The battlefield did not end when the fighting stopped.
It lingered.
It breathed.
It remembered.
Ash drifted slowly through the air, settling on broken shields, cracked stones, and discarded weapons.
The ground was jagged and uneven, scorched in some places, frozen in others, marked by the remnants of spells too violent to fade.
Magic hummed faintly beneath the earth, almost like a heartbeat trying to remind the world that this chaos had existed.
Bodies were scattered across the valley.
Some were witches, their robes torn and faces streaked with soot and blood.
Others were vampires, armor battered, eyes glowing faintly in the dim light.
Hands that had once wielded power now rested lifelessly among the ruins.
The battlefield was a graveyard and a warning, all at once.
And in that silence, a terrible emptiness was clear.
Mallory was missing.
Her parents, Isolde and Caelum, ran over the broken ground, eyes wide with panic.
"Mallory!" Isolde cried, her voice cracking, and she grabbed a scorched piece of cloth from the ground, waving it desperately.
"Where is she?!" Caelum shouted, dropping a shattered staff. His hands trembled as he scanned the ruins, eyes darting from shadow to shadow.
There was no answer. Only the faint smell of smoke and something older, almost otherworldly.
The child was gone.
It was not an accident.
Someone had taken her.
The Draconian woman had appeared like a shadow, subtle yet commanding.
She did not strike. She did not snatch violently. Her movements were precise and deliberate.
The kind of control that only comes from centuries of knowledge, power, and purpose.
Her presence left no fear in Mallory, only quiet confusion.
The girl sat on a patch of scorched grass, clutching a heart-shaped music box.
Gold and rose-toned, delicate, worn by time, it contained a tiny dancing figure that spun endlessly when wound.
It was all she had left from her mother, the only tangible memory of a life ripped from her in the chaos of war.
Mallory's small fingers traced the music box as her wide green eyes flicked nervously at the Draconian woman.
"Who… are you?" she whispered, her voice barely audible as she hugged the box closer.
The woman's eyes softened slightly, but her face remained unreadable.
No words came immediately.
Instead, she extended a hand and lifted Mallory gently to her feet.
The child stumbled slightly, looking back over her shoulder as if expecting her parents to appear.
They did not come.
The Draconian woman led her away, her steps quiet and deliberate, moving through hidden paths that seemed untouched by war.
Time itself felt different here.
The air was thicker, slower, almost heavy with the weight of ancient magic.
The walls of the sanctuary loomed faintly in the distance, shrouded in mist and enchantments that whispered of protection.
Mallory clung to the music box tightly.
It vibrated faintly in her hands, humming in response to the surrounding magic.
The Draconian woman noticed but said nothing.
Instead, she set her pace to match the child's, watching over her silently.
"You must be careful," she murmured finally, her voice low and almost musical. She brushed a loose strand of hair from Mallory's face, her fingers gentle but firm.
Mallory tilted her head, unsure what she meant.
"Careful? Of what?" she asked, stepping lightly on the cracked stones.
The woman did not answer directly.
She only continued walking, her eyes scanning the shadows as if she could see threats invisible to anyone else.
Questions swirled in Mallory's mind, though she did not speak them aloud.
Why was she taken?
Why not left with her parents?
Was this to protect her, or… something else?
The music box seemed to pulse softly, as if it knew answers she could not yet understand.
Every now and then, the Draconian woman's hand brushed against the child's shoulder, gentle but firm, a constant reminder of her presence.
They reached a clearing where the ruined world of the battlefield seemed distant, almost unreal.
The Draconian woman knelt, lifting Mallory's chin with one hand to look directly into her eyes.
"You are important," she said quietly, placing her other hand over the girl's heart.
"Important? How?" Mallory asked, her voice trembling slightly.
The woman smiled faintly, but her eyes remained serious.
"Some things are promised," she said. "And some things are hidden. You are part of both."
Mallory did not understand. She only nodded, gripping the music box tighter.
The air here felt alive, though no one spoke.
It hummed faintly, responding to the child in ways she could not name.
The Draconian woman led Mallory deeper into the sanctuary, passing through halls lined with stone carved with strange runes.
The walls themselves seemed to breathe.
Every step echoed softly, swallowed almost instantly by the vast stillness.
It was a strange feeling for the child, who had only ever known chaos and noise.
Here, silence was not empty. It was protective. It was purposeful. It was… heavy.
