Location: Elaren Crypts — Beneath the Temple of Dust
POV: Seris Valen
Seris had never feared blood.
She'd bled for rebellion, for Caelis, for Ashren—bled under the god's scream, bled through truth and love and betrayal. But as she descended the spiral staircase into the Temple of Dust, past bones carved with forgotten names, this blood frightened her.
Because it was hers.
And it was moving.
---
Whispers in the Dark
The crypt pulsed.
Walls of living stone shimmered faintly with veins of crimson, glowing with magic that hadn't stirred in centuries. Seris pressed her palm to the sigil-etched floor, expecting cold. Instead—heat. It pulsed in rhythm with her heart.
And the whispers began.
> "She walks. She wakes. The last daughter of Thamaris... or the first daughter of Ruin."
"No," she whispered. "I'm not his. I'm not anything of his."
But the temple didn't lie.
It only remembered.
---
The Tomb of Aelira
She found it deep beneath the catacombs—a sarcophagus marked in ironwood and bone-rune, sealed in flame magic. Aelira Valen. Her grandmother.
Not just a warrior. Not just a seer.
> A hybrid.
Seris broke the seal with blood.
Inside, the corpse stared up at her, eyes still open—burning with faint light. Clutched in the dead woman's arms: a blade wrapped in silver thread, and a scroll bound in human skin.
She took both.
And the moment her fingers touched the blade, memories not her own seared her mind—
Wings made of ash.
A throne built from screaming gods.
A daughter born from vengeance, not love.
Seris fell to her knees.
> "You were born of war," a voice whispered.
"But you will end the gods."
---
Blood as Key
The scroll revealed the truth.
Seris Valen was the last of the Trueblood Line—descended not just from the house of Vale, but from an ancient binding pact between mortals and the Old Flame, a primordial force imprisoned by Thamaris long ago.
That flame now stirred inside her.
Waiting.
Wanting.
> "When the Veil falls," the scroll read, "only the heir of fire and shadow may strike the final blow."
She wasn't just a survivor.
She was the key to ending the war.
And now, she had a choice:
Let the flame consume her…
Or become its wielder.
---
Final Scene — The Fire Awakens
Seris stood beneath the vault of names, blade in hand.
The ground trembled.
Above, stars blinked out.
And from the deep recesses of the earth, the flame stirred—calling her by name.
> "Seris. Wielder. Ender. Rise."