MorriganBlackwood

She died in fire. She woke in bone. Now, she returns in silence.

Velrona Azaeth was a legend—The Mourning Saint of the Obsidian Veil. Necromancer. Cult matriarch. A woman who whispered to the dead and ruled the living. Feared by empires. Worshipped by thousands. Betrayed by her own disciples.

They burned her alive.

They thought death would silence her.

Instead, Velrona awakens in the crypt of her execution—stripped of voice, body, and power. Her soul is bound by the **Dead Woman’s System**, a cruel, sentient mechanism that offers her one stolen ability per day… but only from those she personally killed.

Some gifts are glorious. Others are memories best left buried.

Now a formless presence drifting between corpses and shadows, Velrona must claw her way back into a world that has twisted her legacy into lies and turned her sect into fractured cults ruled by traitors. To reclaim her power—or to destroy what remains of it—she must possess the dead, haunt the living, and outmaneuver a system that may not be on her side.

But every step forward costs her a piece of herself.

Every stolen body brings back a face she once condemned.

And somewhere beyond the system’s cold arithmetic, someone is watching her rebirth with far too much familiarity…

Dead Woman's System: Life After Death

Where are we heading? Erlin asked, still helping Raea's healing strands stay safe.

Somewhere quiet. Velrona answered, a place to listen.

They passed the prostrate statues that once depicted her image—stone-faced women robed in mourning. All but one had drowned or cracked. The final statue's gaze remained, eyes fixed downward. The methodical calm of her living face mirrored Velrona's current resolve.

Velrona led the way to the temple's inner sanctum—a circular space beneath a domed ceiling plastered with ash-streaked murals. In the center, one of the flame-cult acolytes lay bound to a fragment of pillar-rope and spirit-thread residue. She was the youngest of the three, her soot-cloth torn away, and when Velrona and Erlin entered, she whimpered softly.

Velrona knelt beside her. Her voice held steady.

"She's burned, but breathing. Good."

Erlin pressed a cloth against her bleeding arm.

You're going to ask questions.

She closed her eyes. Opened them slowly.

Velrona repeated the name to herself. Lyria.

Lyria's eyes flicked to Velrona's robed image in mural.

"You attacked our home. Our truth."

Lyria swallowed, grimacing at the pain.

"The flames speak. They feed on judgment. They give* purity* to what remains."

Velrona looked at the serpent-tangled mural: a figure in fire, mouth open as if swallowing ash.

"That's not fire," she said. "That's obsession."

"My song said the Saint sacrificed to save the world."

"She was twisted. Burned. That was her end—not a beginning."

"They say she'll save us. Or condemn us."

Velrona pressed a gloved hand against Lyria's chest.

"I want you to remember who told you to burn—who told you to kneel before fire—and why."

"Burned our names into the pyre wall."

A ceremony to swap names—identity death.

They're not just following Ythara, Erlin whispered. They're rewriting sacrifice.

Velrona and Erlin exchanged a glance.

"Did you hear me in the flames—her voice?"

"Not instruction. A message: Return. As your own."

They drew Lyria into a narrow chamber nearby—vestibule of prayer niches. There, she forced a ritual mirror:

System prompt: Use skill – Voice of the Veil?

She nodded and touched Lyria with her spirit-laced whisper:

Lyria collapsed against Velrona but began muttering:

"Return... Return... lead us again... in Memory's Light..."

Velrona ended the link, pushing Lyria away softly.

"Come again, when you've forgotten the chant."

Velrona put a hand on her forehead.

Outside, dawn lit broken domes with pale fire. Velrona and Erlin walked away from the temple, leaving Lyria leaning against a column with her hands unclasped.

As they reached the edge of the ruin, Velrona said to Erlin:

Then they'll hate the real Saint even more.

We press east. There's more to unlearn.

Across the meadow, sunlight shimmered like spirits lifted from ash.

The Hollow Ember