Rain hammered Los Angeles at half past ten on a Thursday night, turning Sunset Boulevard into a river of neon and broken promises. Lira Morgan's windshield wipers slapped a frantic rhythm against the storm while her phone's GPS intoned, "Recalculating... you are three minutes late."
She'd stayed too late at Black Box Studios again, debugging the soul-anchoring spell code for Dragon Prince: Reign of Flames.
"The lore proves Irinel wasn't poisoning the Empress," she'd argued hours earlier, jabbing at her monitor. "She was trying to cure her. Look at the vial textures—that's golden mallow, not widowshade. The real traitor was the High Archivist."
Her lead artist had laughed. "Tell that to the executioner."
Now her landlord's final text burned on the console: MOVE OUT BY NOON TOMORROW. The letters blurred as rain smeared the screen—or maybe that was exhaustion. Three weeks of crunch time had turned her life into a glitching mess of overdue rent, evaporated relationships, and coffee that always went cold before she could drink it.
A thunderclap shook the intersection. Yellow light bled to red as she eased to a stop. Through the downpour, a homeless man dragged a squeaking cart through the crosswalk, his tarp flapping like a broken banner.
Just get to the ATM. Just one more night in your own bed.
Her phone buzzed. Mom's meme notification popped up—a cat wearing a tiny crown. Lira's tired lips twitched upward—
Then the world flickered.
For one impossible heartbeat, the traffic light became a wrought-iron execution post. The homeless man's cart morphed into an axe-wielding silhouette. Raindrops hung suspended like jewels in a queen's hair.
What the—
Headlights exploded across the wet asphalt.
A Lightning Fast Courier truck hydroplaned through the red light, its grill snarling toward her driver's side door. Lira's hands locked on the wheel—
—and or one impossible heartbeat she saw the truck's logo—Lightning Fast Courier—fill the windshield.
Impact.
The universe tore open with a sound like shattering code. Glass became diamonds. Steel screamed like paper in a furnace. Her coffee mug erupted, the scalding liquid spreading across her lap like a bloodstain.
This is it, she thought, oddly calm. I'm going to die over bad lore choices.
Then she saw her.
A woman with Lira's own face—but sharper, fiercer—reaching through the broken windshield. Blood dripped from the woman's lips, her fingers burning with golden runes.
"You remember," Irinel Valehart whispered. The words vibrated with the same frequency as Lira's debugging headset. "Now fight."
Darkness swallowed everything—
—and spat her out kneeling on stone, a hood ripped from her head, a voice roaring:
"—die like the dog you are, Valehart!"
Lira gasped. The execution square. The jeering crowd. The axe.
And the Empress, wearing her mother's stolen crown, smiling down at her.
Oh shit, Lira thought. I am the fucking villainess.
Somewhere beyond the crowd, a dragon roared.