Seraphina woke with a tingling in her head that refused to fade.
She lay still in her silken sheets, staring up at the canopy of her bed—a masterwork of embroidered fabric depicting the ascension of the First Seraph, all golden thread and luminous white. The morning light filtered through gauze curtains, painting her chambers in soft shades of grey and pearl. Everything around her spoke of privilege, of status, of the heights to which her family had climbed across generations of careful cultivation.
And yet she felt utterly alone.
The dream lingered in her mind like smoke after a fire—the vast mausoleum, the polished black stone, the two strangers who had shared that impossible space with her. Darian of Mithrakesh, with his rough clothes and wolf-bright eyes. Khaemon of Ankhara, with his noble bearing and shadowed secrets. Both of them marked by the same curse that was slowly destroying her life.
Was it real?
She wanted to believe it was merely her mind seeking comfort, creating phantoms to share her burden. The alternative—that she had somehow crossed the barriers between empires, between sleeping minds, between the very paths of power themselves—was too vast to contemplate. Such things existed only in the oldest texts, in fragments of pre-Sundering lore that the Church dismissed as myth and metaphor.
But the tingling in her head felt real. The exhaustion in her bones felt real. And the memory of their faces, their voices, their shared recognition of impossible circumstances—that felt most real of all.
I am not alone.
The thought brought a comfort she had not expected. For three weeks, she had carried her secret in absolute isolation. Not her mother, whose love was conditional on propriety. Not her father, whose ambitions left no room for damaged daughters. Not her tutors or servants or the endless parade of courtiers who filled her days with empty pleasantries. None of them could know. None of them could help.
But perhaps—perhaps—two strangers from enemy lands could.
Seraphina rose from her bed, her bare feet meeting cold marble as she crossed to the tall windows that dominated the eastern wall of her chambers. She pulled back the gauze curtains and looked out upon Solaurex, the City of the Burning Crown.
The capital stretched before her like a beast in slumber.
From her family's estate on the Noble Hill, she could see the entire city laid out in concentric rings of power and privilege. The innermost ring held the Imperial Palace and the Grand Cathedral, their spires reaching toward the ash-grey sky as if trying to pierce the veil that had covered the world for three millennia. The second ring contained the estates of the great families—the Aurelions, the Priscans, the Maximians, and a dozen others whose bloodlines traced back to the founding of the Imperium. The third ring held the temples and academies, the markets and manufactories, the countless structures that kept an empire functioning.
Beyond that, sprawling outward until it met the great walls, lay the rest of Solaurex—hundreds of thousands of souls going about their lives, unaware of the powers that moved above them, unaware of the girl in the high tower who might be their undoing.
A beast calm and sleeping, Seraphina thought. But for how long?
She could feel the tensions building beneath the city's placid surface. The Church had grown more aggressive in recent months, its Inquisition expanding its reach, its rhetoric growing sharper against those who deviated from orthodoxy. The Imperial family chafed against ecclesiastical control, and whispers of conflict between crown and clergy circulated through every salon and drawing room. The great families maneuvered for advantage, forming alliances and nursing grudges, preparing for whatever upheaval might come.
And somewhere in that churning sea of ambition and intrigue, Seraphina floated like a leaf on the current—valuable only so long as she remained useful, protected only so long as she remained pure.
If they knew what she was becoming…
Her hand went to her left arm, fingers tracing the outline of the tattoo through the sleeve of her sleeping gown. She did not need to see it to know it was there—the stylized wing, black as sin against her pale skin, growing slowly larger with each passing day. Three weeks ago, it had been the size of a coin. Now it stretched from her elbow nearly to her wrist.
Why me? Why now?
She had asked herself these questions a thousand times, and a thousand times the silence had been her only answer. She had done nothing to invite this corruption. Had followed every teaching, observed every ritual, maintained every standard of purity that the Church demanded. Her Seraph was strong and beautiful, a two-gemmed manifestation that marked her as one of the most promising young practitioners of her generation.
