Chaos erupts inside the village council chamber. The twin sisters, breathless and battle-born, stand in the midst of elders' accusations, still clad in ceremonial robes now singed and torn. "Cursed!" the villagers hiss, voices high with fear. Faces that once greeted them with warmth now burn with betrayal, as if recalling every moment of kindness now leaves a scar. Familiar mouths sneer; familiar hands pull children away as if the women carry plague. Aralyn's hands shake with violet sparks while Lyanna's eyes flit between faces, exit paths, and the razor edge of memory.
An elder's voice, hoarse and sharp, pierces through the shouting. Elder Morvath steps forward, his age-stained face twisted with both fear and righteousness. "They have brought calamity upon us!" He clutches an ancient scroll as if its presence alone justifies the venom in his words. "Abominations born of tainted blood! Cursed twins, marked for death!"
The villagers recoil as one, their motion like a wave, pushing against the air with fervent prayers and warding signs. A child shrieks as a woman drags him back from the twins' shadow. The sound twists the air, feeding Aralyn's fury. Her nails bite into her palms as she struggles for control, eyes flashing a molten, dangerous hue.
Her voice is pure defiance. "If this is how you greet kin, it's no wonder your bloodline is failing."
Beside her, Lyanna seems unfazed, but the slight narrowing of her eyes reveals a churning calculation. She touches Aralyn's arm lightly, a signal or perhaps a reminder that rage alone will not save them.
Elder Morvath unrolls the scroll with a grandiose motion, the parchment crackling with age. "Your birth was our first mistake. Your ceremony, the second. You have doomed us all!" The crowd draws tighter around him, a herd seeking protection from wolves in their midst.
For every word he spits, a memory pierces the twins. These are the voices that sang to them, that praised their growing powers before those powers bloomed to strength. Aralyn's anger burns hotter, while Lyanna coolly calculates their options. The starkness of the betrayal bears down like a weight, and the air thickens with hostility.
A particularly spiteful voice calls out. Their old teacher, once gentle and full of pride, now hard and vengeful. "Demons!" He spits at their feet, the gesture more violent than the worst incantation. Aralyn tenses, but Lyanna pulls her back, whispers just loud enough for her alone. "Not yet."
Morvath's eyes gleam as he delivers his final blow. "A bounty has already gone to the Crimson Court and the Crownlands." He lets the words settle, a sentence spoken. "Capture or death. Either will save us."
The twins stagger without moving, disbelief winding through them. These were their protectors, now the executioners with knives hidden in official seals. And still, they stand tall, unyielding in the storm. Aralyn laughs, a vicious sound that hides pain beneath contempt.
Suddenly, Thessa explodes into the chamber, all fierce eyes and wild energy. She is the bright spark in a darkened room, and her words cut through the tension. "You've all lost your minds! These are our daughters, our sisters!" Her boldness stops the villagers mid-curse, shock rendering them briefly silent.
"Careful, Thessa," Aralyn says, her voice pitched with sarcasm and heat. "I think you've been consorting with demons."
Torches bloom like wild stars in the distance. The hunt is on. Four shadows streak across the field, agile and relentless. Aralyn leads them with fierce urgency, her bronze skin gleaming with sweat as she vaults over fallen logs and pushes through dense underbrush. Lyanna weaves illusions, false trails and phantom sounds to throw their pursuers off the scent. The glow of Glimmershields flashes as Thessa blinds anyone who comes too close. Even Jalen, usually so poised, moves with grim determination, muttering about betrayal while urging them to press on. In a small clearing, they pause briefly. Jalen examines the bounty scroll he snatched from the council chamber, eyes widening at the golden seal of the Solari High Crown. "How could they know so fast?" he whispers. "The ceremony was only hours ago." Their moment of respite shatters as arrows cut the air, forcing them deeper into the wilderness.
Aralyn's limbs move like fire through the dusk, vaulting with relentless grace as she leads them towards the woods. Her breaths come quick but steady, and the anger in her chest burns hotter than exhaustion. She can almost hear the sneers behind them, feel their judgment cutting deeper than the wind. Her legs stretch and propel, and she moves faster, knowing that even now, they're being hunted by the ones they called kin.
The sharp cries of their pursuers draw closer, splintering the night. A hunting horn cuts through the air, its haunting sound sending a shiver through her, but Aralyn doesn't falter. She digs in, muscles tightening with power. "This way!" she calls back, pushing through brambles that snag her robe. Her voice carries the same fierce determination as her movements, a beacon through the chaos.
