The rain had a smell in Cindel Hollow. Not fresh or clean, like in the stories the nobles told. Ours smelled like mud and ash. Like something forgotten.
I remember the day the soldiers came. I was nine. Maybe ten.
Mama had already passed. Fever took her.
Papa? I never knew him. But I knew hunger.
And cold.
And silence.
I knew how to hide under broken carts when drunks came stumbling by. I knew how to steal bread without getting caught. That was my education.
The soldiers came with banners and boots that crushed the wet earth like it owed them. They didn't look at me. Just posted a notice.
"Volunteers Needed. Food and Pay Provided."
That was enough.
I didn't have anyone to say goodbye to. No one asked why a girl barely thirteen was offering to carry crates and clean wounds. They just shoved a pack in my arms and said, "Keep up."
That was how it started. Not with a sword. Not with magic. Just with a girl no one noticed, walking toward a war that would one day know her name.
They called me a logistics assistant. It meant I got to carry things too heavy for children, and sleep beside horses. But I paid attention. I watched how soldiers moved pieces on war maps. How commanders shouted orders, and how the smart ones didn't shout at all.
One day, I corrected a supply route on the map. The captain slapped me.
Next week, when the supplies didn't arrive and a whole flank collapsed, he looked at me differently. After that, he started "letting" me help.
By the time I turned sixteen, I wasn't just helping. I was running drills. Rewriting plans. Commanders twice my age were whispering behind tents: "That orphan girl's got something."
But it was never enough. Not for the nobles.
They hated that I was born in mud, not marble. That I read battle charts better than they read poetry. That I didn't bow when they lied.
Still, I climbed. Step by step. Until I was allowed into the Grand Academy of Azuren, as their first commoner strategist in a century.
They said I was a miracle. They said I was the future of Virelia.
They were lying.
I never saw the betrayal coming. Isn't that funny?
I had mapped enemy formations in my sleep. Predicted cavalry ambushes like reading the weather. But I didn't see the knife coming, not until it was already in my back.
The Battle of Veilscar.
I was twenty-one. The biggest push of the decade. Demon forces rallying near the canyon. I warned them, "It's a trap".
They sent me anyway.
When the demons closed in, when the sky turned red and the ground cracked beneath us, Captain Lysandre ordered retreat.
But not for me. For the nobles. For the ones born with names.
They left me behind.
I didn't die. Worse. I was captured.
Dragged through fire and ash. Stripped of rank. Spat on.
And then... I met him.
The Demon King.
His throne wasn't gold. It was bone. Ash. Flame that didn't burn, but whispered.
He looked at me like I wasn't worth noticing. Then he asked me one question.
"Will you serve... or will you perish?"
I didn't blink. I didn't beg. I didn't cry.
I looked that ancient monster in the eyes and said:
"I'll serve... until I make them kneel."
That's when the pain began. The ritual. The Mark.
They carved it into my heart with soul-fire. It glows red when I lie. If I betray him, it will kill me.
The demons call it obedience.
I call it a promise.
Because someday...those who left me behind will see what they created.
And when I return, I will not come back as their hero. I will come back as the villainess they made me.