Chapter One – Dreamfire

The air was thick with smoke and song.

Nyra stood barefoot at the center of the ritual chamber, her heels resting in shallow grooves worn into the stone by generations of feet before hers. The floor was cold, not lifeless—cold like bone, cold like memory. Beneath it, or within it, something stirred.

The chamber itself was a hollow carved into the living rock of the sanctuary’s oldest spine—part shrine, part scar. No lights but the flames. No windows but the Breath.

Above, the domed ceiling disappeared into shadow. The only illumination came from the central altar: a low circular brazier, its fire flickering in time with the voices around her. Not natural flame—too quiet, too precise. This fire listened. It moved with intention, not wind.

Around her, five cloaked figures formed a pentacle, silent sentries in layered robes, their hoods casting their faces in shadow. They were Keepers, but not all elders. The youngest among them stood with a nervous stillness, fists clenched beneath ceremonial cuffs. Another’s breath hitched on every third word. Only one figure remained completely still, posture straight, veil flickering slightly from the heat.

Mother Veska.

Their chanting rose again, low and rhythmic, a pulse of sound that curled like smoke around the edges of Nyra’s mind. She could not see their faces, but she felt their presence: ancient, watchful, patient. Some had waited years for this. Others doubted she was ready.

The air was dry as parchment and hot beneath the skin. Not sweat-hot, ember-hot, as if the chamber breathed from its walls.

This was not routine.

This was a trial.

And though Nyra had been told her day would come, the exact moment had arrived like a whisper in the night—no warning, no instructions beyond what had been etched into her memory during long years of training: stand still, breathe deep, do not break the circle.

Her thoughts trembled like flame against wind.

"Do not resist the vision," Mother Veska’s voice came, not aloud, but within her—sharp and resonant as a struck bell. "It will find you regardless. Better to meet it standing."

Nyra swallowed hard, lifted her chin, and let her eyes close.

Scorched herbs. Iron. The faint, acrid sweetness of burnt bloodmoss. The smoke coiled down her throat and curled around her ribs.

Then the fall began, like sinking backward into water gone still and black.

Nyra gasped and dropped to her knees.

The chamber reasserted itself all at once—stone, smoke, silence. The air was heavier than before, the heat more erratic, like the fire itself had recoiled in fear or awe.

The flames in the altar had surged high, licking up the inner walls of the chamber like a torch seeking escape. Shadows twisted violently across the dome above, shrinking as the blaze calmed, but never fully receding.

The chanting had stopped. The silence it left behind was not peaceful.

Her fingers burned. The stone medallion in her hand, pressed into her palm before the rite, was glowing with a faint, internal light, a glyph flickering beneath its surface like breath caught in glass. The edge was scored now. Not cracked, but not whole.

Around her, the five cloaked figures stood motionless. Watching.

She looked up, first at Veska. The matriarch stood nearest the altar, veiled in ceremonial ash-grey, her hands folded like an offering. Her face was unreadable, but her eyes—sharp, pale, unblinking—missed nothing. Not the glyph. Not Nyra’s trembling.

To Veska’s left stood Tali Oran, her posture stiff with barely concealed disapproval. Tali had always spoken of discipline as flame: beautiful, contained, unforgiving. She wore midnight-black robes stitched with copper thread, and the copper gleamed now with heat.

Beside her, Rek Tarn gave a subtle nod—not approval, but recognition. His broad frame filled the shadows like a protective wall, but his hands were easy at his sides. If he had drawn a weapon, it was only in his mind. Rek was Flame Sentinel. He’d seen others rise. And others fall.

The fourth figure remained nameless, an initiate in training robes, young, perhaps too young. They fidgeted as Nyra met their gaze and quickly looked away.

The fifth, Zhen Chazari, unmistakable even cloaked, even quiet, breathed out a low hum. Not disrespectful. Almost amused. Her glittering rings, tucked just barely beneath her sleeves, caught the flicker of the fire like tiny stars. She tilted her head, curious, concerned, and already calculating what this meant.

None of them spoke. None of them moved.

Nyra gripped the medallion tighter and stood, legs trembling under the weight of whatever had just passed through her.

“She saw something,” Zhen murmured, finally. “Something real.”

Veska’s gaze did not shift.

“The Flame always shows truth,” she said. “Whether we wish to see it or not.”

Nyra didn’t answer. She didn’t trust her voice. The embers inside her ribs still hadn’t gone out.

From somewhere behind her, a stone shifted. Not from movement—but from heat. The altar fire snapped once, sharp and metallic, and settled back into its rhythmic glow.

The air had changed.

The chamber was still full of smoke, but something else lingered now. Beneath the herbs, beneath the ash. A tang like ozone. Like something old being disturbed.

Zhen exhaled slowly, then flicked a glance toward Tali.

“She’s marked,” Zhen said, softer now. “Whatever she saw, it’s left a trace.”

Tali’s lips pressed into a thin line, but she said nothing.

Rek’s brow furrowed. “The glyph pulsed when she dropped,” he said, mostly to Veska. “Did anyone else see it? It flared.”

The initiate shifted uncomfortably. “It burned my tongue,” they whispered, though no one had asked.

Still Veska didn’t speak. Her gaze remained fixed on Nyra, as if waiting for something else to appear. As if the vision hadn’t ended.

And Nyra, who had seen masks with no faces and a tree that screamed as it split in two, could not shake the feeling that the true ritual had only just begun.