The Sovereign’s Apprentice

Liria awoke to silence. Not the comforting, muted quiet of a castle in slumber, nor the gentle hum of a world still stirring beneath the stars. This was something else entirely—an absence, a void, a silence so thick and unnatural that it pressed against her senses like a second skin.

She had grown used to it.

Three years had passed since she had broken the seal and pledged herself to the Dark Sovereign. Three years of training, of discipline, of reshaping herself into something more than she had ever thought possible.

She no longer slept in a warm chamber filled with silken sheets and flickering candlelight. No, her quarters were carved from the very abyss itself—dark stone that pulsed faintly with power, walls that shifted with the weight of magic older than time. The air here carried an ever-present hum, the echo of something ancient and waiting, something boundless and endless.