Velstrae—capital of flame, home of gods and monsters—was built atop living fire.
The city shimmered on a bed of obsidian rock, encircled by rivers of molten lava that hissed and roared like ancient dragons. Towers sculpted from dark glass and iron bones spiralled into a smoky sky, their tops veined with glowing magma. The scent of smoke, steel, and scorched flowers hung heavy in the air. It was beautiful, in a cruel sort of way. Every building radiated heat. Every street pulsed with magic. And every citizen, from highborn to pauper, knew one truth: flame was everything.
Power in Velstrae wasn't measured in coin, lineage, or favor. It was flame—your ability to wield it, bend it, breathe it.
And by that measure, Liora was nothing.
She was a Null.
Born without flame, she had no place within the walls beyond the soot-streaked servant halls. The child of a stranger who died in childbirth, raised by other servants, Liora grew up polishing ceremonial armor and hauling water to flame baths too hot to touch. She'd never seen her reflection in polished glass until she was twelve, and the image startled her—dusky skin, wild coal-black curls, storm-gray eyes too old for her years. She was tall for her age, lean, wiry, with muscles born of labor and rebellion.
But where others saw a powerless servant, Liora saw a survivor.
The other servants kept their heads low. But not Liora. She watched. She learned. She trained. Not to join the nobility. Not even to fight. To survive.
Because in Velstrae, nobles treated Nulls like fuel. Disposable. Beaten. Sold. Forgotten.
Power in the city followed a scale—structured, ranked, and sacred.
First Generation: Infernos—wielders of ancient fire, royal bloodlines able to manipulate flame with sentient precision. Second Generation: Embersouls—gifted in elemental manipulation, able to combine heat with motion or weaponry. Third Generation: Sparks—able to summon flame in bursts, often conscripted or trained as soldiers. Nulls—those born without fire. Voiceless. Shadowed. Often cursed to servitude.
So Liora ran at night through ash fields when no one watched. She practiced dodging flame bolts with kitchen knives. She climbed towers to build muscle and read stolen scrolls on combat tactics and battle formations. She studied the different flame affinities. She didn't dream of becoming a wielder.
But she prepared, just in case 'becoming' wasn't a choice.
Her only real solace came from her friends—Brisa, a tiny storm of sarcasm and steel wrapped in a cook's daughter's frame, and Kael, the Queen's ward, a soldier-in-training who somehow made infernal power look casual.
Kael was all warm laughter, golden-amber eyes, fire-touched freckles across sun-browned skin, and a grin that could coax a smile from a statue. He matched Liora's wit blow-for-blow, even when she pretended not to notice the way his gaze lingered.
"Another bruise, Emberling?" Kael teased one night in the servant courtyard, spotting her scraped knuckles.
"I was kissing the training post again. We're in love now."
He snorted. "It's the splinters. Very seductive."
Brisa rolled her eyes from the kitchen window. "You two are hopeless. Liora, if he proposes to a tree before you, I'll light his boots on fire."
Kael laughed and threw her a wink. "Too late. I'm already promised to the armory. The swords don't talk back."
Their banter, their laughter—it made the world bearable.
Each morning, Liora rose before the sun, carrying laundry through scorched halls, then slipping away before the guards changed shifts. She trained with wooden staves in the quiet of the old garden ruins. Her muscles ached. Her blisters broke. She stitched herself up with kitchen thread and herbs stolen from Brisa's mother's apothecary shelf.
She wasn't training for greatness. She was training because the world she lived in devoured girls like her.
Because nobles—no matter how golden their robes—could be monsters. And Nulls had no one to save them.
Kael knew, of course. He never said it outright, but his glances, his silences—they told her everything. When he passed her water mid-run, or dropped off a new grip for her training staff, he did it wordlessly.
His flames were second-generation bright. He could've ignored her, laughed like the others.
But Kael had always chosen her side, even when she didn't ask.
It was Brisa who voiced it first, curled beside Liora in the servants' quarters after hours, their beds a mess of threadbare blankets and whispered secrets.
"You know he'd catch fire if you kissed him," she muttered.
"Then I'll make sure to aim for the cheek," Liora replied, smirking.
Brisa laughed. "No, you won't. You'll keep pretending not to notice until he combusts from frustration. And then you'll be single and singed."
Liora sighed. "We can't afford to want things, Bris."
"Doesn't mean we don't."
The world spun on, ever cruel, ever burning. The nobles schemed. The trials loomed—weeks away, a breath in time, but a roar in consequence.