The dawn sky bled crimson, streaked with fire and foreboding as the first sounds of marching boots echoed across the plains. The night was close and the darkness loomed in the distance. From the forest of Nyxia, a tide of dark figures poured forth—Hazrael’s army, a sea of steel and shadow that stretched as far as the eye could see. The Shadow Seekers flanking them. The ground quaked beneath their advance, each thundering step a promise of blood and conquest. At the vanguard, King Hazrael himself rode a massive black steed, its hooves striking the earth with the sharp clang of iron. His armor glimmered with cruel elegance, polished obsidian adorned with silver inlays in the shape of coiled serpents. The king’s eyes, cold and predatory, swept the landscape with the practiced gaze of a hunter. His cloak, deep as midnight, billowed behind him like the wings of some dark creature.

  To his left and right, the Shadow Seekers glided with unnatural grace, their movements barely disturbing the dust beneath their feet. Cloaked in black with glistening masks that covered their faces, they looked almost ethereal, like wraiths summoned from the abyss. Their eyes shone through the narrow slits, red and burning, seeping malice. In their hands, they wielded curved blades that dripped with an oily, black substance—poison as old as their oath to the king.

  The moon was a thin, sickle-shaped glimmer in the ink-black sky, casting its pale, ghostly light across the landscape. The cursed forest loomed like a malevolent titan, its gnarled trees whispering secrets carried on the wind. The air was damp and rank, saturated with the scent of decay and old magic that clung to every leaf, every shadow.

  King Hazrael sat on the crest of a twisted log, his sharp, predatory eyes scanning the dense thicket as if daring it to challenge him. His cloak was as dark as the night, lined with silver thread that caught the faint gleam of the firelight. The flames licked hungrily at the air, casting jagged, moving silhouettes across the encampment. Around him, his men moved with practiced silence, their leather armor groaning as they knelt or shifted positions. They were warriors forged in blood, faces obscured by helmets adorned with wicked, silver spikes that glinted like the teeth of a beast.

  “Your Majesty.” A voice, low and deferential, broke through the crackling of the fire. A captain stepped forward, his breath visible in the chill, a sheen of sweat on his brow despite the cold. “The men are uneasy. The forest is...too alive. They feel watched.”

  King Hazrael’s lips curved into a thin, humorless smile. “Let it watch then,” he said, his voice carrying a glacial confidence that silenced the captain’s worries. “By the time it understands what it sees, we will have carved a path of fire through its heart.”

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  A quiet rustle in the shadows beyond the fire made the soldiers freeze, their hands tightening on the hilts of their swords, some of them readying their bows. From the darkness, a small figure emerged—old and young, draped in robes of deep midnight blue embroidered with arcane symbols that seemed to shimmer and shift as she moved. The Priestess, a figure wrapped in both awe and dread, appeared like a wraith summoned by the darkest shadows of the night.

  Her face was obscured by a mask of polished bone, two eye slits revealing eyes as dark and endless as an abyss. She moved gracefully, slowly, each step barely stirring the leaves beneath her feet. When she reached King Hazrael, she inclined her head slightly, a gesture that spoke not of subservience, but of an ancient power. She’d never bow, not to any king or queen.

  “You march well, King Hazrael,” she said, her voice silken, each word woven with the hint of an enchantment that made even the forest seem to listen. “But marching alone like this won’t secure your throne forever.”

  King Hazrael’s eyes narrowed, their hard gleam sharpening as they met the abyssal eyes of the Priestess. “That is why you are here,” he replied, coldly assured. “You, who know the shadows that even my darkest spies dare not tread. You, who possess secrets that can bind gods or banish them.” He smiled slightly, a wicked cruel smile. “You healed well.”

  The Priestess’s painted lips curved behind her mask, a smile that promised nothing but ruin. She stepped closer, her fingers, long and skeletal, frail and old but smooth and young, brushing over the old runes carved into a nearby tree. The bark shuddered under her touch as though the forest itself recoiled.

  “They will not be enough,” she murmured. “The girl carries more than royal blood; she carries the echo of the old line, power untamed and raw. If she is allowed to find it, to wield it, your reign will be nothing more than ashes in her wake. She has found it once again.”

  A flicker of doubt, rare and brief, crossed King Hazrael’s face before he banished it with a scowl. He rose, towering over the smaller figure of the Priestess, though she met his gaze with ease. “Then she must be broken,” he said, each syllable hammered like iron. “Along with anyone who bears even a drop of her cursed blood.”

  The Priestess tilted her head, the firelight catching the sharp angles of her mask. “Ah yes. Not just broken. Annihilated.” The word rolled from her tongue like a spell, one that sank into the very air between them.

  Around them, the soldiers exchanged uneasy, weary glances, the light of their torches reflected in eyes wide with fear. They had heard the tales of the Priestess, of how she once commanded storms that shattered stone and called shadows to strangle the life out of kings. Yet here she stood, weaving a pact with the man who had taken a throne bathed in blood, promising an end more grotesque than any story. Her legacy stretched far, way back in time, tales of her cruelty could scare even the bravest of men.

  King Hazrael allowed a grim smile, his gauntleted hand closing tightly around the hilt of his blade, the metal etched with sigils that cried when touched by flame. “We will march at dawn,” he commanded, the echo of his voice a drumbeat of doom. He made sure the entire camp heard. “And when we reach Yaveria, we will make sure Aerin and all her allies beg for death before it comes.”

  The Priestess let out a quiet laugh, the sound slithering into the ears of the gathered soldiers and planting seeds of dread. “I will make sure of it,” she said, and as her voice wove through the camp, the fire sputtered, casting their world in a crimson glow that spoke of the blood yet to be spilled. Shadows danced around her, caressing her cloak as she slowly faded away.