Mira Thornvale

Lia was once the healer of the White Rose Clan. At seventeen, she watched her people slaughtered by the Bloodclaw Legion. She survived only because she treated an injured enemy soldier—an act that branded her a traitor. To protect that boy, she willingly endured three years of imprisonment in the Bloodclaw camp, never uttering a word.

She believed he had long forgotten her. Yet she never knew that boy was now the Bloodclaw's ruthless warlord—Karl Thorne, codenamed "The Bone General," who swore an oath to "sever all ties to the past with his own hands."


The Wolfbone Promise

Inside: rows upon rows of violet Wolfbone blossoms under sterile glowlamps, their petals curling like poisoned promises.


Lia moved soundlessly, the Level 3 card still warm in her palm. She slipped past the security node, trailing a small pouch of enzyme vials.


She stopped before the central cultivation tray. The blossoms here were young—bred from notes she’d scratched under a prison bunk.


*My work,* she thought bitterly. *Twisted into murder.*


She uncorked a vial. A single drop of neutralizing enzyme touched the soil—and the blossom withered within seconds.


Then a voice behind her: sharp, familiar.


“I knew you weren’t asking for access to help me.”


“You watched the bloom die,” Karl said. “You sabotaged it.”


“You mean restored it,” she said calmly. “To what it should’ve been—harmless.”


Chapter 8 – Echoes in Blood and Fire