The world was born from two hearts.One of Shadow, one of Flame.They were meant to beat together, but the gods feared their union.So the hearts were torn apart—reincarnated in mortal bodies, cursed to never find peace until they found each other again.When they finally meet, the story of the world will change.Or end.
The sky over Aetherveil was bleeding red.A storm of glowing embers fell through the clouds, each spark whispering a word no one could quite hear. Everyone else ran for cover. Only one woman stood still beneath the burning rain.
Evelyn Rael.Teacher. Scholar. Liar.Her eyes, deep violet like storm glass, reflected the falling fire as if she'd been waiting for it her whole life.
She pressed her trembling hand to her chest. Something inside her was calling, a rhythm too ancient to belong to one heartbeat.
"Not again," she whispered. "Not this time."
Then, across the courtyard, he appeared.A figure stepping through the storm, unburned by the embers, each one bending away from his skin like afraid stars.
Kael.
She didn't know him.And yet, every piece of her soul screamed that she did.
Their eyes met—and the world stopped.
The air shuddered. The embers froze mid-fall, suspended in golden light.Aetherveil's skyline rippled, glass buildings warping like reflections in water.
"You found me," she breathed."I was never lost," he answered.
The wind caught their words and spun them into something living. The storm pulsed once, as if the world itself took a breath.
Evelyn's control faltered. Power spilled from her veins like ink across paper.The courtyard cracked open—light and darkness coiling together, threads of Shadow and Flame twisting around their bodies.
For a heartbeat, the world rewrote itself:
The students vanished.
The academy melted into air.
Only they remained, in a city of shifting mirrors, the Framed Realm—a place that should not exist.
Kael reached for her hand, but the closer he came, the more her shadow burned.
"Don't," she said. "If you touch me, the story ends."
He smiled, a tragic, knowing smile.
"Then maybe that's how it's meant to begin."
Their fingers almost met—Shadow trembling before Flame—
—and the world shattered.
Light exploded.Reality screamed.And everything went dark.
To be continued…