Liora's Ordinary Life Shattered
Liora's dreams were never peaceful.
Tonight was no different.
A crown, dripping with black ichor. A kingdom in ruins, swallowed by shadows. Seven figures watching from the abyss, their gazes burning into her soul.
She woke up with a strangled gasp, the images still lingering behind her eyes. Her fingers gripped the sheets as she forced herself to breathe. Just another nightmare.
The apartment was silent, the dim glow of the streetlamp outside casting eerie patterns on her walls. Liora ran a hand down her face, trying to shake off the unease, but it clung to her like static.
The dreams had been growing worse - more vivid, more real.
But reality had no room for nightmares.
Shoving her unease aside, she pushed out of bed and got ready for another ordinary day.
The bell above the bookstore door chimed as Liora stepped inside.
The scent of aged paper and ink wrapped around her like an old friend. It was a quiet place, tucked between a laundromat and a tea shop, where few people wandered in unless they were lost or looking for something very specific.
She liked it that way.
At least, until today.
Something felt… off.
As she moved through the aisles, dust motes swirled in the golden light filtering through the windows. But in the back corner of the store, where old tomes sat forgotten, something caught her eye.
A book.
It wasn't particularly grand - bound in deep crimson leather, worn with time - but there was something about it. Something that made her stomach twist, like a half-remembered song she couldn't place.
She reached out—
A voice behind her stopped her cold.
"That book. I need it."
Liora turned sharply.
The man standing there was tall, wrapped in a dark coat that seemed to blend into the shadows. His face was obscured by the dim light, but his presence was unsettling, as if the space around him bent unnaturally.
She hesitated, fingers hovering over the book's spine. "Do you… have a title or an author?"
The man didn't answer. He only reached forward, his hand not quite touching the ground, as if he weren't entirely there.
Liora blinked.
When she looked again—
He was gone.
And so was the book.
That night, the letter arrived.
Liora found it wedged between the locked doors of her apartment. No return address. No postage. Just her name, written in an elegant, almost familiar script.
Her chest tightened as she turned it over. The paper was thick, aged, like something from another century.
The wax seal was an intricate sigil - one that made something stir in the back of her mind.
She swallowed hard.
Breaking the seal, she unfolded the letter.
The words twisted and reformed as she read, the ink shifting like something alive:
Liora.
You do not remember, but they have not forgotten.
The throne calls for its heir.
Do not run. Do not hide.
They will come for you.
Her breath hitched.
For a heartbeat, she considered throwing it away. Burning it. Forgetting.
But then—
A sharp sting lanced through her fingertips.
Liora gasped, dropping the letter as if it had burned her. She cradled her hand, eyes widening as a glowing mark flared briefly on her palm - before fading just as quickly.
Her heart pounded.
The words on the letter blurred, shifting again.
Only one sentence remained:
The time has come.
And deep in her bones, Liora knew—
Her life would never be the same.
Liora stared at her palm, breath shaky. The strange warmth hadn't faded.
Somewhere out there, someone was watching. Waiting.
And for the first time, she realized—
She had no idea who she really was.
Liora barely slept.
The letter sat on her nightstand, untouched since she dropped it. But she could feel it. As if the ink still pulsed with a quiet, knowing presence.
Her palm tingled where the mark had appeared. The skin looked normal now, but the sensation remained, a whisper of something she didn't understand.
By morning, she had almost convinced herself it was just a trick of the mind.
Until she saw the door.
The bookstore wasn't open yet when she arrived, but the back room where she kept the rare books had already been unlocked.
That was strange. She always locked up.
More than that - something was wrong with the layout.
Liora knew every inch of the store, but today, there was a door where there had never been one before.
A heavy, iron door.
It stood at the far end of the backroom, seamlessly embedded in the wall, as if it had always been there. A symbol was carved into the metal - the same one from the wax seal on the letter.
Her stomach clenched.
This wasn't possible.
Heart hammering, she reached for the handle—
"Don't."
She spun around so fast she nearly knocked over a stack of books.
The stranger from yesterday stood in the dim light of the backroom, the one who had taken the book. He was clearer now—sharp cheekbones, silver eyes, and an air of something not quite human.
