---
Seraphina barely had time to process the spirit's cryptic warning before a sudden wave of pain surged through her body — sharp, not physical, but something deeper, like her soul being yanked through fire.
Her knees buckled.
"Seraphina!" Ravon caught her before she collapsed, but his voice was distant, blurred.
A vision slammed into her.
---
She stood in a realm of ash and bone.
The sky was crimson, the earth cracked and steaming. Before her stood a dark-robed figure with horns like polished obsidian and eyes glowing with ancient hunger.
The figure lifted its hand, and in its palm danced a flicker of golden fire — a flame that pulsed with the rhythm of her unborn child's heartbeat.
"You think prophecy protects you?" the figure growled. "Your child is not salvation. It is a key. And I will be the one to turn it."
The world cracked open behind him, and serpents of smoke hissed through the skies.
---
Seraphina gasped, ripped back into her body with a jolt.
Ravon was already moving.
He flared his aura outward — a burning storm of black and red energy that cracked the chamber's protective sigils. His wings erupted from his back, unfurled in full demonic glory. "Someone breached the vision veil," he snarled. "That wasn't a future. That was a threat."
A sharp tremor rocked the tower.
Alarms—silent, magical ones—lit up along the spire's core. Someone… or something had entered their sanctuary. The wards were failing.
Seraphina steadied herself, the glow beneath her skin now flickering uncontrollably.
"They're here for me," she said, her voice steady despite the chaos. "For us."
Ravon didn't argue. He held out his hand, and from the shadows, his ancestral blade snapped into existence — a weapon forged from the remains of the first fallen star.
"Then let them come," he growled.
From the far end of the hallway, a shriek rose — high-pitched and unnatural. Figures cloaked in burning gold appeared, phasing through the walls like spirits made of fire and vengeance.
They were not demons. Not angels.
Something in between.
The Purgeborn.
Creatures once forged by the ancient gods to destroy unnatural unions — abominations of law and fire.
And now… they had come for her.