The darkness was endless, as it always was. Kaelen sat in the corner of his stone cell, knees drawn close, one hand resting over his eyes though there was nothing to block. He could hear only the drip of water far down the corridor, the rustle of unseen rats, and the low murmurs of the dead who never left him. He was used to the silence. He had lived inside it so long that even the beating of his own heart felt like a foreign sound.

Then it happened—something that had never happened in the eleven years he had been entombed here.

A knock.

It was soft, deliberate, and impossibly out of place. No one ever knocked. No one ever spoke. His food came like a whisper—placed in, taken away. But this—this was different.

Kaelen lifted his head, hair falling in a wild curtain over his pale face. His gray eyes widened, almost blinded by the sudden scrape of iron as the cell door groaned open. For a heartbeat, he thought it was a trick—some new cruelty, some phantom conjured by his restless mind. But then light touched him.

Not daylight. He had long abandoned that dream. But a candle, held steady in the hand of a young woman.

She stepped inside, her posture upright, unafraid, the flame casting long shadows against her. She looked to be not much older than him, late teens or perhaps her early twenties, but the air around her vibrated with something that made his stomach twist. Power—raw, immense, and hidden so carefully that it had escaped even his senses until she entered. It was unlike anything he had felt before, stronger even than his own. He could almost taste it in the air, like iron and smoke.

Why wasn’t she chained? Why wasn’t she locked away as he was?

Her appearance was striking. Jet black hair spilled like ink down her back, gleaming faintly in the trembling candlelight. Her skin was pale, flawless, almost sculpted. Her eyes—large, dark, with glints of red deep within them—settled on him with an intensity that made him shiver. She wore a dark gown, layered with a lighter cream blouse beneath, her belt and sleeves adorned with gemstones that glowed faintly, red as blood. In her right hand, she carried a curved, rusty-red blade. In her left, she cradled a glowing red orb of energy, pulsing like a heart.

She was not ordinary. Not at all.

Kaelen tried to speak, but his voice was a rasp from disuse. “Who… are you?”

Her gaze lingered on him, studying the pale, ragged figure crouched in the shadows. When she spoke, her tone was calm, steady, and commanding. “My name is Serenya. Daughter of the late High Matron. I am the new leader of this order.”

Kaelen froze. His lips parted, confusion flashing across his hollow face. “The… leader?”

“Yes.” She stepped closer, the candle casting warmth across stone that had never known it. Her eyes narrowed slightly, as though weighing him. “You are the reason I came.”

His heart pounded. She was close now, close enough that he could see the sharp cut of her features, the seriousness etched into every line of her expression. He had never met anyone like her. Not in his dreams, not in his whispers with the dead.

“You… are stronger than me,” he whispered, the words tasting bitter and strange. “Why are you not buried here, in chains, in dark, as I am?”

The faintest shadow of a smile touched her lips, though it was not unkind. She tilted her head, the red light in her hand flickering against the stone.

Kaelen’s fingers curled into the floor, his nails scraping stone. For the first time in years, a fragile thread of hope flickered in his chest, tangled with suspicion, hunger, and awe. This girl—this leader—had come to him, when no one else dared even speak his name.