Three Days Before the Tower Appeared
The capital of Velmira was not made for softness.
It was made for power. For masks. For silence dressed as civility.
And in the middle of that cold, gilded storm, Seraphine Vale sat in her family's carriage, lips painted crimson and spine straight as a sword.
She hated this part.
Hated the role she had to play.
Outside the carriage window, the noble district rolled past in a blur of marble columns and perfumed gardens. Guards saluted. Servants bowed. Birds scattered as the Vale crest—silver flame over black velvet—flashed in the afternoon sun.
It all felt fake. All of it.
"Lady Seraphine," her steward said, clearing his throat from the seat across. "House Aldren is expecting you by the ninth bell. The engagement luncheon begins at—"
"I'm not marrying him, Dathan," Seraphine said flatly, adjusting the leather glove over her left hand.
Dathan smiled with the patience of a man long accustomed to her moods. "Not officially. Not yet."
"Then stop calling it a luncheon. It's a transaction."
The steward's smile didn't waver. "A transaction worth seven million crowns and the stabilization of the Western trade route. One must play one's part, my lady."
She stared at him.
"Must one?"
Seraphine Vale was seventeen, born into a world of veils and poison cups, where alliances were made in bedchambers and broken in council halls.
Her father, Lord Vale, was a high seat in the Circle of Thrones. Her mother had been a silent casualty of that same circle.
Seraphine had learned two truths early in life:
No one gave you power. You took it.
Power always came with a leash.
She arrived at the Aldren estate like a doll wrapped in silk—dark violet gown, perfect hair pinned with obsidian thorns, cold composure etched into every feature. Her eyes—winter blue—were unreadable.
She smiled when needed. Laughed when it was expected. Flirted with the heir of Aldren just enough to keep him interested and just little enough to keep him from feeling secure.
He was handsome, in the shallow way noble sons often were. Polished. Dangerous in the way boredom makes boys cruel.
He didn't see her.
Not really.
They never did.
When the luncheon ended and the political games were done, Seraphine retired to her carriage again, peeled off her gloves, and pressed her bare hand against the polished wood interior.
The glyph hidden beneath her skin shimmered faintly.
A secret sigil—one of the old kinds. Veiled beneath glamours, invisible to most. A parting gift from her mother before she died.
"You'll need this one day," her mother had whispered, fingers trembling. "When they turn on you. When the tower wakes."
Seraphine hadn't understood then.
She was beginning to now.
📍 Present Day — Forest Edge, South of Senra's Reach
Kaelen's breath fogged as he stared at the silhouette in the distance.
The Tower.
It stood now like it had in the dream—unreal, too massive for the world around it. No one else was here to see it. No witnesses. No one to tell him he wasn't losing his mind.
He didn't move for a long time.
Didn't know where to go. What to do.
He was sixteen, alone, hunted, and marked by forbidden magic he barely understood.
The glyphs had burned his arms—now gone. But the memory remained etched deeper than skin.
Veritas magic.
His head spun with questions.
Why him?
Why now?
What was the Tower?
He needed answers. Somewhere far from Senra's Reach. Far from people who'd started whispering "curse" and "heretic."
Kaelen had no gold. No supplies. Barely enough food in the satchel he'd grabbed before fleeing.
But he had something else:
A direction.
He traveled north.
By foot, mostly. Hiding in the forest paths. Sleeping under trees. Avoiding roads when he heard hooves.
Whispers spread quickly in the outlands. A boy with storm eyes and cursed glyphs. A heretic who stopped a raider charge with a single word. A demon-kin. A vessel of gods.
None of it was true.
None of it mattered.
Truth and lies were just stories people chose to believe.
And stories could kill you.
📍 Back in the Capital
Seraphine stood before a sealed door beneath her family's estate.
The chamber was older than the mansion above it. Older than the city. Carved from black stone, lit by a single orb of floating white light.
On the wall was an ancient map—covered in markings no scholar in the empire could read.
Except Seraphine.
Her mother had taught her the old tongue.
And on that map, a mark had appeared three days ago. It hadn't been there before.
A glyph.
A flare.
Located in the forests near Senra's Reach.
Veritas magic.
The Tower… had moved.
Seraphine clenched her fists, eyes narrowing.
"The old magic has returned," she whispered.
It meant the gods were stirring again.
And it meant the empire would soon start killing anyone they suspected of using it.
If someone had awakened it—someone unknown, someone untrained—they would become the center of every blade and every lie in the empire.
She turned to her steward.
"Dathan. Prepare a horse. And a fake name."
He looked surprised. "Are you traveling, my lady?"
"Not me," she said calmly.
Then she smiled.
"A girl named Selene is."