Beneath the shattered sky of the Holy Capital of Eclavorn, the Grand Cathedral loomed like a monument carved by the gods themselves—ivory spires reaching to heaven, each etched with ancient scripture and tales of divine miracles, and within, the grand halls echoed with solemn hymns sung by a hundred-strong choir. Their voices rose in melancholic unity, drifting like smoke toward the distant, golden dome above the altar.
The scent of myrrh and sanctified oils clung to the air, mixing with the metallic tang of old blood hidden beneath the sacred floorboards. Candles burned in great circular tiers, illuminating the alabaster faces of forgotten saints.
Kneeling at the center of it all, draped in a mantle of night-colored silk and white-gold embroidery, was His Holiness Orven XIII, the Grand Pope of the Obsidian Faith—the most powerful spiritual authority in the known world. His lips moved in silent prayer. His fingers traced invisible sigils over his chest. Behind him, the weight of centuries of dogma pressed upon his spine.
But then, from between the sacred pillars, a presence emerged—cloaked in shadows and ancient blasphemy.
A man—or rather, something wearing the shape of a man—walked silently, his feet never quite touching the marble floor. His robes were a mass of abyss-black tendrils woven together, stitched with bones of unblessed beasts. His hood concealed all but his mouth, which curved into a smile too wide, too sharp.
High Priest Nareth of the Abyssal Order.
"Peace be upon you, Grand Pope," Nareth said, his voice like a dying fire, low and hissing. "And how have you been, shepherd of men?"
The Pope rose slowly, turning to face him with a gentility that belied the iron will behind his eyes.
"Well, well, High Priest Nareth… or should I say, Shadow of the Southern Chasm," the Pope said with a dry smile. "It has been... long, hasn't it? Tell me, how fares the Abyss?"
"The Abyss always stirs, Holy Father," Nareth replied with a slight bow. "But even it dreams of unity, now."
Orven XIII clasped his hands behind his back and paced toward the golden altar, his staff clicking against the marble. "I'm surprised they sent you. I thought the Abyssal Faith still considered us... misguided, soft, and overrun with 'sun-drunk fools.'"
"Some of my kin still do," Nareth said, eyes glinting beneath the shadows. "But others of us… the visionaries, we see the inevitable. Humanity is divided by too many gods. Too many thrones. And too little time."
Orven gestured toward a massive mural behind the altar—depicting the Last Judgment, where heretics burned beneath divine fire and the righteous ascended with the Seraphs. His voice dropped, barely a whisper.
"We have both watched this world rot under false kings and splintered gods. The Empire bleeds from within. The Arqaban Sultanate sharpens its scimitars. The tribal lands churn with forgotten beasts. And worst of all... faith fades in the hearts of men."
Nareth's lips twitched. "So we usher in something greater. Not peace. Order."
The Pope turned, his golden eyes gleaming. "Even if that order must come through calamity?"
"Yes," Nareth answered. "Through fire. Through fear. Through the awakening of the sealed horrors beneath the world. Only then will the people cry for salvation. Only then will they bow—not to nations—but to faith."
A long silence stretched between them.
"Then we are aligned," the Pope finally said. "You unleash the darkness. We promise the light. We raise one god above all—and everything else beneath it."
They walked together now, side by side, through the hidden corridors of the cathedral, down to the sanctum where lay the Seal of Damnation—an ancient, divine lock placed upon one of the Abyss's most terrible creatures.
As they passed by relics of saints and martyrs, Nareth chuckled.
"Tell me, Holy Father. How will you explain to your sheep when the monsters begin to rise?"
The Pope gave a thin smile. "They will cry. They will curse the heavens. And then they will beg me to save them."
"Ah," Nareth purred. "And you will offer salvation."
"For a price," the Pope nodded. "Unquestioning loyalty. Absolute faith. In one god. Mine."
They stopped before the final gate—a towering door of blackened bronze etched with thirteen eyes and seven tongues, chained with divine scripture and sealed by the blood of a thousand angels.
"This... is where it begins," Orven XIII said, his voice reverent. "A calamity so vast... that it will scorch the names of kings from history. And leave only the echo of our church."
Nareth raised a claw-like hand, pressing it to the gate. "Shall we wake the sleepers?"
"Soon," the Pope said. "Let the world descend further. Let the nobles dance, the empires squabble, the tribes howl. Then... we rip the sky open."
The ground trembled faintly.
Something behind the gate stirred.
And both priest and pope smiled like men who had seen the end of the world—and were eager to be its architects.
The scent of blood, old whiskey, and betrayal clung to the stone walls of Viper's Pit, an underground den of mercenaries and informants hidden beneath the slums of the imperial capital. Princess Sonya, cloaked in a dark hood and surrounded by three of her most trusted retainers, pushed open the rusting door of the pit's central chamber. The light inside was dim, flickering off tarnished blades and greedy eyes.
