "Is this a dream?"
The figure's ember eyes pulsed softly.
"you are here because the sword remembers. Even if you do not."
"I don't- I don't understand."
The air around them darkened. The stars above flickered.
"You will, you will soon enough"
Then the figure lifted a hand, not to strike, but to point.
Behind her, the sword flared to life — a column of pale fire rising around it, mirror shard rising and spinning.
And her name echoed again. Not from the figure. From the blade.
The sword whispered.
Not words meant for the ears, but truths carved into the marrow of the world. Its voice was wind through old bones, the hiss of embers in forgotten ruins, the chant of dying stars.
"Saviour."
"Bearer of flame."
"Maker of the new era."
"Breaker of chains… and of empires."
Thalia's breath caught in her throat.
The blade hovered above the mirrored field, reflections warping around it, bleeding red and black and gold. Glass shards floated in a spiral, orbiting the sword like dying moons.
The whispers grew louder—layered, rhythmic, full of hunger and grief.
"Take us up."
"Lead us forward."
"Unmake the old."
Her body moved before her thoughts could catch up.
And then—CRACK.
The blade surged through the air, slamming hilt-first into her palm. Her fingers closed around it involuntarily.
There was no pain.
Only light.
Blinding, burning, absolute.
She stood atop a hill of broken banners.
Below her, the legions of Eisenreich stormed a city built of sunstone and ivory, its defenders scrambling through the rubble. She saw herself cur through the line, the sword an extension of her will, too fast, too precise, too brutal to be anything.
She blinked – Now she stood waist-deep in a bog, lighting curling through storm clouds above and striking the ground. A titan of rusted armour swung an axe double the size of a dragon. She met it with steel and spell, the blade in her hand howling with ghostfire as it clashed.
The bog boiled.
A scream rang out, not hers.
Then came the fire.
Not battle fire, but something else.
The world and the ground tore open — A wound appeared across the sky, the ground splitting open. From the sky, it spilled flame and iron and wrath, from the ground, A thousand warhorns howled as the Daemon King rose from the ground and stepped forwards, his body wrapping in coiling flame, shadow horns arched like a crown, his blade a jagged thing of molten ruin.
Behind him surged an army—endless, crawling, screaming. The ground trembled with each thundering step, and Thalia could feel the vibrations clawing up through her bones. Then came the shadow. Wings like obsidian stormclouds unfurled across the mountains as the great Skeleton Dragon, Varkolaz, rose—towering, deathless, and crowned in ash.
And Thalia stood before it, but not alone. United armies flanked behind her, Strange and Familiar banners, old friends, and faces she hadn't met yet.
All of them behind her.
The sword pulsed in her grip—brighter, louder.
Visions crashed through her faster than she could breathe. Forests burning. Castles sinking. Oceans rising. Her hand clenched tighter around the sword until it burned.
And when the light became unbearable—
She let go.
She awoke.
Thalia sat up in bed with a choking gasp.
Sheets tangled. Skin drenched in sweat. Breath fast, shallow. Her heart thundered against her ribs like a war drum.
She looked down.
Her right hand was glowing faintly—an ember brand, coiled and ancient, marked her palm.
She touched it, flinched.
It was real.
Outside, the first light of dawn crept past the horizon.
The dream had ended.
But something else had begun.