The wind cut like knives as Elias Vale trudged through the dead forest bordering the ruins of Lornem Hollow—a cursed place the locals refused to speak of.
Trees rose like skeletons under a darkening sky, twisted branches reaching upward like the hands of the damned. No birds chirped. No insects buzzed. Even the sun, overhead only minutes ago, now hid behind a bank of thick gray clouds. The silence was not peaceful; it was suffocating.
Elias adjusted the worn strap of his satchel, brushing a strand of dark hair from his brow. His fingers were numb, not from cold, but from nerves. He'd heard the stories: spirits whispering from shadows, bones found fused with stone, sorcerers disappearing without a trace. But stories were just that.
Weren't they?
Still, he muttered a warding prayer under his breath as the black spires of the ruin came into view—broken arches and shattered towers coated in a thin crust of black moss. Everything smelled of ash and iron.
"Great," he muttered. "I get the one place even crows won't shit on."
He was here on orders from the Guild of Restoration, one of the many offshoot factions that handled ruins, relics, and other magical oddities in the kingdom of Drevain. Being a third-circle healer didn't earn him much rank or respect—just enough for grunt work. Like this. Officially, the assignment was to "survey and cleanse minor residual energies."
Unofficially? It meant he was expendable.
He reached the edge of the site, stepping past a rusted wardstone cracked down the middle. That should have kept the ruin sealed. It wasn't.
"Either this place isn't minor," he muttered, "or someone's really bad at their job."
Drawing a breath, he activated his mage-light—a hovering orb of soft blue glow that flickered slightly under the oppressive magic saturating the ruin. The moment he stepped past the outermost column, the air changed.
Heavy. Thick. Like stepping underwater.
Each breath carried the taste of old mana—burnt copper, scorched incense, and the faintest whisper of something sweet and wrong.
Elias moved carefully, boots crunching on black gravel, eyes scanning the derelict interior. The entrance opened into what had once been a temple, though time and decay had warped it beyond recognition. Statues of unknown gods lay shattered. Runes along the walls pulsed dimly in rhythmic waves, echoing a heartbeat that wasn't his own.
The magic wasn't dead. It was dormant.
Waiting.
His orb flickered again.
"Nope. Nope. Don't like that."
He should turn back. File a report. Let the Guild send a proper team. But curiosity—stupid, fatal curiosity—urged him onward. There was power here, and something about it called to him. Not in a seductive way, but... pleading. As though something inside the ruin had been waiting for someone to listen.
That's when he saw it.
Nestled deep in the inner sanctum—a vast, circular chamber lined with obsidian columns—hovered a black cocoon. It pulsed faintly with veins of red light, suspended several feet above a stone dais by thin threads of glowing crimson magic.
It was massive, nearly twice his height, and disturbingly organic. The surface shimmered with an oily sheen, shifting subtly as if breathing.
Elias's breath hitched.
Ancient runes encircled the dais, glowing brighter as he approached. They weren't just protective—they were containment glyphs. Old. Forbidden.
He had studied sigilcraft. These were demonic in origin. Old world, pre-Golden Empire era. Some even theorized they were used by Fallen Lords, sorcerers who bound infernal power before the First Sundering.
Why would anyone seal something like this… and leave it here?
His heart thudded faster. He inched closer, hand trembling, reaching toward the cocoon. It radiated warmth, not like fire, but like a living body—a heartbeat wrapped in darkness.
And then—he heard the whisper.
Faint. So soft he thought he imagined it.
"Don't leave me again…"
He froze.
The cocoon shuddered.
A low hum erupted from the base of the chamber, rising in pitch until the runes flared to life like fire. Magic surged. His mage-light exploded in a burst of sparks. Elias threw up his arms, shielding his face as wind howled through the ruin.
Cracks spread across the cocoon's surface.
Something inside stirred. Pushed.
Then—a hand burst through.
Small. Pale. Clawed.
Elias staggered back as more of the shell shattered, revealing a figure curled within—a girl, no older than six, with long black hair soaked in blood-colored fluid. She fell forward, landing in a crouch, trembling.
Her eyes opened—crimson slits, glowing faintly in the dark.
Her tiny mouth moved.
"Found you," she whispered.
And then everything went white.
When Elias came to, the girl was curled against his chest, unconscious.
His palm burned. He looked down to find a sigil—a dark mark branded into his skin, shaped like a crown of horns and flame. A soul seal.
He was bound.
Panic surged in his chest. Soul bonds were no small thing. Ancient magic. Forbidden magic. And worse—he'd heard of this sigil before.
The Mark of the Demon Queen.
Revantra the Scourge.
Banished over three hundred years ago by the Twelve Archons. Destroyed in the War of Ash. Her name was legend, myth, nightmare.
But here she was—reborn, sealed… and now bound to him.
Elias stared at her as she stirred in her sleep, her small frame clinging to him like a frightened child. Her wings—small, black, barely more than stubs—twitched at her back. Horns curled delicately from her head, as natural as a crown.
She looked… peaceful.
Vulnerable.
Terrifying.
He whispered to no one, voice hoarse.
"What the hell did I just awaken?"
To be continued…