She didn't remember standing.
One moment, she was bones and blood and ash, barely breathing in the black, and the next—she was on her feet. A new kind of quiet pressed against her skull. Not silence, no. This was reverence.
The creatures that had once snarled in the dark now knelt at a distance, twitching with fear. Even the shadows recoiled from her fire.
Vex lifted her head.
Hair once raven-dark now shimmered with bloodlight, as if each strand remembered the womb of flame she'd been reborn from. Her eyes? Infernos. Fire-red irises with slits that narrowed like a predator tasting wind. And her smile…
Her smile was no longer for courtly appearances.
It was the kind that curled slow, sharp, and honeyed. The kind that made men dream of love and wake up bleeding.
Her body had changed. Taller, somehow. Leaner. Like something had burned the weakness out of her and replaced it with grace forged in pain. Her steps left prints that smoked. Her nails had become talons—thin and curved, gleaming obsidian at the tips.
And in her chest? Fire. Living fire.
"Agni," it purred inside her.
She paused. "You're the voice."
"I am the flame."
It didn't sound male or female—just endless. Like something too old to remember which it once was.
"They gave you silver. I gave you flame."
A flicker of memories slammed into her—the chains, the gavel, her brother's shaking whisper. Forgive me. The lies. The trial. Her stepfather's crocodile tears.
And her mother—her real mother—face pale and still in a pool of blood.
They had blamed her for that.
They said she poisoned her.
They said she did it for power.
But Vaeloria had loved her mother. Fiercely. Quietly. The woman who gave her books instead of silk, who taught her diplomacy over daggerplay. The only one who saw her not as a pawn, but as a possibility.
And when she died—when she was murdered—the court needed a villain. A scapegoat.
Vex had been rising. Too fast. Too sharp.
As the Duke's stepdaughter, she should've stayed silent. Decorative. But no—she became the youngest minister in court history. She found cracks in policy, saved cities from starvation, brokered treaties stronger than steel.
And the people began to chant her name. Not the king's.
They whispered: "Let her lead."
That's when they turned.
The king couldn't have that. Her stepfather couldn't control that. Her brother—the one she taught how to read political code like poetry—stood by and let it happen. All of them traded her name for a border treaty and a marriage alliance.
They slit her future open like a sacrificial calf and tossed her into a pit.
But they forgot what kind of creature survives a fall.
Now, Agni stirred again.
"What do you want, Vex Rhiadne?"
She took a slow breath, tasting ash and rot and power.
"I want their crowns," she said, voice like velvet dragged over steel.
"And what will you do with them?"
"I'll melt them."
The flames inside her coiled like a serpent pleased.
"Then we begin."
The Hollow shifted. A path opened—bone steps rising from the pit, lined with the skulls of those who had tried and failed. The walls bled old magic, pulsing red like heartbeat drums.
She climbed.
Every step burned away the remnants of Vaeloria—the girl who wore court smiles and bled for justice. She was ash now. Vex walked forward, and behind her, the pit groaned shut.
The flames didn't consume her.
They became her.
........................
Vex staggered through the Hollow's depths, barefoot and blistered, the blood-soaked chains still dragging behind her like dead serpents. Her breath steamed in the cold, cavernous dark, but the air didn't feel cold anymore. It tasted like ash and metal and something older—like bones that had forgotten the sun.
And her heart?
It no longer beat. It pulsed like embers.
Inside her, the fire whispered.
Agni.
That was its name. Or perhaps the name it gave itself when it crawled from the molten core of her blood and wrapped itself around her spine. It wasn't a voice, not truly—it was a presence. Watching. Laughing. Waiting. And yet, speaking. Always speaking.
"Let them believe they buried you, my queen," it murmured, sweet and sharp. "We will show them what rises from ruin."
She should've been afraid.
But Vaeloria Nyxen Rhiadne had died screaming in the dark.
Vex had clawed her way out.
And the Hollow was beginning to obey.
The chains binding her wrists hissed—then cracked apart like dry ice. She held up her hands, watching the molten light vein beneath her skin. Her nails were no longer dulled and torn; they had sharpened like obsidian, curved ever so slightly like talons. Her hair, once black as polished stone, now shimmered with streaks of blood-red fire in the faint glow of the Hollow. Her eyes… they reflected no color of the living world anymore. They burned.
The Hollow had not broken her.
It had remade her.
But remaking does not come without memory.
The scream had hit her like a blade made of sound—echoing not through the air, but her mind.
And the past had come rushing back.