Liora took an instinctive step back. "Who are you?"
The man didn't answer. His gaze flicked to the iron door, his expression unreadable. "You shouldn't be here."
"You're in my store." Her voice was steadier than she felt.
A flicker of something - maybe amusement - crossed his face. "No, Liora." He exhaled. "You are in mine."
The floor beneath her shifted.
A cold rush swept through her chest, like stepping outside and suddenly realizing the world was not where she left it.
She wasn't in the bookstore anymore.
The shelves, the walls - everything blurred at the edges, dissolving into a darkened corridor lit by flickering lanterns.
A world she didn't recognize.
And yet, deep down - she did.
The air in the corridor hummed with an energy Liora couldn't name.
The iron door was gone. So was the bookstore.
Liora's breathing hitched. "What the hell just happened?"
The stranger watched her calmly, as if he had expected this reaction. "You stepped where you weren't meant to step."
"What does that even mean?"
"You're waking up."
A chill ran down her spine.
This wasn't real. It couldn't be real. And yet, her senses told her otherwise - the coldness of the stone floor beneath her feet, the faint scent of burning parchment in the air, the distant echo of voices she didn't recognize.
"This place…" she whispered. "Where am I?"
The man tilted his head slightly. "The place between memory and fate."
Her fingers clenched into fists. "You're not answering my damn questions."
The stranger studied her for a long moment before finally saying:
"You are in the House of the Seven."
The name made something tighten in her chest.
"Seven what?" she demanded.
His lips curled into the ghost of a smile. "Lords."
Liora didn't like the way he said it. The weight behind the word.
A slow dread unfurled in her gut.
She had heard that name before. In a dream. In a nightmare.
Seven figures standing in the shadows, watching as a kingdom burned.
And now she was here.
Liora swallowed hard.
The letter's words echoed in her mind:
Do not run. Do not hide.
A door had opened.
And there would be no going back.
The corridor stretched endlessly, lined with doors that didn't seem quite real. Some shimmered like mirages, flickering between solid and something else - as if they existed in multiple places at once.
Liora's pulse thundered in her ears.
The man beside her - the stranger who had taken the book - moved ahead with effortless confidence, his long coat shifting like liquid shadow. He hadn't offered his name.
But Liora knew, with bone-deep certainty, that he was not an ally.
"Why am I here?" she asked, forcing her voice to stay steady.
He didn't turn around. "Because you were always meant to be."
Vague. Cryptic. And not helpful at all.
"Yeah, no," she snapped. "Try again."
The man finally paused. Silver eyes flicked toward her, unreadable. "You woke up," he said simply. "And now, they want to see you."
A slow chill crept down her spine.
"They?"
Before he could answer, the door at the end of the corridor swung open on its own.
Beyond it, a vast chamber unfurled - massive and wrong, like it shouldn't fit inside any normal space. The ceiling was high and draped in shadows, and in the center of the room, a long black table stretched out beneath a chandelier made of burning glass.
Seven figures sat at the table.
Waiting.
Liora's breath caught.
The Seven Sin Lords.
She knew them, even if she didn't understand how. Their faces blurred in the candlelight, shifting between real and unreal. Power clung to them like a second skin, suffocating, ancient.
The man beside her inclined his head slightly in greeting.
"I brought her," he said.
One of the figures chuckled, low and amused. "Oh, we can see that."
Liora forced herself to stay still, but everything in her screamed to run.
"Sit," said another. A woman with ink-black nails tapped a single finger against the table. "Let's have a little talk, shall we?"
Liora had the distinct, gut-wrenching feeling that saying no was not an option.
The chair beneath Liora was too cold, as if it had been carved from something long dead.
The Seven watched her, their gazes heavy with expectation.
Finally, the one at the head of the table - a man draped in black and gold, eyes like molten ember—spoke.
"Tell me, child," he murmured. "Do you know who you are?"
Liora swallowed hard. "I—"
Something burned in her palm.
She jerked, gasping as a sigil blazed to life on her skin—the same symbol from the letter, from the iron door. It pulsed, threads of golden fire flickering up her arm before vanishing just as quickly.
Silence.
Then—
The man at the head of the table exhaled, almost delighted.