And yet the beast-blood had come anyway, uninvited and unstoppable, spreading through her like ink through water.
She thought of her betrothal—the carefully negotiated arrangement that would bind her to Crown Prince Maxentius Aurelion, sixth gem of his line, heir to the throne of the Imperium itself. The wedding was still two years away, but the political implications had already been set in motion. Her family had invested everything in this alliance. Her father's position at court, her uncles' military commands, her mother's social standing—all of it rested upon Seraphina's shoulders.
Upon her purity.
If the Church discovered her contamination, the betrothal would be dissolved instantly. The shame would destroy her family's standing. Her father would be forced to resign his positions. Her uncles would lose their commands. And Seraphina herself…
She did not want to think about what would happen to her. The Church had ways of dealing with heretics, and those ways were not gentle.
Father would act before it came to that, she thought, and the realization brought no comfort. If he learned the truth, if he saw the threat to everything he has built…
She knew her father loved her, in his way. But she also knew that his love was not unconditional. The family came first—always. If protecting the family meant sacrificing a damaged daughter, Seraphina had no illusions about which choice he would make.
And then there were her siblings.
Aurelius, her older brother, already walked the halls of the Grand Cathedral as a fourth-gem priest, his ambitions fixed on the Hierophancy itself. Lucilla, her younger sister, smiled sweetly and watched with calculating eyes, waiting for any sign of weakness that might elevate her own position. Marcus, the youngest, was too young yet to be a threat—but he would learn, in time. They all learned.
They are my blood, Seraphina thought bitterly. But they are not my allies. In this family, no one is.
She turned away from the window, letting the curtain fall back into place. The tingling in her head had faded to a dull ache, but the exhaustion remained—a bone-deep weariness that no amount of sleep seemed to cure. Whatever had happened in that dream-mausoleum, it had cost her something.
She needed answers. She needed hope. She needed to understand what was happening to her before it was too late.
The family library awaited.
The Aurelion library occupied the entire east wing of the estate, three floors of shelves and alcoves containing centuries of accumulated knowledge. Most of it was mundane—genealogies and histories, treatises on politics and warfare, the collected correspondence of ancestors long dead. But scattered among the public texts were other works, older and stranger, kept under lock and key for the eyes of family members only.
Seraphina had been granted access to these restricted sections on her sixteenth birthday, a privilege that came with her status as the family's most promising Seraph-bearer. She had used that access sparingly in the past, finding little of interest among the dry theological debates and obscure ritual descriptions.
Now, she returned with different eyes.
The librarian—an ancient servant named Corvinus who had held his position since before Seraphina's birth—looked up as she entered. His rheumy eyes took in her appearance: the simple dress chosen for privacy rather than fashion, the hair hastily bound rather than elaborately styled, the shadows beneath her eyes that spoke of troubled sleep.
"Lady Seraphina." His voice creaked like old hinges. "You are here early."
"I could not sleep." It was close enough to truth. "I wish to do some research. Private research."
Corvinus nodded slowly, asking no questions. He had served the family too long to pry into matters that did not concern him. "The restricted sections are unlocked for you, my lady. Shall I have refreshments sent?"
"No. I do not wish to be disturbed."
"As you command."
She climbed the spiral staircase to the third floor, where the oldest and most sensitive texts were kept. The air here smelled of dust and preservation oils, the particular scent of knowledge guarded against time. Narrow windows admitted thin shafts of grey light, barely enough to read by. Seraphina lit a lamp and began her search.
She did not know exactly what she was looking for. References to the Fractured, perhaps—the term she had used in the dream, drawn from fragments she had encountered in previous research. Or accounts of dual-path awakening, of practitioners who had manifested abilities outside their primary discipline. Or records of the Sundering War, that cataclysm three thousand years past that had supposedly shattered the original unified path into the four separate traditions that now defined the world.
The hours slipped by unnoticed. She pulled texts from shelves, scanned their contents, returned them and selected others. Most contained nothing useful—the expected histories and theologies, carefully curated to support the Church's current doctrines. But here and there, she found fragments that hinted at deeper truths.