A long table waited at the center. Around it, figures lounged—cutthroats, spies, and brokers of secrets. At the far end sat the informant she had come for, a man named Kael with ink-black eyes and fingers stained with ash. He'd once served the Empire's intelligence core but now sold information to the highest bidder.
"You've made me wait, Princess," Kael said, tapping a coin on the table.
Sonya pulled back her hood, revealing her sharp blue eyes and the cold elegance of her noble blood. "You made me bleed. My caravans were destroyed. My men were butchered. I want names."
Kael raised a brow, clearly weighing the cost of crossing whoever had ordered the hit. But he had no loyalty, only a price.
He slid a small, blood-stamped scroll across the table. "Read."
Sonya snatched it up, broke the seal, and froze. Her breath caught in her throat. The orders were forged from a seal she knew too well. Ravenclaw. The words were coded, the phrasing unmistakable. It was his hand. He had orchestrated the attacks—crippling her supply lines, burning her networks, erasing her foothold one caravan at a time.
Kael leaned forward. "He's playing a game, your highness. You just weren't meant to know you were a pawn."
Her mind spun. Why? Why would he do this? What does he gain? The two of them had shared secrets. Memories. A history filled with tension, but not war.
She stood, her heart beating with fury. "You're playing a dangerous game, Ravenclaw," she muttered under her breath. "And I'll make sure you regret it."
Outside, beneath a sickle moon, Sonya pulled her hood back on, her face hardened with new purpose. She turned to her retainers.
"We move for the crystal," she said. "Now."
"But what of Ravenclaw?"
"He'll come," she whispered. "He doesn't know I'm after the Orb of Nemesis. Let him keep playing his games. I'll find the crystal first.
Beneath the pale light of a blood-red moon, the canyons echoed with murmurs not born of mortal tongues.
Selen stood at the edge of a forgotten ravine carved into the spine of the world—a fissure known only in the oldest, most forbidden maps. The winds here spoke of ancient blood. Time itself seemed slower. Her silver hair fluttered behind her like threads of moonlight, her expression unreadable beneath the obsidian veil she wore as priestess of the Abyssal Order.
Behind her, clad in robes of silence and scarred armor stitched with runes of the old abyss, the Abyssal warriors emerged—one by one, stepping through a veil that shimmered with voidlight. Their numbers were few, but each was more dangerous than a hundred men. Warlocks. Silent blades. Beasts twisted by faith and void.
Abyssal Warden Saekha, her lieutenant, bowed deeply. "The crystal is not far now, High Seeker. The dream-paths open. The whispers lead true."
"Good," Selen said, her voice like silk wrapped around a dagger. "And the deterrents?"
"Three imperial watchposts have already fallen. The last scout reported seeing the sigil of Ravenclaw's estate scouts nearby. Should we engage?"
Selen didn't answer at first. Her gaze lifted to the starlit sky—a tapestry she had come to loathe. The stars were ordered. They were fate. But she walked with chaos, and chaos hated the stars.
"No," she said at last. "Do not engage unless they interfere. If Ravenclaw finds me here, the crystal will be buried again. He must not know yet. Not until I hold the Orb."
Saekha nodded once. "And if the crystal resists?"
"Then we tear the earth apart until it yields."
The Abyssals moved like phantoms through the canyon. They left no footsteps, only the faint smell of ashes and burnt prayers. And behind them, in the veil between realms, the spirits stirred. Hungry. Watching.
The night was unnaturally quiet.
A fog had descended over the Academy, clinging to the old stones of the towers and halls like a shroud. The stars, usually sharp and radiant above the spires, were veiled in a cold haze. A storm was not coming—but something darker was.
Ravenclaw walked through the corridor of the east wing, his coat fluttering with each step, a thin stack of documents under his arm. Dinner had been unusually quiet. Too quiet. A few students had whispered nervously about Selen being spotted in the capital. Others had muttered about Sonya's factories being attacked, smuggler networks disappearing one by one. Politics, espionage, paranoia—it all tasted the same now.
When he reached the door to his chambers, he paused. The doorknob was slightly turned. Not broken, not forced. But moved.
He stepped inside.
The room was bathed in a faint blue glow from the crystal chandelier. Everything looked… normal.
Except for one thing.
A package. Wrapped in silver cloth, tied with a black velvet ribbon. Square. Elegant. It sat squarely in the center of his mahogany desk.
No letter. No seal.
Ravenclaw narrowed his eyes. He looked at the floor. No disturbance in the dust. No magic runes on the walls or scent of residual spellcraft.
Whoever placed it there was very, very good.
