The sky had never opened for anyone like her.
Not for Avenya, the orphan girl with no past.
Not for the girl who scrubbed hearths in the rich quarter and slept beneath thin blankets in the servants' den.
Not for the girl with skin the color of night, with silver-lined eyes she'd never understood, and dreams that burned like fire every time she closed them.
She turned eighteen in the morning and the sky bled red.
The city of Darvenhall stirred before dawn, but Avenya was already awake. Her bones ached from sleeping on the floor again, but she didn't complain. The family she worked for—Lady Thorne and her three sour-faced daughters—had given her extra scraps last night as a "gift." That was more than she usually got.
"Be grateful," the eldest girl sneered. "You're lucky to serve."
Avenya hadn't answered. What was there to say? She was lucky—at least she had a place to sleep. At least she hadn't been sent to the coal mines like the other orphans from the Lower Edge.
She stood at the cracked basin in the corner and splashed her face. Her reflection stared back, unreadable. Same strange silver-flecked eyes. Same dark, untamed curls. Same scar under her left cheekbone—like a crescent moon burned into her skin from birth.
She often wondered who gave it to her.
She never had dreams of parents—only fragments. Voices in thunder. A woman of fire. A song sung in a language no one spoke anymore.
But dreams were dangerous things. They distracted you. Made you soft. And in Darvenhall, softness got you killed.
Today, however, she couldn't stop the feeling rising in her chest—an ache, wild and sharp. Something was coming.
Something was changing.
Every child in the Kingdom knew the rule:
On your eighteenth birthday, you are summoned to the School.
The School of Ascension, they called it.
A great shining fortress on the northern cliffs, built by the crown generations ago, where magic and knowledge were taught freely. No one paid for entrance. No one dared refuse it. Some said it was a gift. Others called it a cage.
No one knew why it existed.
Only that every year, on the Night of Red Moons, the school summons its new students.
Avenya had never thought she'd be chosen. Or that she'd make it to eighteen at all.
But that night, while she washed dishes under the torchlight of the manor's kitchens, it happened.
A thunderclap split the air. Then a second. Then a third.
Outside, people screamed. The staff rushed to the windows. Avenya dropped the plate in her hand and ran out into the courtyard barefoot.
Above the city, the sky was on fire. Not from lightning or storm, but from a single beam of deep crimson light—rising like a sword into the heavens from somewhere far to the north.
Avenya froze.
The color was wrong. The energy, unfamiliar. It wasn't lightning. It wasn't fire.
It was… calling.
And beneath the light, her chest ignited.
A deep, unbearable heat bloomed inside her ribcage. She collapsed to her knees, clutching herself. Something ancient uncoiled within her—a voice, a memory, a name not hers and yet always hers:
"Avenya."
She gasped.
The moment passed. The light dimmed. The sky returned to normal. But inside her… nothing was the same.
She rose slowly, every bone in her body alive. Sparks danced on her fingertips. Her scar burned like a second heartbeat.
She looked up and whispered, "What am I?"
That night, before the manor's front doors even opened for business, a messenger came from the capital. Pale-eyed, silent, wearing the black crest of the royal seal.
He handed the letter to the mistress of the house, bowed once, and left without a word.
Avenya was scrubbing the entryway tiles when the woman opened the scroll.
Her mouth twisted. "It's for you," she hissed, shoving it toward the girl like it was diseased.
Avenya wiped her hands and took it.
By decree of the Crown and the Head of the School of Ascension,
You are summoned.
Present yourself at the North Gate before the third sun falls.
Refusal is not permitted.
It was signed not with a name, but a symbol: a five-pointed crown wreathed in flame and stars.
She felt the mark on her cheek burn again. Her breath caught.
This wasn't just a birthday.
It wasn't just a school.
It was a beginning.
Avenya didn't pack. She didn't own anything.
Lady Thorne shoved a stale loaf into her hands, then slammed the gate shut behind her. "Don't come back," she spat.
Avenya stood for a long moment on the cold cobbled path, the summons in one hand, her heart thudding louder than the morning bells. Her breath turned to mist in the frostbitten air. Somewhere above, a hawk circled once, then vanished into the gray.
The northern road awaited.
She walked.
Past merchant carts and quiet beggars. Past the market stalls of Darvenhall, where whispers had already spread:
"Another beam of light last night…"
"That's three this year. What does it mean?"
"Someone saw it pulse twice—twice!"
"It's the Queen's Curse, I tell you."
Avenya kept her head down. They weren't talking about her. They couldn't be.
She didn't know why her fingers sparked when she got angry.
Didn't know why her dreams felt like prophecies.
Didn't know why every time she closed her eyes, she saw a burning throne swallowed by stars.
At the edge of the city, where the stone roads ended and the frozen forests began, a silver caravan waited.
Massive steel-bound wagons, pulled by six-horned tundra elk, sat in rows. Guards in obsidian armor lined the perimeter. Each wagon bore a banner: the Crown and Flame.
Avenya hesitated at the gate. A man with no eyebrows and too many medals stepped forward.
"Name," he grunted.
"Avenya," she said. "From House Thorne's service."
He looked her over. His eyes lingered on the scar under her eye. Then—he nodded once, stepped aside.
"Wagon Five. You'll ride with the others."
"Others?"
He didn't answer.
Inside Wagon Five were six teenagers. All around her age. Some stared out windows. Others sat in silence, expressions carved from stone.
A boy with sky-colored eyes gave her a nod. A girl with flame-red braids barely glanced up.
None of them spoke.
Until Avenya sat down.
The boy leaned forward. "You saw it too, didn't you?"
She blinked. "Saw what?"
"The sky. The red light."
Everyone else looked up.
Avenya swallowed. "Yes."
The red-haired girl finally spoke. "That makes four."
"Four?" Avenya asked.
"Four beams. Four awakenings." She narrowed her eyes. "We don't know what it means yet. But we will."
Something coiled in Avenya's chest. Not fear. Not hope.
Recognition.
For three days, they rode. Through forests where the trees whispered old names. Past ruins half-swallowed by moss and time. Through valleys where wild magic still shimmered in the air like mist.
Every night, the sky pulsed faintly with red veins across the stars.
Every night, Avenya dreamed of the locked kingdom—a city of towers made from crystal and gold, floating above a black lake. A place she'd never seen. A place that knew her name.
She stopped asking questions.
She started listening instead.
On the fourth morning, they arrived.
The School wasn't a building. It was a fortress carved into the face of a cliff that overlooked the Sea of Ghosts. Spires rose like fangs into the clouds. Massive stone arches lit with blue fire guarded the entrance. Statues of unknown kings lined the courtyard, their eyes hollow, their mouths sealed shut.
As Avenya stepped out, she felt it—a pull.
The stone beneath her feet hummed.
The air shimmered with magic.
The sky whispered her name again.
A bell rang once.
The gates opened.
And the girl who was a Queen, but didn't yet know it, stepped into the place where destiny would awaken—and the world would tremble for it.