Chapter 1 Ashes Don’t Stay Buried
In Valmere, magic decides who you are before you ever get a chance to choose.
I learned that lesson young—long before hunger hollowed my cheeks or grief carved its permanent place in my chest. Magic was the measure of worth here. It was the currency of survival. And for people like us, the ones born without it—or worse, born unranked—it was the quiet sentence passed at birth.
Invisible. Expendable. Replaceable.
The Lower Rings were proof of that.
Smoke clung to the air even at dawn, thick with the stench of damp stone, rotting refuse, and desperation that never quite slept. Buildings leaned into one another like drunkards, roofs patched with scavenged wood and rusted metal. Every breath tasted of soot. Every sound carried urgency—vendors shouting, children crying, guards marching past without ever looking down.
I kept my head low as I walked, cloak pulled tight around my shoulders. Habit, not fear. Fear took energy I didn’t have to spare.
My thoughts were already elsewhere.
On my brother.
Lio lay on a thin pallet in the corner of our room, skin slick with sweat, lips cracked and pale. His breathing had been shallow all night, each rasp sounding thinner than the last. I’d sat beside him until my legs went numb, counting his breaths, pretending I could will him back just by staying awake.
But wishing didn’t heal magic sickness.
And healers didn’t come to the Lower Rings.
The Highborn had their crystal halls and silver instruments, their carefully measured spells and ranked magic. We had prayers whispered into moldy walls and remedies brewed from whatever scraps we could steal or barter.
Lio’s magic had awakened wrong—wild and unmeasured, burning through him like a fever. It was the kind of thing the Council deemed a “natural failure.” The kind of thing they let die quietly so it wouldn’t complicate their perfect hierarchy.
I stood at the threshold of our room, fists clenched, my mother’s words echoing in my mind.
If the shrine is real… it might listen to you.
The shrine was a myth.
Everyone said so.
A forbidden ruin beyond the city walls, older than Valmere itself. A place sealed by the Council generations ago, erased from maps and memory alike. They said it housed an ancient evil, a creature so powerful it nearly ended the world.
They said anyone who went looking for it never came back.
But Lio was dying.
And myths were cheaper than healers.
I slipped out before my mother woke, careful not to wake the neighbors. The streets were quieter at this hour, mist curling low over cracked stone. The guards at the outer gate barely glanced at me—just another slum girl heading out to scavenge, nothing worth stopping.
The forest beyond the walls swallowed sound and light alike.
Trees twisted overhead, their roots clawing through the earth like skeletal fingers. The deeper I went, the heavier the air became, pressing against my chest with a weight that had nothing to do with humidity. My pulse thrummed loud in my ears.
I followed the markings my mother had described—stones etched with symbols worn nearly smooth by time. I didn’t recognize the language, but something in me did. My feet moved without hesitation, as if I had walked this path before in another life.
The shrine revealed itself suddenly.
Stone pillars jutted from the ground in a wide circle, cracked and half-consumed by ivy. At the center stood a raised dais etched with sigils that glimmered faintly, pulsing like a living thing. The air hummed, vibrating against my skin.
I stopped at the edge, heart racing.
This was wrong. Every instinct screamed at me to turn back.
But Lio’s face flashed behind my eyes, and my feet carried me forward anyway.
The moment I stepped onto the dais, the world shifted.
The forest fell silent. Wind died. Even my breath sounded distant, as if I were underwater. The sigils beneath my boots flared brighter, heat seeping through the soles until I hissed and staggered back.
“I don’t want power,” I whispered, voice shaking. “I don’t want anything except—please.”
I didn’t finish the sentence.
The ground shook violently, throwing me to my knees. Light erupted from the sigils, spiraling upward in blinding arcs. The air split open with a roar that wasn’t sound so much as pressure—ancient and vast, pressing into my bones.
Fire surged around me, but it didn’t burn.
It welcomed.
A presence unfurled from beneath the stone, immense and terrible and impossibly close. I felt it before I saw it—a consciousness older than nations, heavy with memory and rage and something that felt disturbingly like curiosity.
You are not afraid enough, a voice rumbled inside my mind.
I gasped, clutching my chest. “I’m terrified,” I said hoarsely.
No. You are desperate. There is a difference.
Flames coiled upward, forming a massive silhouette. Scales the color of obsidian caught the light, etched with glowing veins of molten gold. One enormous eye opened, its gaze locking onto mine.
The World-End Dragon.
My vision blurred, tears spilling unchecked. “I didn’t mean to wake you,” I whispered. “I just… I need help.”
The dragon studied me in silence, his gaze piercing straight through skin and bone, into places I had never shown anyone. My fears. My grief. My fury at a world that decided some lives mattered less than others.
You carry blood touched by ash, he said slowly. And a will sharp enough to cut fate itself.
“I’m no one,” I said.
You are wrong.
The air shifted, heavy with inevitability.
The contract recognizes you.
Pain exploded across my palm. I cried out as something unseen sliced my skin, blood dripping onto the stone. The sigils blazed white-hot, crawling up my legs, my arms, my spine. Power surged into me—wild, intoxicating, overwhelming.
I screamed as fire branded itself into my flesh.
Images flooded my mind—cities burning, skies torn apart, a bond forged in blood and betrayal. I felt the dragon coil around my consciousness, vast and unyielding.
Rise, Serina, he commanded. Bearer of the World-End Flame.
When the light vanished, I collapsed onto the stone, gasping.
The shrine was quiet again. Empty.
But the dragon was not gone.
He lived inside me now—his presence a constant, simmering heat beneath my skin. Power thrummed through my veins, making my heart race, my senses sharpen.
And somewhere beyond the forest, magic answered.
I felt it—like a ripple spreading outward, impossible to hide.
The High Council would know.
I staggered to my feet, clutching my bleeding hand, dread curling in my stomach. I had saved no one yet. I had only made myself something the world would hunt.
I ran.
Behind me, ashes settled over ancient stone.
And far away, a man sworn to destroy monsters lifted his head as forbidden magic stirred for the first time in centuries.