........................
Flashback. One Year Ago.
The Duke's palace was silver and serenity on the outside, but rot beneath. Vex had grown up walking its corridors with perfect posture and measured words, a stepdaughter trained in grace, ambition, and silence.
They praised her mind—until it outshone theirs.
They admired her wit—until men began to follow it.
She had been made minister at just nineteen. A political miracle, some called it. A threat, others whispered.
The king had smiled when he named her his advisor.
And whispered to her stepfather that no daughter of a lesser wife should wield more power than royal blood.
They framed her for her mother's death. Said she'd poisoned the duchess to rise in station. Said ambition turned to murder.
She still remembered her stepbrother's eyes—wet with guilt, rimmed with cowardice—as he placed the silver collar around her neck.
He couldn't meet her gaze.
No one could.
Not even Thaesen.
Her childhood friend. The boy who used to write poetry into her notebooks. The rebel prince who'd once vowed to burn kingdoms for her smile.
He was there when the verdict was read.
And he didn't speak.
Now
The pain returned like a tide. But this time, it was different. Deeper. It wasn't just fire. It was thirst.
Her tongue felt dry. Her mouth, cracked. And beneath her ribs—a hunger that clawed like a buried beast.
Blood.
She tasted it again in her throat. Hers? No. Something else. Something near.
The shadows moved.
A low moan echoed through the Hollow, sickly and raw. A man, half-mad and shackled to the wall. A prisoner. Forgotten.
Vex approached him slowly. Her walk was no longer that of a noble. It was a glide. A coil. Like something that shouldn't be walking at all.
He turned his head. His eyes widened.
"Please…" he whimpered. "Don't let it take me. Don't let you take me."
She didn't answer.
Her eyes were locked on his neck. On the vein there, twitching beneath his skin like a living map.
The fire inside her coiled tighter.
"He is dying anyway," Agni whispered, amused. "But you—you are not. Feed. Or burn."
She knelt beside him, brushing his matted hair aside with a gentleness that wasn't mercy.
"I didn't ask for this," she whispered. "But they made it mine."
And her fangs—newborn, razor-sharp—slid down like silk from her gums.
She fed.
And the fire in her veins roared.
Later.
She stood at the edge of a crumbling ledge within the Hollow, blood still staining her lips, eyes wide with the rush of it.
Her reflection shimmered in a pool of black water.
And what she saw wasn't human.
Not anymore.
She was the ruin they feared. The whisper turned real. A woman who had held power once—and now held something far more dangerous.
Hunger. Purpose. Rage.
Agni flared within her, pleased.
"You are awake now, Vex of the Blood Moon," it purred. "The world above has crowned cowards. It is time you claim something better."
"And what is that?" she whispered.
"A kingdom of your own bones. A crown made of fire. And vengeance carved into every stone."
Her hands trembled—not from fear. From anticipation.
From need.
The Hollow trembled with her. Stones groaned. Faint blue runes flared alive across the cavern walls. Magic. Old and angry. Long-buried.
Vex turned her eyes upward.
The world above thought her dead. Thought the Hollow had taken her like it had taken hundreds before.
Let them believe it.
Let them sleep easy in their lies.
For soon, she'd rise.
And she'd bring the Hollow with her.
The world above didn't know it yet.
But their grave had just birthed its queen.
The Hollow was not silent anymore. It was watching.
.....................
Back underground…
The exit wasn't light. It was fire.
A door shaped from flame itself waited at the end of the tunnel—searing, sentient, and humming with blood-oath magic.
"One last test," Agni whispered.
She placed her hand on it. The fire didn't burn her—it bowed.
The door opened.
She stepped through.
.....................…
Flashback: Five Years Ago
"You'll never belong," her stepfather hissed, dragging her down the stone corridor.
Vaeloria was fifteen. Shaking. Her dress soaked with wine after a noble's "accidental" spill.
She had just exposed a fraud in court—a merchant overcharging the Crown for grain.
And this was her reward.
"Stay in your place," he snarled. "Let the real heirs lead."
She said nothing then.
But in her head, a voice—her voice—whispered: One day, I will bury you in the place you think is yours.
...…..….................
Present
Vex walked into a land untouched by light.
The Hollow's surface. Scorched. Cracked. Wild with magic.
Her first breath above ground was thick with sulfur and promise.
She raised her hand—and flames curled around her fingers like loyal hounds.
The silver chain was gone.
The girl was gone.
She was fire. She was fang. She was fury.
She was coming back.