…the Convergent, those who bore the marks of multiple disciplines, were hunted and destroyed in the years following the Sundering. The Council of Purity decreed that such aberrations threatened the stability of the new order…
…madness claims all who attempt to walk two paths. The integration of separate Kha-expressions creates fundamental dissonance within the practitioner's soul, leading inevitably to dissolution of identity…
…some records suggest the Shattered King himself was a Convergent of unprecedented power, having achieved mastery in all four paths before his destruction. These accounts are considered apocryphal by Church authorities…
Seraphina copied the relevant passages into a small notebook, her handwriting cramped and hurried. Each fragment added to her understanding, but none offered the solution she desperately sought. The pattern was clear: those who awakened multiple paths went mad. The timeline varied—some within months, others lasting years—but the end was always the same.
Fourth level, she had told the others in the dream. The madness comes by the fourth level.
She was second gem on the Seraph path. The beast-tattoo on her arm was first level, barely awakened, but growing stronger with each passing day. If she continued advancing—if she could not stop the progression—she had perhaps a decade before the madness claimed her.
A decade. It seemed both an eternity and an eyeblink.
There must be another way, she thought fiercely. The Shattered King walked all four paths and did not go mad. Whatever happened to him, it was not madness that destroyed him. If he found a way to integrate them…
But the records of the Shattered King were fragmentary at best, suppressed and distorted by three millennia of ecclesiastical revision. Finding the truth about him would require resources beyond what her family's library could provide.
It would require allies.
Seraphina closed her notebook and sat in silence, surrounded by the dusty wisdom of ages, feeling more alone than ever. ANKHARA, THE KHEMRIC DOMINION
Khaemon sat in his quarters, watching the shadows move across the wall.
The morning light in Ptah-Ankhara was different from Solaurex—harsher, more direct, filtered through the sand-colored haze that perpetually hung over the Second Empire's capital. His chambers in House Osirath's compound were modest by the standards of the great families, reflecting the declining status of his bloodline. Once, the Osiraths had been among the foremost Ka-Forging houses. Now, they clung to respectability through tradition and marriage alliances, their true power a fraction of what it had been generations ago.
Was it real?
The question circled in his mind like a vulture over carrion. The dream—the mausoleum—the two strangers who had shared that impossible space. Had it been genuine contact, some form of connection he could not explain? Or was it merely his mind seeking escape from the horrible reality of his waking life?
He wanted to believe it was real. Wanted it with a desperation that frightened him.
Because if it was real, he was not alone. If it was real, there were others who understood what he was facing. If it was real, there might be hope.
And if it was not…
Khaemon looked down at the knife in his hands. His Ka-Tool—the manifestation of his inner essence, the proof of his awakening to the Path of the Forge. It was a simple blade, elegant in its economy, with a single stripe of gold running along its edge. In another family, such a tool might have been celebrated. Knives were precise, personal, intimate weapons that spoke of surgical skill rather than brute force.
But House Osirath was a house of blades. Great blades—swords and axes and massive cutting implements that could cleave stone and steel. For generations, the firstborn sons had manifested weapons of impressive size and power, tools that announced their wielders' importance to all who saw them.
And Khaemon, third son of a declining house, had manifested a knife.
He remembered his father's face when the awakening occurred. Not anger—that would have been too honest an emotion for Lord Osirath. Instead, there had been a careful blankness, a studied neutrality that spoke louder than any condemnation. A knife, that expression had said. Of course. What else would the least of my sons produce?
His brothers had been less subtle. Sethos, the eldest, with his four-striped greatsword. Menkaure, the second, with his three-striped war-axe. They had laughed behind their hands, secure in their superiority, content to watch their younger brother struggle in their shadows.
Khaemon had accepted it. Had buried his shame and focused on improvement, telling himself that the size of the tool mattered less than the skill of the wielder. Some of the greatest Ka-Forgers in history had borne modest weapons. He would prove himself through dedication and mastery.