Time seemed to stretch. Minutes felt like hours. Hours like days.
Mallory wandered through the halls, still clutching her music box, occasionally peeking at the glowing runes that shifted faintly as she passed.
The Draconian woman occasionally raised her hand, letting faint streams of light ripple across the walls, wards or magic meant to protect, though Mallory did not understand how.
The child's mind spun with fear and curiosity.
Every corner seemed alive. Every shadow, a whisper of a secret she could not yet grasp.
"What… what is this place?" she asked softly.
The woman's eyes glinted faintly.
"It is safe," she said. "For now. But safety is never permanent." She rested a hand on the girl's shoulder briefly, firm and reassuring.
Mallory's heart pounded, clutching the music box closer.
The tiny dancing figure spun, wobbling, and the soft music sounded like a heartbeat in the still air.
The child wondered if the box was alive.
Or if it knew something she did not.
Outside, the wind moved through hidden cracks in the sanctuary, carrying with it the faint smell of burned earth, iron, and something strange—something older than the battlefield, older than the world she remembered.
The Draconian woman stopped at a door carved with runes, intricate and faintly glowing.
She looked down at Mallory, her gaze unreadable.
"You must learn to listen," she said. "Listen to the world, to yourself, to what you carry with you." She lifted the girl slightly onto tiptoe to meet her gaze.
Mallory nodded, unsure what it meant but sensing the weight behind the words.
She wondered… would she ever see her parents again?
The woman led her inside a room faintly lit by sunlight filtered through cracks above.
No furniture except for a small cot and a table.
A few objects glinted faintly, old, strange, protective, but Mallory did not recognize them.
"This will be your room," the woman said. "For now."
Mallory looked around, clinging to the music box.
It was comforting. Safe. Familiar.
The only piece of her old life that remained.
"Why me?" Mallory asked finally.
The Draconian woman's lips pressed into a line.
"Because someone must," she said. "Because it was promised. Because what happens next matters more than you can yet imagine."
The words hung in the air.
Mallory did not understand them.
But she felt them. Felt the importance. The danger. The quiet weight of a fate she had not yet been told.
The sanctuary seemed to wrap around her like a blanket, but the feeling of war still clung to her.
She could hear echoes of it, faintly, in her dreams even as she slept.
In her waking hours, the child wandered slowly, learning the space, touching the glowing runes, listening to the hum of power in the walls, always holding the music box close.
It vibrated faintly when she walked, hummed when she spun it, sang softly when she thought of her mother.
Questions filled her mind:
Who was this woman really?
Why had she been taken?
Were her parents alive?
Was she safe?
Was the world outside gone, or had it just forgotten her?
Was the music box more than a toy?
Was it a key, a signal, or just a memory?
The Draconian woman rarely spoke.
But when she did, it was always cryptic, always layered, always leaving Mallory to wonder.
And that was exactly the point.
For Mallory's fate was not simple.
And the child's role, though hidden from her, was crucial to forces far older and far more dangerous than she could ever yet imagine.
As night fell outside, the sanctuary's glow shifted.
Shadows stretched long and strange along the stone walls.
Mallory sat on her cot, music box in hand, listening to the silence.
It was a strange silence, different from the battlefield, heavier, but somehow comforting.
She wondered, even as her eyelids drooped, if this was safe.
If she was protected.
If she would ever see her parents again.
And somewhere, far beyond the sanctuary, the echoes of war whispered that the game had only just begun.
The music box spun.
The Draconian woman watched.
And the child, small and frightened, dreamed of a future she could not yet see.
Her journey had begun.
Her story, hidden and secret, was only just opening its first chapter beyond the ashes of war.
The heart-shaped box glimmered faintly in the quiet.
A reminder, a tether, a memory, and a promise all at once.
Mallory did not yet understand its significance.
But she would.
In time.
And the sanctuary waited, patient.
Silent.
Watching.
Her life had been taken from the chaos of the battlefield.
And it had been placed into hands older, wiser, and more dangerous than she could yet know.
The child clutched the box and whispered a promise to herself.
She would survive.
She would remember.
She would not be lost.
Even as the world outside moved on, unaware of the small child hidden in ancient walls, the first threads of destiny began to weave themselves quietly around her.
And somewhere, far away, the wind carried whispers of fate, of magic, and of promises that could not be broken.
The game had begun.
And Mallory was at its center.