The Turning…
The Turning was a ritual in the supernatural world. Every supernatural had to take part in it. It was the only time we all could coexist—
The Nightwalkers were a race that consisted of vampires, demons, wraiths, shadows, and anything else that thrived in haunted night. Creatures drawn to moonlight and cursed blood, bound to secrets as old as the Rift itself.
Then there were the Elementals. Earth, fire, air, and water. Born of nature's core, wild and temperamental. Their veins didn't bleed—they raged.
The Arcane-Bound, scholars of forbidden magic, inked in sigils and secrets. Their bloodlines were shaped by rituals older than memory.
The Shifters, skinwalkers who wore animals like second skin. Predators with memories of war in their bones.
And then the Ancient Bloodlines… the ones no one dared speak of.
We—the Ny'Akara—were believed to be extinct. Forgotten. Erased. The Sixth Race.
But we remembered.
Even when the world forgot us.
---
Ash sat in the back of the low-glide crawler, silence curled around her like a second skin. The window beside her showed a gray smear of trees and broken towers as the Citadel neared. She had no idea what she would find inside its gates.
"You ever been to the Citadel before?" the driver asked suddenly.
His voice cut through the quiet like a blade.
Ash didn't look at him. "No."
"I have. Once," he said. "Took a diplomat there. She came out with white hair and a sealed mouth."
"Sealed?"
"Magic. Or trauma. Hard to tell."
She turned toward the window again. "Maybe both."
He glanced at her in the mirror. "You one of them?"
"One of who?"
"You know who I mean."
Ash didn't answer.
Not because she didn't want to.
Because she didn't know.
But the Whisper inside her stirred.
Not in fear.
In memory.
And far ahead, at the edge of the horizon, the Citadel waited.
And it remembered her first.