But then the other power had come.
He set the knife aside and pulled back his sleeve, exposing his left wrist. The shadow-mark writhed beneath his skin, darker today than it had been yesterday, spreading slowly up his forearm like roots seeking purchase. It was not a tattoo—not in the traditional sense. It was something else, something that seemed to exist between the layers of his flesh, visible only in certain lights and certain moods.
It whispered to him, sometimes. When he was tired, or angry, or afraid. It whispered of power, of hunger, of secrets buried in the darkness beneath the world. It promised him strength beyond anything his knife could provide—if only he would embrace it.
The Umbral Path. The Fourth Way. The power that could not be named, practiced only by heretics who dwelt in the lightless cities beneath the earth.
If anyone discovered what he was becoming, execution would be the kindest fate he could expect.
Khaemon pulled his sleeve back down, hiding the mark from sight if not from awareness. His mind returned to the dream—to Seraphina with her Seraph and her beast-tattoo, to Darian with his wolf-blood and his impossible ring. Three practitioners from three empires, each awakening to paths they should not possess.
We have a common problem, Seraphina had said. And this may be our chance to find a solution.
Did he dare to believe her? Did he dare to hope that somewhere in the vast accumulation of human knowledge, there existed an answer to their shared curse?
He picked up the knife again, feeling its weight, its balance, the subtle pulse of power that connected it to his heart. Such a small thing. Such a shameful thing, by his family's standards. But it was his, and it had never betrayed him, and in the darkness of his current circumstances, that consistency was precious.
If I had power, he thought, gripping the blade until his knuckles whitened, nobody would dare to hurt me. Nobody would dare to look at me with contempt. Nobody would dare—
He stopped himself, recognizing the direction of his thoughts. The shadow-mark pulsed beneath his sleeve, responding to his anger, feeding on his resentment. This was how it worked, he had realized. This was how the Umbral power grew—by consuming negative emotions, by turning pain and fear and rage into fuel for its expansion.
Every time he let himself feel the full weight of his grievances, the mark grew stronger. And every time the mark grew stronger, the whispers grew louder.
A perfect trap. A slow spiral toward madness.
He set the knife down and forced himself to breathe slowly, deliberately, pushing the dark thoughts aside. The meditation techniques he had learned for Ka-Forging helped, but they were not designed for this purpose. They could not address the fundamental dissonance of housing two incompatible powers within a single soul.
He needed answers. Needed guidance. Needed something more than his own fumbling attempts to manage an impossible situation.
The dream had offered him two potential allies. But could he trust them? Seraphina was Church-raised, steeped in doctrines that labeled his Umbral power as absolute heresy. If she knew the true nature of his second awakening, would she recoil? Would she betray him to save herself?
And Darian—a thin-blooded peasant from the Third Empire, with no resources, no connections, no power beyond his single tattoo and mysterious ring. What could he possibly offer?
They are the only ones who understand, a voice whispered—not the shadow, but his own desperate hope. They are the only ones who might help. And you are the only one who might help them.
Khaemon rose from his seat and walked to the window. Ptah-Ankhara sprawled before him, the City of Eternal Forges, its countless workshops and academies producing the finest Ka-Forged tools in all the world. Somewhere in those buildings, knowledge waited—records of the Sundering, accounts of the Convergent, secrets that might save him or damn him.
He would find them. He would learn. And when next he met his fellow Fractured in that dream-mausoleum, he would have something to offer beyond his own desperation.
The knife called to him from where it lay on the table. He picked it up again, feeling its familiar weight settle into his palm.
If I had power, he thought again—but this time, the thought was different. Not angry, not resentful. Determined.
When I have power. When I have mastered both my paths. When I have found a way to survive what should destroy me.
Then we will see who dares to look down on me.
The shadow-mark pulsed once, hungry for his ambition. But Khaemon did not let it consume him. Instead, he channeled the feeling into his knife, watching the stripe along its edge glow faintly brighter.
He had work to do.