"Ah," he said. "So it's true."
Liora's heartbeat slammed against her ribs. "What's true?"
The woman with ink-black nails smirked.
"You," she purred, "are the Sin of Light."
Liora's mind went blank.
The Sin of Light.
A title that meant nothing to her—yet somehow, in the deepest part of herself, she knew it meant everything.
The embers in the man's eyes gleamed.
"Welcome home, little heir."
Liora's world had just shattered.
She had no idea what the Sin of Light was, or why these seven creatures spoke as if she belonged to them.
But one thing was clear—
She was no longer free.
Liora's heart pounded.
She wanted to laugh, to call them liars, to tell them she had nothing to do with whatever twisted game they were playing.
But the fire in her palm had been real.
The way the Seven Sin Lords watched her was real.
And worst of all—some deep, buried part of her recognized them.
"I don't know what you're talking about," she said, forcing steel into her voice. "I'm not your heir. I'm not anything to you."
The man at the head of the table—the one with ember eyes - sighed, almost lazily.
"And yet," he mused, "your blood says otherwise."
Blood.
Liora's stomach twisted.
"Let's not waste time," the woman with ink-black nails interrupted, leaning forward. "The girl has been marked. We need to decide what to do with her."
"She is the last of the Cursed Bloodline," another Lord murmured. His voice was smooth as silk, but something about it made Liora's skin crawl. "It is only a matter of time before the others come for her."
Others?
Liora gritted her teeth. "I don't care what you think I am. I just want to go home."
Silence.
Then, ember-eyes laughed.
Low. Amused.
"Home?" He gestured vaguely at the air. "That place you call home was never yours to begin with."
Liora's breath caught.
"Enough riddles," she snapped. "If I'm so important, why didn't any of you come for me before?"
His smile sharpened. "Because you were hidden."
Hidden.
The weight of the word settled over her like a heavy chain.
"The last heir of a ruined kingdom," ink-black nails mused. "Locked away in a world that does not belong to her. It was a clever trick. But now…" Her gaze flicked to Liora's palm, where the sigil had burned. "The spell is broken. You are awake."
Liora's breathing turned uneven.
This was impossible.
She was just - Liora. A normal girl with normal problems. Rent. Bills. Nightmares she couldn't explain—
No.
No, she would not accept this.
"Let me go," she demanded, standing so quickly the chair scraped against the floor. "I don't want any part of this."
The moment the words left her lips, the air shifted.
The temperature dropped.
The man with ember-eyes tilted his head.
And in the blink of an eye, he was no longer seated.
He was in front of her.
So close she could see the faint flicker of fire beneath his skin.
"You misunderstand," he murmured. "This is not a choice."
Liora's pulse slammed against her ribs.
"However…" He reached into his coat, pulling out a golden coin and placing it on the table.
A slow smirk curled his lips.
"We do love a bargain."
The coin glowed, pulsing with an unnatural warmth.
"Play," he said. "Win, and you walk away. Lose…" His fingers brushed her wrist, light as a whisper. "And you stay."
Liora's blood ran cold.
Every instinct screamed at her to run. But something told her—
There was no escaping this.
Not without playing their game.
The table stretched endlessly.
The golden coin sat in the center, gleaming with a quiet menace.
Liora's hands curled into fists. "What's the game?"
"Simple," ember-eyes murmured. "We each ask you a question. If you answer truthfully, you win the round."
Liora's heart pounded.
"And if I lie?"
His smile was sharp. "Then we take a piece of you."
A chill ran through her bones.
The woman with ink-black nails smirked. "Shall we begin?"
Liora forced herself to nod.
The first Lord—a man draped in silver and shadows—leaned forward, his gaze piercing.
His voice was soft, but it carried power.
"What is your greatest fear?"
Liora's throat went dry.
Memories clawed at the edges of her mind. The nightmares. The crown, dripping with black ichor.
The feeling of being trapped.
She exhaled shakily.
"Losing myself."
The coin flashed—and settled.
She had won the round.
But there were six more to go.
And something told her - the real questions hadn't even begun.
The Seven Sin Lords did not play fair.
And as the game continued, Liora realized—
The real stakes were far worse than she could have imagined.