The wind tasted of ash and sorrow.
It howled through the broken towers of the Abyssal like a wounded animal. I shivered despite Freasia's arm around me, my body still sore from the fall through the mirror-crystal portal. My ankle throbbed with every step, but I gritted my teeth and limped forward through the cursed fog, refusing to show weakness. There was no place for weakness in exile. Not when every breath in this realm scraped like frost across the lungs. Not when we didn't know what horrors hid in the twilight mists.
Thumpan floated ahead of us like a ghost,his small, hunched form aglow with ribbons of silver dust. He never once looked back. Just glided silently, as if our presence were expected, has been expected for ages. As if fate had already turned its final page.
Freasia helped me over a crumbling ledge. "Lean on me," he whispered. "You're no good to anyone if you faint."
I let myself lean into his warmth for a second. Just one. "I won't faint," I murmured. "Not until I bury Morgana with my own hands."
He let out a soft laugh, one without mirth. "That's the spirit."
Ahead, a ruined courtyard came into view, half-swallowed by creeping frost and dark ivy. The broken stone shimmered faintly, etched with glowing runes too ancient to read. As we passed through the archway, I felt something… shift. Magic. Old and watchful.
"Where are we?" I asked Thumpan, my voice hoarse.
He turned to me, his molten eyes boring into mine. "You stand upon the ground of the forgotten, the betrayed. The true blood of Aetherion, cast out to rot in shadows"
And then suddenly figures emerged from the haze, rugged looking pixies.
I froze.
They were three in number, and they moved like phantoms but radiated power. One had vast, flame-laced wings that shimmered like fireglass. Another one stood tall, her robes rippling like ocean tides, her crown woven of coral and starlight. The third, muscular, with a mirror-blade strapped to his back, had eyes like cracked obsidian.
My heart pounded as they stepped into the light of Thumpan's dust. Even Freasia fell silent.
The flame-winged one lowered his head and said "She comes, the noble daughter of great Lord Guvian to'"
The mirror-blade warrior dropped to one knee and bowed "Princess of Light."
The tide-robed woman bowed low, her voice a hushed reverence. "Evangeline of the House Guvian. You honor the forgotten with your presence."
"I....I'm no one's princess anymore," I said, caught between awe and confusion. "I was banished."
"You were betrayed," said the woman. "And betrayal is no true sentence."
Freasia stepped protectively in front of me. "Who are you?"
Thumpan spread his arms, introducing them as if revealing sacred relics.
"Pyrax, Flame-Winged Lord of the Dawnwatch. Banished for refusing to execute a village Morgana labeled traitorous."
Pyrax bowed, wings folding. "My fire was meant for the stars, not for the innocent."
"Bellatrix, Tide-Queen of the Nerean Reaches. Exiled when she discovered Gaston's tampering with sea-bound trade."
Bellatrix's voice was calm but sharp. "I warned your father once. He did not listen, now the existence of Aetherion hangs in the balance"
"And Sorin, Mirror-Blade of the Crystal Guard, stripped of rank for striking Gaston Kyl in court."
Sorin's smirk was pure steel. "And I'd do it again."
I blinked, realization dawning. These weren't criminals like we were made to believe, these were heroes—made enemies by power-hungry cowards.
"You were all… exiled by Gaston?" I asked.
Thumpan nodded solemnly. "Each one stood in his path. He removed them, one by one. And now Morgana rides the shadow he paved, hungering for the throne."
I lowered myself to a stone bench, heart pounding. "They've already begun. Freasia and I… we saw them. Morgana and Gaston. Performing a blood-echo rite. They mean to kill Jade and my father."
Sorin stepped forward, his gaze sharp. "Then it's already begun."
Bellatrix knelt beside me. "You must be tired. And hurt."
"I'm fine," I lied.
She peeled back the torn fabric on my leg, revealing the angry purple bruise. "You're not. Let us help you."
The others nodded. Pyrax summoned a glowing ember from his palm and pressed it gently to my skin. The warmth soaked through me like a lullaby.
"I thought this realm was a prison," Freasia whispered. "But it's more like a graveyard for heroes."
"No longer," Pyrax said. "You bring fire, young princess. And we… we are not yet dead."
That night, as twilight deepened, the Banished Lords sat us by a roaring fire inside a stone cavern. I wrapped a fur cloak around myself as Thumpan detailed what they knew.
"Gaston Kyl is no longer merely a manipulator. With Morgana's help, he has unlocked rites buried since the Flame Rebellion. Forbidden bloodcraft. Memory-spells, cruel and flesh-binding."
"Flesh-binding?" I echoed.
"They can change how others see them," said Bellatrix. "Even how the mind interprets their words. The people trust her because she's rewired their reality."
I pressed my hands to my temples. "That explains the palace. My sisters turning on me. Even Jade stepping down…"
Sorin's tone darkened. "You think they chose to betray you? No. Morgana walks through minds like they're open fields."
Freasia leaned forward. "Then we fight her."
"With what?" I asked. "Magic this old… how can we face it?"
Pyrax smiled, fierce and warm. "With older magic. Don't worry fair princess, we will train you in the ways of ancient sorcery and warcraft. We begin immediately because the end of Aetherion is upon us".
DAY 2 in the Abyssal
The next morning, training began.
They did not treat me like royalty while we trained, not once.
Sorin threw me into the mud on my first try. "Too slow, Evangeline, you'll be gutted before you reach the throne room."
I spat out dirt. "I've never been in battle."
"Then we must prepare your mind to see bloodshed and not be moved," he said, handing me a double-edged crystal sword, faintly humming with ancient power.
Bellatrix drilled me in elemental defenses, he thought me how to channel water currents through my arms, bending mist into sharp, icy threads.
Pyrax taught me how to burn, how to control my duskfire abilities. Literal fire surged from my fingers when I focused, drawn from the inner fury I'd carried for weeks. They called it duskfire, the gift of royal blood born under twilight moons.
On day six of my training, during sparring, I lashed out too hard and burned a training post to cinders. Sorin stared at the ash, then at me. "You burn with rage," he said quietly. "But can you burn with purpose?"
I didn't answer, I couldn't, because I didn't know yet.
On the seventh night, the air trembled.
We stood on a cliff near the edge of the Abyssal where the sky was still cracked from the last rebellion. Thumpan hovered beside a crystal pool.
"Drink," he said.
I knelt, scooping a bit of the silvery liquid into my mouth.
The moment it touched my lips, the world vanished, and darkness swept in, then flashes.
I had a vision.
I saw King Guvian screaming, his chest heaving, blood spilling from his lips.
Jade holding him, tears falling like stars. "Father, please....stay with me—"
Morgana standing over them both. Her eyes were empty pits, her mouth twisted in triumph, she laughed and it rumbled like thunder.
The throne behind her shimmered red, pulsing with life, and me; I was nowhere in the vision. I wasn't there to stop it.
I tore myself from the dream, gasping.
Freasia caught me. "What did you see?"
"Death," I whispered. "And a crown drenched in blood."
Thumpan's voice was cold as winter. "Then the time has come. The duskfire has awakened. You, Evangeline, must become what they fear most."
"A princess?" I asked bitterly.
"No," said Bellatrix, rising. "A reckoning.
The night pulsed unnaturally, storms rippled through the sky. Sorin returned from his watch duty, his face grim. "It's happening, Aetherion is changing. The royal sky is bleeding."
We looked up to the sky, the golden constellations of the palace had turned red. far, far in the distance, we heard it:
The tolling of the death bell.
King Guvian's final hour had begun.