The line of trees beckons, a darker shadow against the indigo sky. Aralyn senses Lyanna behind her, her sister's presence as familiar as her own heartbeat. She knows Lyanna is playing her own game of cat and mouse, turning illusion to their advantage. Violet sparks flicker around Aralyn's hands as she tears through a thick cluster of branches, letting her anger feed the fire that lights their path. They're at the forest's edge, and the sounds of pursuit begin to fade, replaced by the rustling whispers of leaves and the labored breath of four fugitives.
Lyanna holds back a moment, her pace calculated to let the others surge ahead. Her mind dances with images and sensations, weaving them into intricate patterns that unfold behind her. Phantom sounds and illusory figures bloom in the night, leading their pursuers down tangled paths. She glances back, pale gray-violet eyes scanning for signs of her magic's success.
A shout goes up as a group splinters off, fooled by her deceit. Lyanna allows herself a small, knowing smile, her face otherwise serene despite the chaos. The underbrush tugs at her, but she moves with fluid grace, her golden brown skin almost luminous in the dim light. Each step is deliberate, every motion part of a larger, invisible strategy.
The forest closes in around them, and she draws even with Aralyn. "Let them chase ghosts," she says, her voice as cool and measured as ever, though her breathing has quickened. Aralyn nods, eyes flashing, and they push on, Lyanna casting new illusions in their wake.
Through the trees, the glint of metal. Torches closing in. Thessa spins, her hands raised and eyes alight with mischief even now. The mob has regrouped, but her Glimmershield erupts in blinding light, and their yells turn to confusion and pain as they cover their eyes.
"We really pissed them off this time!" Thessa laughs, but there's an edge to it. Her words are followed by an explosion of white radiance that forces their pursuers to stagger back, the entire world a brief flare of brilliance before dimming again. She doesn't stop moving, cinnamon-brown skin glistening with sweat as she hurls another Glimmershield over her shoulder. "This is a new record, don't you think?"
Beside her, Jalen arches an elegant brow, his face set in focused disbelief. "Did you really expect the tea-sipping wretches to actually thank us?" he snaps, his voice tinged with both sarcasm and the effort of keeping pace. Even now, his words cut with precision, each one sharpened by the betrayal still fresh and bleeding.
"Would have been nice!" Thessa replies, unleashing another burst of light that scatters the nearest villagers. Her smile is pure defiance, even as she runs.
Jalen moves like shadow through the woods, always taking the unexpected path, urging them towards safety with gestures and quick, clipped commands. "Keep left!" he calls, dodging around a fallen tree and sending an illusory flicker of himself to the right, momentarily confusing their trackers. "They won't follow for much longer. We're outside their precious village now."
But even as he says it, doubt laces his words. The bounty scroll is a heavy weight in his pocket, and he can't shake the feeling that this time, their flight leads somewhere even more dangerous.
They burst into a clearing, breaths ragged but adrenaline still coursing hot and fierce. It's a small haven amid the trees, the air thick with tension and unsaid words. Jalen pulls the scroll from his robe, unrolling it with fingers that tremble only slightly. Thessa collapses beside him, her chest heaving with each breath, while Aralyn and Lyanna share a look—anger and determination and sisterhood in the single glance.
"The Solari High Crown," Jalen says, eyes widening as they fix on the golden seal. His voice is quiet, but each word cuts through the night with stark clarity. "How could they know so fast? The ceremony was only hours ago."
Aralyn takes the scroll, her expression shifting from disbelief to fury. Her molten eyes find Lyanna's, and her voice is hard. "You don't think—?"
"That we were doomed the moment we were born?" Lyanna finishes, her tone betraying only the slightest quiver of something raw and wounded. "No. But close."
Thessa groans, but there's a forced brightness in it. "And here I was, hoping it was a phase," she says, trying for levity. No one laughs, not even her.
"We need to go. Now," Jalen insists, glancing back the way they came. But it's not the village he's worried about. He senses something larger closing in, something with power and reach that spans beyond what they've faced before.
Then the sound—swift and deadly. Arrows slicing the air, a dark streak against the pale light. They're moving before the first strikes the ground, urgency reignited as they plunge deeper into the forest, deeper into the unknown.
