The city of Adresgate lay swaddled in moonlight, her sandstone bones glowing faintly beneath a sky stitched with stars. Domes of turquoise and copper shimmered like ancient jewels, glinting above narrow streets and crumbling ramparts. The wind here carried two scents — salt from the endless sea and dust from the southern dunes. Where those winds met, Adresgate had been born — and where they clashed, the city had bled.
She was the gate between continents, the throat through which the wealth of two worlds passed. Spices from the southern kingdoms. Iron from the west. Silk, glass, and secrets from the sea. A city of trade, of whispers, of wars quietly remembered.
By day, Adresgate roared — a blaze of color and chaos. Markets flooded the alleys, sellers shouted from high balconies, and merchant flags flapped like birds in flight. But by night, she became something else. Something older. A city not built, but grown — layer by layer, atop the bones of kings and the ash of sieges.
The harbor slumbered, though it never truly slept. Lanterns bobbed on swaying piers. Water lapped at barnacled wood. Dozens of ships — fishing skiffs, fat-bellied traders, and a few low-slung vessels with no name and no flag — rocked gently at anchor. Somewhere in the dark, a bell chimed three times. Somewhere else, a dagger slipped between ribs.
Above it all rose the skyline — flat roofs and climbing towers, minarets that caught the stars, alleys stitched like veins across the city's flesh. In the day, pigeons and prayer flags filled the gaps between buildings. At night, it was knives, cloaks, and coded messages.
Adresgate had not always belonged to the empire.
Generatins ago — in the Year of the Ember Crown, 197 — Crown Prince Alos Vaktorun crossed the salt passes with twenty thousand fire-marked soldiers. He did not negotiate. He did not send envoys. He burned the city's eastern gates in a single night and laid siege to its heart.
Adresgate's king held for fourteen days.
On the fifteenth, he bent the knee — kneeling before the prince in the ashes of his own court, his robes scorched, his crown melted into slag. That was how the Flame Emperor first earned his name. Not in the grand halls of the capital, but here, by the sea, where fire ate stone and the empire's reach grew longer.
Now, the Citadel of Spires crowned the city's heart. A marvel of conquest and restoration — arches layered atop ruins, marble laid over old stone. Its towers clawed skyward, domes painted with sacred constellations, its windows blinking with candlelight like the eyes of watchful gods. Within those walls, generals and governors dreamed restlessly, muttering in their sleep of distant rebellions and whispered names like BelanorThor'don.
Adresgate was not at peace.
Not truly.
Not while the north smoldered. Not while time-bending ghosts walked the empire's edge.
And far below it all — in the highmost spire, where the sea could be seen stretching into starlight — a figure stood by the door of a tavern.
She was tall and striking, wrapped in flowing black robes that shimmered faintly in the moonlight like oil on water. Her gown clung in elegant folds, woven with fine leather straps and subtle metallic studs, structured with both grace and menace. A single, sculpted shoulder rose sharply, lending her silhouette the air of a priestess of some forgotten night-god.
Her presence alone seemed to darken the stone around her.
A crown of intricate black lace flared behind her head — not a circlet, but a fan of shadow made real, etched with sigils only the learned might recognize. Her raven-dark hair was swept back in sculpted waves, leaving her pale face bare. High cheekbones, calm lips, and eyes that gleamed like blades under moonlight — cool, calculating, and impossibly still.
The door behind her creaked open on ancient hinges. But she didn't flinch, didn't turn. She waited — the way storms wait, still only because they choose to be.
The tavern's warmth spilled out behind her in golden motes. But she remained framed by shadow.
Watching. Listening.
Waiting.
"They say the bloody soldiers ran like rats," said the man she was watching.
He was a hunched and weathered peasant, with wild, greasy hair that clung to his scalp like seaweed and skin leathered by sun and salt. His eyes, small and yellowed, darted with the nervous energy of a man used to being ignored—or beaten. A torn wool tunic hung off his bony frame, and his gnarled finger jabbed through the smoky tavern air as he spoke, spittle clinging to his words. His teeth were crooked stubs, and his breath carried the scent of old ale and older grudges. Despite his frailty, his voice held the cracked defiance of a man who had seen empires rise and fall from the gutter.
"We all heard what happened, Randal!" came a slurred voice from a shadowy table. "Don't bore us with your madness again."
"A fairytale, if you ask me," another chimed in, swaying in his seat. "There was no burning demon in Tar. What do they take us for—fools?"
"Worse!" Randal snapped, slamming his cup against the table with a dull thud. "Scum. Filth. The kind you sweep under the Emperor's boot and forget."
He stood, swaying slightly, but his eyes were sharp with something raw—something frightening.
"A god was born in Tar," he rasped. The tavern quieted a little, just enough for his words to scrape against the walls like rusted nails. "Not a demon. A god. Born in flame and sorrow. A skeleton wreathed in fire, walking through the ashes of his own village. Soldiers screamed and burned like straw dolls, and that thing—it didn't even blink."
"Sit down, Randal."
"I am sitting!" he snapped back, though he clearly wasn't. "You think the Flame Emperor is fire? Hah! That boy—whatever he is now—he burned hotter. Hotter than anything the Emperor ever conjured. He didn't wield the fire. He was the fire. Eyes like coals, skin like smoke. I watched him walk through a dozen spears and come out glowing. And they call it a lie?"
People turned back to their drinks, murmuring about trade routes, spices, and the massive elephants said to roam the Southern Kingdoms. No one listened to Randal anymore. They never had.
But the woman at the door did.
She stood still in the smoky light—silent, unmoving. Cloaked in shadow and starlight, her dark hair spilling down her back like a velvet curtain. Her expression unreadable. Her eyes fixed on him.