He walked over carefully, setting the documents aside. He touched the ribbon. Cool to the touch. Then he lifted the box slightly and shook it near his ear—ever so gently.
A metallic rattle. Not clockwork. Not jewels.
Too light to be stone.
He froze.
A breath caught in his throat.
Trap.
He moved to untie the ribbon anyway—there was only one way to know.
The moment the ribbon loosened, the box clicked. A shimmer of blue light flashed beneath the lid. Ravenclaw's heart dropped.
Shit.
He threw the box toward the corner of the room, snatched the closest handful of documents off the desk, and ran. He didn't even make it to the handle before—
BOOM.
The explosion ripped through the chamber like a scream of the gods. Blue fire, alchemical and arcane, erupted in all directions. Wood splintered. Stone cracked. Ravenclaw was flung forward by the shockwave just as the door blew open from the blast. He hit the hallway wall, his leg twisting awkwardly beneath him as pain seared up his thigh.
The corridor lit up as guards came sprinting from all directions.
Down the corridor, a woman stood at the window of her office, overlooking the courtyard. Her expression changed from tired curiosity to sudden horror as the blue flash erupted in the east wing.
It was Principal Elara.
"Secure the corridors!"
"Put the fire out, now!"
"Get a healer here! He's alive!"
The guards converged on Ravenclaw's crumpled form. His coat was singed, the documents half-burnt. His leg was broken—but his eyes were open, sharp with fury.
Elara knelt beside him.
"Ravenclaw… who did this?"
He gritted his teeth. "A gift. A gift with no sender."
She looked at the ruin of his chamber, the hole blasted in the stone wall, the flickering blue fire being smothered by magic runes.
"Someone tried to kill you in the middle of my Academy," she said coldly. "This isn't just an assassination. It's a declaration."
Elara's office was a towering chamber of quiet strength, lined with aged tomes, celestial charts, and floating crystals that pulsed softly with magical energy. The rain outside clicked against the stained-glass windows, draping the room in refracted colors. When Sonya entered, she felt the weight of the old magic, the silence pressing down like judgment.
"Ah, Princess," Elara said without looking up from the open tome in her hands. "Come in. Have a seat."
The chair creaked under Sonya's slight weight as she lowered herself, her legs still weary from the journey back. Her hair was damp, her cloak streaked with mud and ash from the burned-out caravan remains. She sat with her hands folded tightly in her lap, as if they might betray some secret she didn't know.
Elara finally closed the tome with a decisive snap. "So. Why?"
"Why what?" Sonya asked, her voice cautious.
"Don't play dumb." Elara's voice didn't rise—it didn't have to. It had that unnerving calm that only someone who'd seen too many young fools rise and fall could possess. "Why did you do it?"
"I don't know anything about it," Sonya said, straightening up. "Until I walked through the Academy gates, I hadn't even heard—"
"Don't test my patience, Princess," Elara cut in, leaning forward, her eyes sharp. "You may carry royal blood, and your family may have the Emperor's ear, but attempting to assassinate a professor of my academy is beyond anything your lineage can protect you from. You've crossed a line."
Sonya's jaw tightened. "I wish to know for myself what happened. I didn't do it. I didn't even know what was going on. My factory was under attack, my supply chains sabotaged—"
"Convenient timing."
"It wasn't convenient for me, I assure you," Sonya snapped. "Merchants I trusted were found dead. My caravans were intercepted. I had no materials coming in, no medicine being processed. Everything was falling apart—and now this? A bombing?"
Elara raised a brow. "You expect me to believe that just days after your conflict with Professor Ravenclaw escalated, and just days after you were attacked in a caravan ambush—his office explodes, and you had nothing to do with it?"
"Yes." The word was firm. Cold. "Because it's the truth."
There was silence. The kind of heavy silence that settled between two stormfronts. Elara folded her hands.
"I've seen students lie. I've seen nobles lie. I've even seen archmages lie, Princess. You're good. I'll grant you that. You say you were focused on your supply chain—then explain this." She gestured, and a small orb of memory played in the air. It was a crystal-clear image: Sonya, storming out of a meeting with Viper's Pit mercenaries. Her words were harsh, accusing. Threats, promises. She had been demanding names. Names of those who sabotaged her.
Sonya stared at the image. "That's real," she said, voice low. "I did go to them. I wanted to know who attacked my goods. I didn't even think of Ravenclaw."
"But you were inquiring about people who could plant bombs."
"I was inquiring about people who could kill me."
Elara leaned back, regarding her carefully. "If you didn't do this, then who did?"
Sonya exhaled slowly. "I suspect it was done to make it look like I did. It's clever—ties up two problems at once. Ravenclaw and."
"Who gains from that?" Elara asked.