They should be safe here. Should be. But even as their breath slows, as they look around and try to find the calm between panicked flights, it happens. Aralyn senses it first, danger in her blood like the sky before lightning strikes. A shadow shifts, a weapon gleams, and the world explodes into violence. The attack is as brutal as it is precise. The assassin moves with inhuman speed, clad in black leather with the Solari mark, separating Aralyn from the others with an elegant series of cuts. Her own violet fire bursts untrained and sporadic around her. The blade presses closer, whispering death in a language older than words, before Kaelen descends. Massive and burning. It ends as fast as it began, the attacker convulsing in the dirt and Kaelen disappearing into the night. They stare at the sky, Jalen finding a letter with the same mark. "We need to keep moving," he says. "This is bigger than village superstition. Someone powerful wants you both dead."
They stop at the ravine, lungs heaving, the path behind them tangled with lies and betrayal. The world narrows to their breath, their closeness, and the desperate hope that maybe—maybe—they've outrun everything for now. But the night is vast, a living thing with its own pulse, and Aralyn feels it like a storm gathering inside her.
She doesn't hear the first attack. She feels it, an instinct older than memory. "Watch out!" Her voice cracks the air a heartbeat before the assassin strikes.
The blade misses Lyanna by a whisper, a breath, a fraction of a second. Enough. The world explodes into motion. A shadow among shadows, the assassin moves with terrifying speed, clad in black leather with the Solari mark gleaming in the night. Aralyn barely sees him move before he drives her away from the others, the blade sweeping an arc that sings of deadly precision.
"Aralyn!" Lyanna's voice is distant, panicked. She's pinned by the assassin's elegance, the inevitability of his strikes.
Violet fire burns around her, furious and bright, but Aralyn struggles to control it. It flares with her anger, with her fear, with the feral instinct of being prey in a hunt she never expected. Each burst of flame illuminates her, defiant and raw, before vanishing into the dark. The attacks come faster than thought, a whirlwind of metal and intent that forces her back, back, against the edge of a ravine.
She fights like the world depends on it. Because maybe it does.
The assassin's blade gleams with strange blue runes, each strike perfectly calculated. Aralyn deflects, counters, her movements echoing the heat and danger of her flame. But he's always a step ahead, always knowing, always one cut closer to her heart.
The others are gone. She can't see them, can't hear them over the rush of blood and the harsh song of steel. All that exists is the fight, the fire, the knowledge that she cannot—will not—fall here.
The blade is at her throat.
She's pinned against the boulder, vision flashing with anger and desperation. The assassin's eyes, cold and relentless, lock onto hers. "The prophecy ends here, Vel'Saryn spawn."
The words cut deeper than the metal, ancient and filled with promise of her death.
But the sky answers. A massive shadow descends, burning bright with life and danger. Kaelen. The name is a wildfire in her mind.
He tears the assassin away with terrifying ease, his partial dragon form massive and overwhelming. The ground shakes with the force of his landing, and the air fills with the sound of wings, of violence, of a world on the brink of unmaking. His claws rip through the attacker's armor, leaving ragged trails of destruction.
Aralyn breathes.
The assassin tries to rise, tries to flee, but collapses, body convulsing as though poisoned by Kaelen's touch.
Their eyes meet, and it's an electric current, a jolt of everything unsaid and unknown and dangerous. Then he's gone, launching back into the sky with an explosion of wind and power.
It ends as fast as it began.
The others reach her, disbelief and relief and fear etched into every movement. They stare where Kaelen disappeared, a ghost or a savior or something else entirely.
"What just happened?" Thessa gasps, collapsing to the ground beside the fallen assassin. Her voice is shock and wonder, a stark contrast to the quiet that now fills the ravine.
"Nothing good," Lyanna replies, her own shock carefully masked, eyes scanning the dark for any further threat.
Jalen is already examining the assassin's belongings, his hands efficient and trembling only slightly. He pulls a sealed letter from the armor, the same Solari mark staring up at them with ruthless authority. "We need to keep moving," he says, the weight of everything catching in his voice.
Aralyn stands, her hands still crackling with the memory of flame, her heart still echoing the battle. "This is bigger than village superstition," Jalen continues. "Someone powerful wants you both dead—and they're not waiting around."
Lyanna meets Aralyn's gaze, a silent understanding passing between them. It's not just betrayal now. It's prophecy. It's destiny. It's war.
The night closes in as they flee again, four shadows against the vast unknown.