The kingdom of the Crimson Dominion was not built on soil but on bones. Its foundations were drenched in blood, its palaces carved from obsidian and red stone, quarried from mountains where entire villages had been enslaved to mine until death. From afar, its capital gleamed like a jewel soaked in twilight — towers of black rising against the horizon, spires tipped with crimson banners that snapped like whips in the wind. Yet within, those who dwelled under its rule knew better: it was not a jewel, but a cage.
At the heart of this kingdom loomed the Crimson Palace, a fortress sprawling across the cliffside, its walls thick with veins of dark iron. Its halls were built not for beauty but for intimidation. Every corridor was wide enough for marching soldiers, every gate high enough to swallow armies. The people of the Dominion often said: The palace breathes war, even in silence.
And tonight, the palace breathed heavily.
The royal court had been summoned. Torches burned green, their flames casting unholy shadows upon the walls of the Grand Hall. At the far end of the chamber sat the throne of King Veythar — a beastly structure of black iron and ruby, fashioned in the likeness of a crown devouring a skull. Upon it, Veythar reclined, his hand resting lazily against the throne's clawed arm, yet his presence commanded the air like a predator ready to pounce.
Around him gathered the highest bloodlines of the Dominion: his children, dukes, and barons, all dressed in silks and armors, their eyes sharp with ambition.
On the right of the throne stood Kaelith Draven, crown prince of the Dominion. His hair was as dark as the obsidian towers, his armor polished to a cruel gleam. His features, sharp and severe, carried the same hunger that burned in his father's eyes. He did not fidget, he did not shift. Kaelith did not need to. His stillness alone was a warning.
On the left, Seliora Vaelith, the king's daughter, knelt with grace. Where her brother embodied the Dominion's blade, she was its velvet glove. Silver hair tied with crimson silk, eyes that carried both the cold fire of her father and the unspoken hesitation of a heart not yet hardened fully to cruelty. Her voice, though soft, could cut just as deep.
The Crimson Dominion's throne hall breathed the weight of ambition and blood. Black stone walls stretched high into a vaulted ceiling, where chandeliers burned with red-tinted flame. Along the pillars, banners of deep crimson hung like silent witnesses to centuries of conquest. The air reeked faintly of iron and incense, heavy with the press of power and fear.
On the obsidian throne sat King Veythar, a man carved from shadow and steel. His crown glimmered darkly, not as a symbol of duty, but of hunger. His gaze swept across the gathered lords below — dukes, barons, generals, each weighed down by their own desires yet bound by his tyranny.
The silence broke when Duke Malrick Thorne, a hawk-eyed man with a scar down his cheek, stepped forward. His voice was sharp, like a drawn blade.
"Five years, my king. Five years we have waited for the weapon the gods themselves whispered of. Five years we pour soldiers, coin, and blood into empty schemes. And what do we have? Nothing but shadows and promises. Did Azeriel not deceive us?"
A low murmur rippled through the court.
"Deceive us? He chained the Spirit Realm itself once," growled Duke Vaelor Kryne, whose heavy armor clinked as he shifted forward. "No deceiver holds power to crush gods. If he named the girl a weapon, then a weapon she must be. Perhaps it is we who have been too blind to see her."
"Blind?" scoffed Baron Ulrich Fenrow, his voice rasping with age. "Or perhaps too obedient. What weapon hides five years like a mouse? If she is so divine, why does she not burn the skies with her power? I say she was nothing but a child, and Azeriel knew it. He fooled us all."
The lords broke into overlapping voices — anger, fear, mockery, ambition. Words clashed like steel in the dark hall.
From the side, Baroness Calista Veyne let out a cold laugh, the sound silencing a few. "You men dream of fire and lightning, but perhaps the girl's value lies not in display, but in secrecy. A hidden blade kills far surer than one waved for all to see. The gods spoke of her as the Divine's Bane. Even if she does not yet burn, the fire waits. And if we seize her…" she smiled, lips curved with hunger, "…then the fire will belong to Crimson Dominion."
The murmurs grew louder again.
At last, Duke Elvaris Nyx, pale and soft-spoken, lifted his voice — calm, but cutting. "We circle the same pit, all of us gnawing at the dark. The truth is simple. We do not know where she is. And as long as we do not know, all our arguments are air."
The hall quieted. The words lingered like frost.
King Veythar leaned forward on his throne. His knuckles tapped the armrest, once, twice, before his voice lashed across the chamber.
"Enough."
The silence after was suffocating. His eyes, sharp and cruel, swept across the dukes and barons as if weighing which of them he would crush first.
"You complain of time wasted. You whine of trickery. Do you think the gods would name a lie the bane of their eternity? Do you think Azeriel chained himself to void for nothing? The girl is real. Her power is real. And she belongs to me."
His words reverberated like thunder, cracking the air. None dared move.
And then — the great doors of the hall creaked open.
A figure stumbled in, cloaked in dust and sweat, armor dented, face streaked with travel. A spy, bearing the seal of Crimson Dominion. He collapsed to one knee, pressing his forehead to the cold marble.
