The Void Comet came without warning, No prophet spoke of it, No star reader saw its approach, One moment the night sky over Ashenmere was clear and cold, scattered with winter stars; the next, a second sun ignited in the east white-hot, silent, impossibly fast.
Lira was in the forge loft, curled on her pallet with Garrick's old cloak around her shoulders, dreaming of fire that did not burn her, the impact woke her like a slap.
The ground bucked, Beams cracked overhead, Dust and sparks rained down. She scrambled down the ladder as the forge roof collapsed behind her, timbers crashing where her bed had been a heartbeat earlier.
Outside, the world had ended.
The comet had struck far away hundreds of leagues toward the capital but the shockwave rolled across the land like the fist of an angry god ,Trees bent double and snapped. The village well exploded upward in a geyser of stone and water Roofs tore off like paper, Then came the fire, Not ordinary flame. This was white-gold, hungry, unnatural ,It raced along the ground faster than horses could run, igniting grass, wood, flesh with equal indifference. The air itself seemed to burn; breathing scorched Lira's throat. She stumbled into the square and stopped, frozen by what she saw.
Garrick lay on his back near the well, chest crushed by a fallen beam, blood bubbling at his lips. His eyes found hers across the chaos. "Run…" he rasped, the word barely audible over the roar of flame.
Little Mira sweet, gap-toothed Mira who followed Lira everywhere stood in the middle of the lane, staring at the sky with wide, wondering eyes, The fire reached her first. Her dress caught, then her hair. She opened her mouth to scream, but the flames took her voice before it could escape. In seconds there was only a small, blackened shape crumpling to ash.
Old Marta the baker ran past, clothes ablaze, beating at herself with burning hands. She collided with Lira, eyes mad with pain, and fell ,The fire rolled over her like a wave.
Young Tomas seven years old, the boy who used to bring Lira wildflowers tried to hide behind the bakery cart The flames found him anyway. His small body curled like burning paper.
Lira tried to scream Garrick's name, but the heat stole her breath ,The fire was everywhere now, a living wall closing in.
The pain hit her then not physical, but something deeper. A tearing inside her chest, as though her heart had been ripped out and set alight. Gold fire answered from within her, It burst from her skin in a perfect sphere, pushing back the white-gold flames for one precious moment. In that bubble of safety she saw everything: the village burning to bone, the sky raining ash, the distant capital a pillar of fire on the horizon, and far beyond millions of lights winking out as the comet's wrath swept the realm.
Then the bubble collapsed, The white-gold fire rushed in. Lira closed her eyes and waited for the pain,It never came. Instead, there was darkness cool, quiet, absolute.
When she opened her eyes again, she was lying on cold stone under a starless sky,
The village was gone, The fire was gone,The bodies were gone.
She was alone in a vast, empty courtyard of ancient white marble, ringed by crumbling pillars carved with symbols she had never seen, The air smelled of dust and old magic.
But she was not truly alone.
In the distance, faint voices echoed shouts, cries, the clash of steel. Smoke rose from beyond the pillars, and shadows moved: figures running, fighting, surviving.
Thousands of them. Millions, perhaps.All pulled into this place by the same comet that had taken her world.
In the centre of the courtyard hovered a single Rune-Stone a flat disc of black obsidian larger than a man, glowing with soft crimson light. Ancient letters appeared in living flame across its surface, written in the forgotten tongue of the First Gods;
WELCOME TO THE ETERNAL ORDEAL,
ENDURE THE RUNES OF FATE TO CLAIM LIFE ANEW, FALL AND BE UNMADE FOREVER.
The Rune-Stone turned slowly, On its reverse face, a single sigil burned brighter than the rest:
THE FIRST RUNE (THE BLAZING HEART AWAKENS AT DAWN).
Lira pushed herself up on trembling arms. Ash still clung to her skin, her clothes half-burned away, revealing the soft curves of her body to the cold air, Her breasts rose and fell with panicked breaths; her thighs shook.
She was alive, But everyone she loved Garrick, Mira, Tomas, Marta was dead, Or so she believed.
And in this crowded, timeless place where the dead played deadly games for the right to live again, the Eternal Ordeal had already begun.