Azarion stared at the ancient parchment for what felt like hours.
The prophesy.
The flame in the hearth had long begun its slow death, casting a wavering orange glow across the stone walls of the study.
Shadows danced across the floor like ghosts come to haunt him ... but none tormented him more than the words written in red ink.
Words that never faded.
One child of power will rise, blessed by the gods. With the powers that should not mix, they will either destroy the nations or unite the scattered realms…
His jaw clenched.
Azarion closed the drawer with a quiet click and sat back down, the worn leather of his chair groaning beneath his weight. His fingers curled into a fist, the veins on his hand standing out sharply beneath his olive-toned skin.
He would not end the union.
Not yet.
Not while the gods were still watching.
He had come too far .....bled too much, lost too much .... to turn back now. Power was no longer just a desire. It was an obsession.
Azarion did not merely want power....he craved it. Hungered for it.
Not for wealth, not for legacy, but for domination.
For the right to claim he had birthed the child of destiny. If the prophecy was to unfold, he wanted its origin to be of his making.
He wanted the child to be his.The ultimate ruler.
The harbinger of a new age.
Born from his blood. His legacy. His name.
The night air outside howled against the windows, whistling through the cracks like a warning. The fire hissed softly as the last of the wood collapsed into glowing embers.
Azarion's eyes, dark as iron, held a gleam of something deeper than ambition. It was hunger...the hunger of a man who would shake the heavens if it meant bending the world to his will.
He remembered the day he first laid eyes on that prophecy. It had all begun on a dusky evening in Caelmont, years ago. During a council meeting, a forgotten scroll had fallen from one of the High Scribes' satchels.
Azarion had picked it up, expecting some dusty records....until his eyes fell on the prophecy.
A mistake, they called it. A misfiling. But Azarion did not believe in coincidence.
He had read it in silence, and for the first time in years, he had felt the tremble of something divine.
Suspicion clawed at him and he needed to verify the truth of it. He had dared to ask the Calestarch Orien Valehart about its truth, and the old seer, after much hesitation, confirmed it.
Since that moment, he had pursued it with a fervor bordering on madness.
He discarded his previous engagement...breaking the promise he once made to a noblewoman of Ashmere, the woman who would later become his bitter second wife.
Choosing instead to wed a Northerner...Lyara.
The quiet, beautiful sharp-eyed woman from the North.
Her ancestry could be traced back to both Aiseryn, Terravorn and Galesreach—the water and ice nation, earth and wind nations.
The union was meant to be revolutionary. A melding of powers from different realms.
He called it The Great Experiment.
And like most experiments… it failed.
Their first child ....a boy, Aldric... had no trace of the divine marks. No flicker of elemental harmony. No unusual traits. Just a boy with fire as his power.
Azarion had smiled at him, but inside, disappointment festered.
He tried again and then came Aurelia.
From the moment she opened her eyes, he knew she was different.
He remembered holding her for the first time, and seeing the strange hue in her irises ...not quite gold, not quite amber. And as she grew, so too did the fire inside her. It clung to her like a second skin. She didn't just wield fire....she was fire. He's fire goddess.
At seven, she scorched the training yard by accident. At ten, she could melt steel with a thought. At twelve, she begged to ride to war by his side.
And he let her.
Even then, she was a vision of strength. Dressed in blackened armor, her face hidden behind a red plume helmet, she tore through enemy lines like a wrathful spirit.
His pride knew no bounds.
The gods had smiled on him. He was sure of it.
She even wielded blue fire — a rare, dangerous flame that no Ashmeri before her had ever commanded. Not even Azarion himself.
It was beautiful.
She was beautiful.
And in his mind, there was no longer any doubt .... Aurelia was the child of the prophecy.
The one who would unite the realms and carry his blood into eternal glory.
He prepared to name her his heir. He began grooming her not just as a warrior, but as a queen. The child of prophecy. The unifier.
But then came the siege of Ashmere.
He exhaled slowly, the memory rising like smoke.
Ashmere's walls trembled. The sky darkened with arrows and smoke. At age fourteen, Aurelia, fearless as ever, led the charge with her flames trailing behind her like a comet.
Aurelia had fought valiantly that night. Her flames lit up the battlefield. She carved through enemies like a blade of living fire.
Until she faced her .... Ishara.
The witch of the East. She hadn't anticipated Ishara.
That cursed witch. The one who whispered to storms and conjured death from shadow.
Azarion had heard whispers of her power, but he hadn't feared her. He should have.
Ishara had cast something darker than any flame. A curse. A plague wrapped in sorcery. And when it struck Aurelia mid-battle, the curse tore her magic from within.
One moment, Aurelia burned like a sun; the next, her flame was gone.
it didn't just sear her power....it stripped it away.
Snuffed out.
Just like that.
Azarion had seen her fall from the tower steps, screaming .... not in pain, but in confusion. Her hands igniting, then flickering, then… nothing.
She survived. She might not have if lyara didn't sacrifice herself for her daughter, by taking in half of the curse.
But she was never the same.
Azarion's breath trembled. He bowed his head.
His greatest pride....broken.
Her fire, once effortless, now sputtered like a dying candle. Her body, once graceful and strong, bore deep scars ... brutal and twisted, cutting across her back and jaw.
The healers could not mend it. No magic could.
And worse than the wound on her skin was the one in her spirit.
She was no longer the invincible goddess of fire.
And to the court ... and to Azarion himself ....she became something else entirely.
Damaged.
Azarion stood now, pacing slowly across the chamber. His fingers brushed the edges of the prophecy once more, as if by touching it, he might rewrite fate.
He had nearly named her his heir. The girl he once paraded with pride, whose flames had kept his enemies awake at night.
But now… he questioned.
Could she still be the child of the gods?
Could a weapon, once broken, be reforged?
His jaw tightened.
Still, part of him refused to give up.
The gods had been watching. They still were. He knew they had not written the final line of the story.
There was more.
There had to be.
Outside, thunder rumbled in the distance, rolling over the hills like a beast on the prowl.
No. He would not discard her.
Not yet.
Not until he was certain.
Because if she wasn't the child… then he had to start again. Another union. Another heir. Another experiment.
His reflection flickered in the window.
He turned his eyes back to the fire.
"Aurelia," he whispered into the silence. "Don't fail me again."