In the dark, names become weapons.
Seraphina moved through the dungeon like she'd been here before.
Because she had.
She didn't remember how. Or when. But every echo felt like déjà vu carved in bone. Every flicker of flame on the blue torches whispered like a tongue she should have forgotten.
The whispers were growing louder.
Not just in her head.
From the stone.
From the walls.
From the chains.
The passage narrowed into a cathedral-shaped chamber of black obsidian. The ceiling was high—so high it vanished into shadow. The floor was smooth as glass, but streaked with scorch marks and claw trails.
At the center of the room stood a cage.
A massive cage of dragonbone and molten gold.
Inside it, suspended by chains that bled light, hung a figure wreathed in shadow and silence.
Not dead.
Not alive.
Waiting.
Seraphina stopped. Her heart didn't race—it slowed. Her body reacted as if it had found the source of every fear it had ever forgotten.
She couldn't move.
She didn't want to.
"Say it," the figure rasped from within the cage.
"Say my name."
Her throat tightened.
Her lips parted.
"...Vael."
The name unlocked the air. The torches flared violently. The runes on the cage lit up in crimson and deep violet.
And the god inside began to move.
Chains clanged as Vael straightened—tall, skeletal, but coiled with dormant power. His eyes were sealed shut with black threads. His mouth was stitched at the corners with sigil-wire. But even caged, even bound, he radiated divinity twisted with rage.
He didn't look at her.
But he knew her.
"You were always my fiercest flame…"
"…and they turned you to ash to hide the truth."
**_FLASH—_**
Seraphina screamed as gods in bone masks encircled her.
Kael watched from the shadows as they branded her forehead.
A voice roared from below the altar—Vael's voice—shaking the realm.
But Kael held her down. Held her still. Whispered: "It's the only way."
**_FLASH—_**
Back in the present, Seraphina staggered, gasping. Her hands were glowing red-hot.
Kael's voice echoed from above, muffled by stone and rune:
"Sera, don't listen to it! You don't know what you're waking—!"
Vael's head lifted.
"He's lying."
**_The Cage Responds_**
The dragonbone bars glowed as Seraphina stepped closer. Her breath misted in the freezing air, though her skin steamed with heat.
"I was killed to silence you," she whispered.
"I was bound in marriage to your executioner."
"Why?"
Vael didn't answer.
Not yet.
Instead, the floor beneath the cage began to rotate. Runes spiraled outward, revealing a circle of inscriptions:
"When the Daughter Returns, Let Her Burn the Lock with Her Flame."
Seraphina raised her palm.
It ignited.
**_BOOM._**
With a scream, she released a stream of red fire into the cage's base. The stone absorbed it, glowed, then cracked.
Vael's chains rattled. He cried out—not in pain, but reawakening. His mouth tore open. His eyes blinked. They were white—pure white—and glowing.
"They feared what I showed you. So they stole your fire… and crowned your murderer."
Kael's voice slammed into her mind again, like a blade of guilt:
"I never wanted to be king. I wanted you safe."
She screamed and covered her ears.
Both were telling the truth.
Both were lying.
**_The Voice of the Cage_**
As the light surged, the cage began to sing.
Not a melody—but words, sung in ancient language, weaving through Seraphina's skin like magic threading muscle:
"Bound in flame, the goddess fell,
From ash she rose to break the spell,
With dragon's breath and fury woken,
The false gods fall, their oaths broken."
The floor split wide.
A staircase spiraled downward beneath the cage, into a pit that pulsed with violet light and dripping chains.
Vael's voice echoed:
"Come, daughter. Let me show you the truth of your death—and the kingdom built upon your bones."
Seraphina hesitated.
And then she stepped forward.
But just as her foot touched the first stair—
Kael crashed through the altar above.
**_Kael's Entrance_**
He fell hard, armored and gasping, blood dripping from his hand where he'd carved through runes with a sacrificial dagger.
"Sera—stop. You don't understand what's below!"
"Then tell me!"
His eyes were wild, desperate. "If you break his final seal… the Pantheon will fall. The sky will fracture. The gods themselves will burn."
She stared at him, trembling.
And smiled.
"Good."
TO BE CONTINUED...
🔥 Chapter 3 Hook — "Vael's Cage"
A forgotten god.
A locked truth.
A daughter made of fire and fury.
As Seraphina unlocks Vael's cage, the past she buried claws to the surface—revealing a kingdom built on betrayal and an immortal king caught between love and damnation.
🗝️ Will she free Vael—or become his vessel?
🩸 What truth did Kael kill to protect?
🔥 And when gods fall… who takes their place?
📖 Next: Chapter 4 – "The Song Beneath the Stone"
Let me know when you're ready to continue to Chapter 4, or if you'd like a tagline, blurb, or visual teaser for this chapter. This is now a saga in motion, Ben. 🐉🩸🔥