The bells tolled like bones cracking.
Somewhere behind the cathedral's obsidian towers, the sun was dragged below the horizon like a body into a grave. The sky bled red as if mourning what was to come. Every torch along the stone aisle flickered—too quickly, too violently—as though they feared what they were about to witness.
She stood at the entrance in a gown sewn from flame silk and stitched with ashroot thread, a veil draped over her like a funeral shroud. Her fingers trembled around the black roses in her hand. They weren't trembling from fear.
They were trembling because she remembered.
Not clearly. Just pieces. Screams. Chains. The taste of iron. Fire that didn't hurt. And a name whispered from deep within her bones:
Seraphina.
That wasn't the name the priests gave her when they raised her from the tomb three days ago.
That wasn't the name the King had ordered etched onto their blood-bound marriage contract.
But it was her name. It always had been. And he—the man at the end of the aisle in a crown of serpent gold—he knew it.
Their eyes met as she stepped forward, and the cold smile on his face faltered. His fingers twitched. He was holding something behind his back—something hidden beneath a black velvet cloth.
The floor beneath her clicked with every step, ancient runes lighting dimly beneath her feet—symbols no priest dared to acknowledge.
She didn't belong to this world anymore.
She had come back from somewhere far deeper.
Somewhere darker.
The King of Blackfire Keep—Kael Vortigern, the Immortal Warden, Scourge of the Hollow Realms—stood beside the altar with all the casual confidence of a man who believed himself in control. His robes shimmered like oil over water, stitched with fragments of bone. His crown was forged from the ribs of a long-dead god.
He had slain dragons before.
And yet, his silver gaze—when it met hers—flinched.
"You came," he said softly as she reached the altar. "Even after what I—what we—"
The priest cleared his throat, silencing him.
The ceremony began with ancient chants in a forgotten tongue. The crowd—nobles, monsters, masked gods—watched in dead silence. Everyone was waiting for the kiss. The seal. The moment when flame met fang, when her soul and his were shackled together under the laws of the Pantheon.
But Seraphina could feel it now, clawing beneath her skin.
The dungeon was waking.
Her fingers brushed his as they lifted the ceremonial dagger between them. One drop of blood from each hand. One oath. One kiss.
One lie.
The moment their blood touched the blade, the air howled.
The ground cracked. The cathedral trembled.
Screams echoed from beneath the altar. Not human screams—something older. Hungrier.
"Do you hear that?" she whispered.
Kael said nothing.
He knew.
Of course he did.
The sky outside blackened as the wind shrieked. Her veil lifted of its own accord, spiraling upward like it feared touching her face. Every torch blew out in unison, and the room sank into sudden, suffocating darkness.
And then she remembered everything.
The betrayal.
The circle of gods.
The lie that turned her into ash.
And Kael—his blade through her heart. His whisper: "Forgive me."
Her scream shattered every window in the cathedral. Glass rained down like frozen tears as the runes on the floor ignited in blood-red fire.
Kael reached for her, but she was already lifting from the ground. Her gown caught the flames like it had waited centuries to burn again. Her eyes, once golden, were now slitted and glowing—dragonlight.
"Seraphina—" he breathed.
"You should have left me dead," she said.
And the altar exploded.
Below them, in the bowels of the castle, in the locked crypts no servant dared approach, a single eye blinked open.
A slit pupil. Red as blood. Black veins webbed through ancient stone.
A voice whispered from the dark, in a tongue that hadn't been spoken in ten thousand years.
"She returns."
The Bound One smiled.
TO BE CONTINUED...
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Chapter Hook — The Wedding of Ash and Blood
She was burned alive for a betrayal she barely remembers.
Now, she's soul-bound to the very king who lit the pyre.
But as flames erupt from the altar and whispers rise from the dungeon below, one truth becomes terrifyingly clear:
The Last Red Dragon has returned.
And something far worse is rising with her...
> ⚠️ What lies beneath Blackfire Keep?
💋 Why does the immortal king tremble at her name?
🩸 And what ancient god calls her "daughter"?
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Continue the descent... in Chapter 2: The Dungeon Below the Altar
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