Prologue: The Day the Veil Shifted

The night the world began to break was unnaturally still.

Above Solvurn, the twin moons hovered in an eerie silence, their usual silver radiance swallowed by the crimson shadow of a rare eclipse. A heavy stillness clung to the land, as if the world itself was waiting for something to shift. Even the trees stood unmoving, their leaves frozen in place.

Inside the royal palace, the tension was palpable. Queen Selene's screams cut through the heavy silence of her chamber, the sound sharp and jagged against the night. Her body, slick with sweat, convulsed with pain.

"It hurts… the fire—" she gasped between breaths, clutching the silk sheets beneath her, her knuckles white with the effort. The heat radiating from her skin was suffocating, thick with a force no one could see but all could feel.

King Aric stood at the foot of the bed, his expression hard to read. He had seen battles, rebellions, the weight of ruling a kingdom. But nothing had prepared him for this moment, the birth of his daughter. "Hold on, my love," he whispered, though his voice trembled with an uncertainty he couldn't mask. He reached for Selene's hand, squeezing it in a futile attempt to offer comfort.

When Ruby Velkyn was born, the world seemed to ignite. 

The moment she took her first breath, a surge of heat rolled through the room, rattling the windows and snuffing out the flickering candles in a single, violent rush. A wave of warmth surged from her tiny form, unlike anything natural. The very air around them shimmered, the walls heating with a blistering intensity.

Selene cried out again, but this time it wasn't from the pain of childbirth—it was from the agonizing burn as her newborn daughter's flames licked at her skin. Ruby's small body seemed to shimmer with a heat that was both fierce and untouchable, a fire that radiated from within her, scorching everything in its path.

Selene's arms, those same arms that had cradled and nurtured her family, were now marked forever by the newborn's power. Her forearms and her bottom bore the cruel imprint of Ruby's fire, red and raw with burns that would never fully heal. The skin, though not enough to cripple her, would remain a testament to the child who had come into the world with the fury of a storm.

Ruby's cry was not a soft, helpless sound—it was a fierce wail, like the roar of an inferno. Her tiny form, surrounded with flames that flickered and swirled with unnatural precision, burned the sheets beneath her to ash in an instant. The fire didn't touch her, but everything around her was scorched by its intensity.

Kori, Ruby's brother, stood frozen in the doorway, his dark eyes wide with a mixture of awe and fear. He had heard the old stories—the legends that spoke of the Pyrosoul, the ancient fire that burned through their bloodline, the flame that could reshape the world. But seeing it… witnessing the birth of the power his family had been bound to for generations…

"What's wrong with her?" he whispered, barely daring to step into the room.

Selene, despite the searing pain, gazed down at her daughter, her breath shallow and unsteady. Her fingers trembled as they brushed against Ruby's skin. The fire around Ruby had died down, but the heat lingered in the room, and the faint glow from her skin still shimmered like embers. Selene's face was a mix of exhaustion, love, and something darker—a realization she didn't want to face but could no longer ignore.

"She's special," Selene murmured, her voice low and trembling.

The royal seer, an old man whose milky-white eyes had seen more of the world than most could ever comprehend, stepped forward from the shadows. He had been silent until now, watching from the corner of the room, but now his voice was grave as he spoke. "The Pyrosoul has returned," the seer said, his voice laced with fear. "But with it, something else is coming. This is just the beginning."

Outside, in the distance, the world began to tremble—slowly, at first, like the first signs of an approaching storm. But soon it would be impossible to ignore. The Pyrosoul had awoken, and with it, the forces that would soon change everything.

As the last of the fire's glow faded from Ruby's skin, Selene cradled her daughter, her face pale and strained. Her arms burned with the memory of the flames, but her gaze was fixed on the small bundle in her arms. The scarred flesh was a silent reminder of the fire that would define her daughter's future.

"The Pyrosoul," the midwife whispered again, her voice barely a breath, as if saying it too loudly might shatter everything.

And Ruby, unaware of the legacy she had just been born into, stirred in her mother's arms. Her tiny hand reached up toward the window, her eyes glowing with the faintest, unnatural light.

Meanwhile, Far Away in the Ashlands…

The air was thick with ash, the sky swallowed in darkness, the red of the eclipse casting a sickly pallor over everything. The land, so barren and unforgiving, pulsed with an inescapable sense of dread. In a hollowed-out temple, hidden deep within the desolate Ashlands, another birth was taking place—but this one was not met with joy.

A woman, her face streaked with blood and tears, screamed as she fought to bring her child into the world. The temple around her was dim, the only light coming from the flickering torches that lined the stone walls. The room, filled with hooded figures chanting in a language older than the stars, seemed to close in on her.

Kaia Locke was born into the darkness.

As the child was pulled from her mother's womb, the room plunged into blackness. The torches sputtered and died, the chanting of the cultists stopped abruptly, and the only sound left was the mother's panicked breath.

For a moment, there was nothing.

Then, a low, pulsing hum filled the air—a sound that seemed to come from the very earth itself, vibrating through the stone floor and up into the hearts of all present.

The high priest, his hands shaking slightly, stepped forward. He was tall, gaunt, his voice like gravel as he peered down at the newborn girl in the hands of one of his acolytes.

The baby's eyes—impossibly wide and unnervingly gray—were the first thing he noticed. The air around her seemed to distort, like the waves of heat on a summer's day. There was something otherworldly about her, something that made the very room feel as if it were on the brink of collapse.

"She is the vessel," the high priest murmured, his voice reverent, his eyes gleaming with something darker.

"No," the mother choked out, her arms trembling as she reached toward her child, "She's mine… She's my daughter."

But the priest stepped forward with a cruel, unreadable expression.

Before the mother could react, one of the acolytes moved swiftly, wrenching the baby from her arms. Kaia didn't cry. She simply stared up at the priest, her pale, unsettling eyes locking with his as if understanding something far beyond her years.

The mother screamed, her voice raw and desperate, but it was too late. Kaia was already claimed.

"Vokthar has risen," the priest declared, raising the child high into the air, his voice filling the room. "The void will devour all, and the world will tremble before it."

Outside, the land shifted. The wind carried the scent of sulfur and death, and the earth beneath groaned in response. the world began to fracture—not the earth beneath their feet, but the unseen Veil tethering light and shadow. Those closest to its resonance—the fragile, the broken—were the first to succumb.

They became Hollow, their humanity stripped away. Eyes emptied of light, limbs twisted into unnatural forms, their bodies radiated an ancient wrongness. Some staggered aimlessly, shadows of their former selves; others lashed out in frenzied violence, warping reality with every step. Their screams, hollow and unearthly, echoed across the land, a harbinger of what was to come.

The Veilshift had begun.