Sonya's lips parted slightly, then closed again. She remembered what the shaman in the tribal lands had told her in riddles. That fate had already shifted. That someone had rewritten the roles. She thought of the Third Prince, of his uncanny gaze and silent plans.
"I don't know," she said finally, "but I intend to find out."
Elara said nothing for a long while. Then she stood and walked to the window, looking out over the courtyard. "There will be an inquiry. Formal. Imperial level."
"I'll stand for it."
"You'll do more than stand. You'll survive it, Princess. Because if I find one trace of guilt in you, I'll bury you myself. Not as a royal. Not as a student. But as a would-be murderer."
Sonya stood too. "Understood."
As she turned to leave, Elara's voice followed her: "One last thing. Professor Ravenclaw survived. Barely. But he's changed. He's not the same man you once crossed in the forest."
Sonya's hand froze on the door handle.
"He's declared war," Elara added. "And he fights it with strategy, not temper."
Sonya walked out with her heartbeat hammering like a war drum. The academy felt different now. Cold, shadowed. War wasn't just coming—it had already begun.
Then, a continent away—deep in the sun-bathed South, where red sands stretched like scars beneath the heavens—the Third Prince lounged on a cushioned throne of ebony and gold. Wine dark as rubies swirled in his goblet. News had arrived.
He had received it through a velvet scroll, sealed with a wax symbol that none but his inner circle would recognize: the Academy's insignia twisted in a mocking inversion.
As he read the contents, a wide grin spread across his face. He set the goblet down and began to laugh—a low, indulgent sound that echoed through the opulent halls of his palace.
"So the little rat finally got singed," he said, licking the remaining wine from his lip.
His vizier, a man hunched like a vulture and garbed in desert silks, stepped into the room. "It appears the bomb did not kill him, sire. Merely injured."
"Still," the Third Prince mused, reclining deeper into the cushions, "pain is a fine way to soften someone for what's to come."
"Shall we send another attempt?"
"No, no. Let him writhe. Let him fume. The moment he lashes out, he'll start a fire so big the Empire will choke on the smoke." He reached for a silver tray filled with exotic fruits. "Now... Tell the Sultan."
The vizier bowed his head. "You wish to move so soon?"
"I want him to know that Constantinople is vulnerable. That the Empire is distracted. That its best minds are too busy playing childish games in the Academy to notice the knife at their throat."
"And Sonya?"
"Oh," he chuckled darkly. "She'll come to me. On my birthday. She always does."
He raised the goblet once more, the crimson liquid swirling like blood under moonlight.
"To chaos," he whispered, and drank deeply.
The infirmary wing of the Academy was still dimly lit when Ravenclaw stirred beneath white sheets, his leg tightly bandaged, the scent of burnt parchment and blood still lingering in his memory. Despite the pain, his eyes were sharp, darting to the side as a faint hum filled the room.
A steward stepped in quietly, carrying a crystal nestled in a velvet-lined tray—smooth, translucent, and glowing faintly blue. Ravenclaw turned his head slowly, recognizing it instantly: a secured communication crystal, only accessible to immediate family or high-ranking allies.
"Sir," the steward said. "It's… your sister."
Ravenclaw sat up, suppressing a wince. "Leave us."
The steward bowed and exited, leaving the door slightly ajar. Ravenclaw reached forward and touched the crystal's core. A flicker of light expanded upward, casting the image of a young woman—regal, stern-eyed, with the unmistakable bearing of House Ravenclaw. His older sister.
"Amara," he said with a tired smile.
"Don't smile," she said, voice clipped, concern veiled behind her tone. "I heard you were attacked. A gift box… an explosive rune?"
Ravenclaw nodded, eyes hardening. "You've heard correctly. Someone tried to kill me."
"Are you certain it wasn't another one of your petty political feuds?" she asked, arms crossed. "Because from here, it looks like someone is getting desperate."
Ravenclaw's smile vanished. "It wasn't politics. It was personal."
Amara's eyes narrowed. "Sonya?"
"I'm not accusing her… not officially," he said, leaning back. "But the timing. The tactics. It's not the first attempt. And her actions of late—building a rival trade network, her silence after the Black Forest incident, and now this?"
"Still, an assassination attempt inside the Academy?" Amara shook her head. "That's reckless, even for her."
"She's not the girl I knew anymore," Ravenclaw muttered. "She's moving with purpose. Her hands may not be bloodied yet—but her orders are."
Amara glanced away thoughtfully. "Do you want me to intervene?"
"No," he said immediately. "Not yet. I have plans of my own. The smugglers supplying her factory… I've already begun dismantling her operations."
"You always play with fire, little brother," Amara said softly. "One day, it'll burn you."
Ravenclaw's eyes glinted in the dark. "I intend to be the one holding the torch."
Ravenclaw stared at the fading glow of the crystal… and began to write a name on a list. One that was once precious.