Later, under the flickering torchlights of the crooked, empty streets, Randal stumbled out of the tavern, muttering to himself.
He paused to piss against a crumbling wall, nearly toppling over, then wiped his hands on his tunic and staggered on. Behind him, soft footsteps echoed.
He turned a corner.
Still behind him. Unhurried.
He turned again. Quicker now. The tavern was a golden blur behind him.
Another step, softer this time.
He spun around.
A figure stood in the gloom—slender, still, watching.
"Whatever you're selling," he slurred, squinting blearily, "I'm not buying, alright? I've got no coin and less patience."
The woman said nothing. Just took a step forward, the sound of her boot like a whisper on the stone.
"...You ain't one of them spice traders, are ya?"
Still silence.
Then the wind picked up, stirring the dust. A torch guttered. And Randal felt something he hadn't felt in years.
Fear.
Real fear.
"Those who dare speak ill of the Flame Emperor," she said, her voice low and velvety with menace, "don't deserve the gift of breath—let alone the honor of sharing his air."
Randal froze. The bravado drained from his face like color from a corpse. His lip trembled as he staggered back a step.
"You... you're one of them, aren't you?" he rasped, his voice cracking. "The Emperor's blades in the dark. You've come to silence me."
The woman took a slow step forward, her boots whispering against the stones. Her eyes gleamed beneath the hood, cold and amused.
"I've come to ensure your tongue never utters filth against His Majesty again," she said, as though stating a fact—not issuing a threat.
"I'm not... I'm not afraid of you, woman," Randal stammered, his words shaky, drunk, unconvincing.
She tilted her head slightly, her smile widening just enough to bare the ghost of her teeth. There was no warmth in it—only the cruel promise of violence.
"You should be," she whispered. "And since you'll be dead soon... you may as well know the name carved on your soul."
She stepped into the torchlight.
"Nyra."
A whisper of death in a name.
"I like my scum to die knowing who sent them to the dirt."
Panic surged through Randal. With a desperate yell, he drew a rusted dagger from beneath his tunic and lunged forward in a clumsy, drunken charge.
Nyra didn't flinch.
She moved like smoke—sidestepping effortlessly, catching his arm mid-swing. In one clean motion, she twisted the blade from his grip and raked it across his shoulder with surgical precision.
Randal cried out, collapsing to one knee as blood pulsed down his arm.
He looked up, eyes wide in horror.
Nyra held the blade before her, watching his blood drip down its edge. Her expression twisted into something far darker than hatred—almost reverent.
"Blood," she murmured, licking a splatter from the steel. "Its color, its scent... the way it spills when the guilty scream. Beautiful."
Nyra raised her hand and muttered something beneath her breath—syllables twisted and guttural, spoken in a language that felt older than flame and crueler than death itself. The air thickened, charged with invisible tension, as her voice wove a chant like a blade slipping through silk.
Randal let out a whimper.
Then it began.
Blood bubbled from the gash in his shoulder, unnaturally fast—first in rivulets, then in streams, rising against gravity. His eyes went wide with horror as the crimson tide floated upward, coiling through the air like a living thing. His knees buckled. He clutched at his wound, trying uselessly to stop the flow.
His breath came in ragged gasps. Cold. Cold. So cold.
The warmth was leaving him—his strength draining with every drop. His fingers trembled. His legs felt hollow. A soft gurgle slipped from his lips as he watched his own lifeblood gather above him in the shape of something sharp—too sharp.
What once flowed as liquid now hardened midair—dark, jagged spears of congealed magic, gleaming like polished obsidian, their edges quivering with murderous intent.
Nyra's eyes sparkled with delight. Her smile widened—not out of joy, but out of deep, terrible satisfaction.
"Blood magic!" Randal gasped, his voice barely more than a breath. His eyes rolled back as he fell to one knee. "You… you're a witch…"
The word hung in the air.
Nyra's smile faltered. For a brief moment, something sharper than magic glinted in her gaze—offense.
She stepped closer, her voice quiet but lined with scorn.
"First, you insult His Radiance. Now, you insult me?" she said coldly, her tone as smooth as silk pulled taut before a blade slices through. "I am no witch, filth. I am the Emperor's blade."
Her hand dropped.
The blood spears launched.
They screamed through the air with unnatural speed, tearing into Randal's body—one through his stomach, another through his chest, a third between his ribs. The impact was clean and horrifying. Each projectile punched through like a hot knife, and as they passed, they melted—dripping back into blood that ran down his collapsing form in sluggish rivers.
Randal made a strangled noise, his mouth opening, but no words came. Only blood. His eyes, wide with disbelief, slowly began to dim. His body spasmed once. Twice.
Then he stilled.
His final breath left him in a soft, wet sigh. The light left his eyes, leaving behind only the glazed, empty stare of a man who died in agony and awe.
Nyra watched it all unfold, her expression unreadable. Not cruel—not exactly. Just… amused. Intrigued. Like a child pulling the wings off a fly to see how it would twitch.
She stepped over his corpse, flicking a drop of blood from her sleeve. Then, with a glance to the darkened sky, she muttered to herself with a sly twist of her lips:
"So… a burning skeleton in Tar. A fire demon, they say?" She paused, then smiled again, this time more to herself. "Curious. I wonder which pathetic witch tore open the veil this time."
She turned, her silhouette melting into the shadows of the alley.
"And here I was thinking this would be a dull assignment."
The street fell silent. Randal's lifeless body lay sprawled on the cobblestones, blood seeping into the cracks, steam rising from it like a fading curse.
Nyra was already gone.