"My king," he gasped, voice hoarse. "I bring tidings from the western forest. The barrier that sealed Azeriel's domain… it has fallen."
Every lord in the room stiffened. The chamber seemed to breathe as one.
"Speak," Veythar ordered, his tone low and dangerous.
The spy swallowed hard. "Within the forest, I saw her. The girl."
The silence was absolute.
"She lives… but not as we expected. Not as a queen, nor as a god's weapon. She was—" his voice faltered, as though the image itself betrayed belief, "—she was kneeling by a stream, washing clothes like a mortal child. Laughing softly to herself. She bore no crown, no fire. She seemed… human."
Shock rippled through the court.
"A child?" Malrick spat. "Five years for this?!"
"A ruse," snarled Vaelor. "She hides her flame. That must be it."
Ulrich let out a dry chuckle. "Or perhaps she never had one to begin with. Gods help us — we have been tricked by a washer girl."
"Washer girl or not," Calista purred, "she is the same girl the gods named. And if she lives… then she can be bent. She can be broken. And if she is so soft now, then molding her into our knight will be all the easier."
The court's voices clashed again, rising like storm winds.
Veythar rose. His shadow loomed across the hall, long and jagged, as if the very flames bent to his will. He raised a single hand, and the voices died at once.
"Fools," he said, voice low and venomous. "Do you see it not? This is opportunity. The gods forged her fate, but fate bends to will. She is no queen yet, no god yet — she is clay. And Crimson Dominion will shape her."
He leaned forward, eyes burning with tyranny and greed.
"Prepare the armies. Ready the spies. She will not remain hidden in Azeriel's ruins. We will seize her — quietly, swiftly, before the other realms scent her blood. She will kneel, and when she does, all realms will kneel with her."
The dukes and barons lowered their heads, some trembling, some smiling darkly. The Tyrant had spoken.
---
The forest was too quiet.
The barrier was gone, the hum of Azeriel's unseen presence had vanished with it, and for the first time in five years, the air no longer carried the weight of his shadow. Selene woke expecting the same warmth she had grown used to — the faint trace of his power, the way she always felt him near even if he said nothing. But this morning… there was nothing.
"Dad?"
Her voice was soft at first, uncertain, like a child calling into another room. She pulled the thin blanket tighter around herself and looked toward the palace doors, expecting him to appear, as he always did, tall and imposing, with that unreadable expression that still comforted her somehow.
No answer.
She stood, her small hands brushing against the worn stone walls as if she could feel him through them. "Dad? Are you in the study again? You promised…"
Still nothing. Only the sigh of leaves outside, the faint trickle of the stream, the silence of absence pressing too heavy against her ears.
Her throat tightened. She hurried out the doors and into the clearing, bare feet stumbling over the moss. She looked toward the forest paths, the stream where they used to sit together, the training grounds where he'd watch her swing a wooden blade. Empty. All of it.
"Dad!"
This time it was a shout — sharp, breaking, echoing through the trees. Her breath hitched as she turned in circles, eyes wide, searching.
"You said you'd never leave me!" Her voice cracked. "You said… you said I was yours! Where are you?!"
She ran to the stream, dropping to her knees as if he might appear in the ripples. She splashed the water with her hands, trembling. "Please… don't go. Not you too."
Her chest heaved. The memories she didn't know she had — shadows of another father, of another childhood — ached somewhere deep in her blood, but she couldn't reach them. All she knew was this one, the only one who mattered, the man she had called dad.
Her vision blurred as tears filled her eyes. For five years she had not cried. For five years she had been silent, obedient, learning, waiting, always trusting his shadow would remain. But now…
"Dad…"
Her voice broke into sobs. She clutched at the carving he had given her — a crude figure of a dragon and a girl, rough-hewn from dark wood. Her fingers tightened around it until her nails dug into her palms. She pressed it to her forehead, rocking back and forth, as if the little piece of him could anchor her in this unraveling world.
The forest swallowed her cries.
She could not know of the divine chains that bound him. She could not know of the judgment in the heavens, or the politics sharpening knives with her name upon them. She only knew that her father — cruel, strange, confusing, but hers — was gone.
Her sobs grew louder, rawer, ripping out of her chest until her throat burned. The sound carried through the trees, startling birds into flight. Her small frame shook with grief far too vast for her age, grief that belonged to a child who had never been allowed a childhood.
She pressed her face into her knees, voice muffled and broken.
"Don't leave me… please… I'll be good, I'll do anything… just don't go."
Hours slipped past like that. She sat at the edge of the stream, carving clutched tight, her cries fading into hoarse whispers, then into silence. Her body ached, her eyes swollen, but the emptiness inside her was greater than anything her small form could hold.
And when the night fell, when the shadows lengthened and the moonlight silvered the ruined palace, Selene was still there, curled against the stone steps, shivering with the last of her tears.
A child abandoned.
A daughter grieving for a father who had never been hers — and yet was all she had.
The forest watched in silence. And somewhere far beyond her reach, chained in the void, Azeriel smiled faintly in his darkness, whispering words she could not hear.
"Well done, my dear daughter."