The sky was bleeding fire.
Lyra stood in the center of the chaos, her bare feet sinking into soot-soft earth as crimson flames devoured what remained of her village. Screams tangled with the wind, rising like the final hymn of a dying world.
All around her, the air cracked with heat and fury—rooftops collapsing in bursts of cinders, dragons shrieking as they dove from the smoky heavens. The raid had come without warning. One moment, she'd been feeding kindling to the hearth; the next, the sky split open like a curse, and the dragons descended.
Not wild ones.
Royal ones.
Their scales bore the banners of the Crown. Their riders wore silver masks, faceless and silent, as they hurled fire into homes Lyra had known her entire life.
"Lyra!" a voice cried behind her. Familiar. Choked with ash. "Run!"
She turned—and her heart lurched.
Kael, her dragon. Smaller than the war beasts above, not yet grown to full size. His wings were torn. His left leg dragged behind him as he limped through the burning wreckage toward her.
She ran to him.
"No—no, don't," she whispered, trying to push his snout away, trying to make him turn back. "They'll kill you."
But Kael only pressed his blood-slick nose against her chest and closed his molten-orange eyes.
Above them, a rider in silver armor spotted her.
A flare lit the air.
Lyra screamed as Kael roared and turned to shield her with his body. The fireball struck his side—and this time, there was no more movement.
Only silence.
Lyra's scream broke something loose inside her.
The ground pulsed.
A heat burst outward from her chest—wild, white-hot, and wrong. Her arms flared with sudden pain, as if her veins themselves were firelines. Her skin glowed faintly gold.
And then, in one impossible moment, the flames answered her.
The inferno that had consumed the thatched roofs surged backward—turning away from her like it had been yanked by invisible strings. The air shimmered. One of the dragons above snarled mid-flight and banked violently to avoid an unseen force.
The rider looked down at her. And paused.
The silver mask tilted. Slowly. In disbelief.
Lyra's hands blazed with gold fire. Not the red-orange warmth of ordinary flame—but something ancient, forbidden. The fire of the Flameborn.
She staggered back from Kael's corpse, heart hammering, as the masked rider signaled sharply overhead.
In moments, the attack shifted.
The fire stopped spreading. The dragons pulled upward. The chaos ebbed.
And Lyra, kneeling in the ashes of her world, realized that the Crown hadn't come to destroy her village.
They had come for her.
She didn't remember being struck. Only the sensation of her knees giving way, of something cold snapping around her wrists, and of a gloved hand covering her mouth as the world spun sideways into black.
When Lyra woke, it was in chains.
The inside of the prison cart smelled like rust, straw, and old blood. Her wrists were bound with blackstone cuffs—dampening her power like an anchor on her soul. Her ankles were shackled too, and the rhythmic creaking of the wheels beneath her told her they hadn't stopped moving since she passed out.
She sat upright slowly, her throat sand-dry.
Across from her sat an older woman with a scarred lip and eyes like chipped stone. She wore the red and gold livery of the Royal Flameguard.
"So. You're awake."
Lyra didn't answer. Her tongue felt like cloth in her mouth.
The woman leaned forward. "You should be dead."
Lyra stared at her.
"You burned half the street with no training. No glyphs. No control." The guard's voice held something between admiration and fear. "You're either a curse or a miracle."
"I didn't mean to," Lyra croaked.
"Doesn't matter. The High Priestess has plans for you."
That name felt like iron dropped into her stomach. The High Priestess. Everyone had heard of Velora Emberlyn, the Flamekeeper of the Crown. Said to be blessed by the divine flame. Said to read fire like scripture.
"Why?" Lyra asked. "Why me?"
The guard looked out through the bars, as if seeing something beyond the trees.
"Because you're a match to a prophecy we were hoping would never come true."
They reached the capital just after dusk.
Lyra had never seen the Royal City before — only heard whispered stories of the towered spires, the golden flame statues, the dragons with wings like steel. She wasn't prepared for how beautiful it was.
And how cold.
Not in temperature, but in feeling. Everything gleamed, everything was perfect — and nothing welcomed her. The stone streets were too clean. The fire-lanterns too still. Even the people looked carved from silver and bone.
As they passed through the academy gates, Lyra saw them: hundreds of other dragonriders in black and crimson uniforms. Some leaned against their dragons like old friends. Others watched her cart with narrowed eyes.
A small group of elite riders stood atop the stairs of a wide obsidian building.
At their center stood a tall figure in frost-lined armor, hands behind his back, eyes glinting silver-blue beneath snow-pale hair.
Lyra felt something cold grip her spine.
She didn't know his name.
But he looked at her like he already knew everything about her.
Lucien Valmer.
The Frost Prince of the Crown.
The cursed one.
"Remove her chains," a voice said from the crowd.
The guard hesitated. "Highness, she's—"
"She's not a threat anymore."
The man stepped down slowly. He walked like a storm — calm, deliberate, deadly.
His gloved hand reached for her chin, tilting her face up.
Lyra didn't flinch.
Lucien's expression didn't change.
"She doesn't look like a Flameborn," he said flatly. "She looks like a girl who should've burned out."
Lyra glared at him. "Maybe I should have."
He said nothing. Just turned and walked away.
As the crowd parted, another figure emerged — taller, robed in white and gold, with long black hair coiled like a serpent and eyes that didn't blink.
Velora Emberlyn.
The High Priestess.
She smiled, and it was a smile Lyra would remember for the rest of her life.
Warm. Gentle. Deadly.
"Welcome, Lyra Ashwyn," she said softly. "You've come home."