The dawn bled slowly into the realm, painting the sky in shades of rust and copper, like embers fading in a dying fire.
Rhiannon rose from the cold stones of the temple steps, her cloak damp with night dew, her heart still racing from the encounter with the stranger beneath the fractured sky.
The temple's interior smelled of incense and age, a blend of ash, sweat, and forgotten devotion. Priests moved silently, their faces carved in shadows, murmuring words she did not fully understand. But she felt the weight in them — fear, awe, expectation — all directed toward her.
A high priest stepped forward, robes dragging across the worn floor, his eyes pools of solemn certainty.
"Child of the Silver Flame," he intoned, voice echoing like the hollowed stones themselves, "the prophecy stirs. The Veil weakens, and the blood of the first age remembers."
Rhiannon felt the words like a physical strike. The Silver Flame. The prophecy.
She had heard whispers in her village, old wives' tales of flames that burned without consuming, of the immortals that walked between worlds. She had thought of them as just bedtime stories, exaggerations born of superstition. Now, the words carried weight. They carried her destiny.
She followed the priests deeper into the temple, where light filtered through shattered windows in beams that painted the dust in gold. The altar stood before her, massive and scarred with ancient rites. Symbols carved into stone, faded but indomitable, pulsed faintly with energy that made the hairs on her arms rise.
She reached out, fingers brushing the cold surface, and in that instant, a vision tore through her mind.
A battlefield. Smoke and fire, screams and steel. And there — a man with golden eyes running through the chaos, chasing shadows that seemed to bite at his heels. He turned, saw her, and their eyes met across time and space.
She felt it then, deep in her chest: the pull, the inevitability, the spark of something that had existed before and would exist again.
Valerius. The name came unbidden, resonating as if the world itself whispered it.
The high priest's voice broke her trance. "Two souls are bound," he said, gesturing to the altar.
Rhiannon stumbled back, breath catching. "Two...?" she asked, voice trembling. "I am... just a girl."
The priest's gaze softened, though the weight of prophecy remained. "Child, you are never just yourself. You are the flame. And he... yours."
Outside, the wind stirred, carrying whispers across the cliffs.
Rhiannon's mind raced. He was real.
The man from her vision existed, somewhere beyond the temple walls. Somewhere beyond the shadows. And the pull she had felt last night was no dream.
The walls themselves seemed to hum, vibrating with ancient energy. Shadows in the corners moved, curling toward her in shapes both familiar and alien.
She shivered, understanding with a clarity that frightened her: the Realm itself remembered, and it had chosen her as its witness.
"Come," the priest said, holding out a hand. "You must learn. The Veil will not wait for you to be ready."
Rhiannon took a deep breath, stepping forward into the temple's heart, where knowledge, danger, and destiny converged. In the silence between her heartbeat and the priest's footsteps, she felt the first true echo of prophecy — a whisper that would haunt her dreams and fuel her courage in equal measure.
"When silver flame meets immortal, the Realm will bleed, and only together can they survive the dawn."
And with that, she crossed the threshold, unaware that eyes unseen were watching, measuring, and waiting.
The first threads of fate had begun to weave, and Rhiannon knew — for better or worse — that her life, her love, and her power were no longer her own.