Serenya & Kaelen
The tavern was dim, its rafters heavy with smoke and the stale perfume of spilt ale. Serenya Veyra sat hunched in a corner, her ink-stained hands wrapped around a cup she barely touched. The lamplight carved hollows into her face, making her look older, wearier, than her years.
Across from her, Kaelen Veyra leaned forward, his expression carefully softened into concern. To any onlooker, he was the image of a cousin reconnecting with family in hard times — a thread of blood rekindled amid Dominion's storm.
"Serenya," he said gently, letting her name linger like a memory. "We were children together once. Don't tell me that's all forgotten."
Her eyes flickered, as though searching his face for the boy he had been. For a heartbeat, she almost smiled. "Children… yes. Before Dominion swallowed us whole." She sipped, bitterly. "Do you come to share in the ruin, cousin? Or only to watch me sink?"
Kaelen gave a soft laugh, masking the calculation behind it. "I came to see you stand. We are family. Surely we can be more than strangers in a city that devours its own."
But even as his voice warmed, his mind was cold, dissecting her every twitch. Every word she let slip was a vein to be tapped — and bled.
Serenya's Poisoned Ink
Later that night, Kaelen followed her to the printer's shop, its windows glowing with the pale fire of oil lamps. The walls smelled of wet paper, acrid ink, and iron gears grinding.
The printer himself was a sly man with fox-eyes and a smirk sharp enough to cut parchment. He greeted Serenya with mock respect. "Ah, the poetess herself — or what's left of her. What venom will your quill spit tonight, and who shall it bite?"
Serenya flinched but forced her hand steady. She sat at a battered desk, dipped the quill, and began to write.
The words bled onto the page like wounds: verses that once would have soared with truth now twisted into praise of Ashira Valen's reforms. Lines that praised her mercy. Her vision. Her destiny.
Her hand trembled. Twice she stopped, staring at the quill as if it were a dagger. Once she whispered under her breath: "I am killing my own voice."
Kaelen saw the flicker of tears, but no one else did. He memorized each crack in her resolve. The notes of her despair were music to his true mistress.
Secrets of Malrik
When the verses were done and handed over, Serenya slumped back, drained. Kaelen seized the moment, his tone soft, almost brotherly.
"You weren't always like this. You had fire once. Where did it go?"
She looked at him then — truly looked — and for an instant the mask cracked. "It burned in him. Malrik Draeven. He was… storm and steel, shadow and flame. With him, the words came alive."
Kaelen tilted his head. "And now?"
Her voice fell to a whisper, bitter as ash. "Now they are ash."
She said no more, but Kaelen needed no more. Ashira would feast on this.
Ashira's Schemes
When Kaelen relayed the truth, Ashira's eyes lit with a predator's gleam. She paced her chamber, her robes trailing like smoke, while the storm rattled the shutters.
"Malrik Draeven," she murmured, tasting the name. "A phantom that yet bends her soul. Oh, cousin Kaelen… do you know what you've given me? With this… I can bind Serenya tighter. Or perhaps—" Her eyes flashed. "Perhaps I can use Malrik himself, if rumor places him still in the storm's shadow."
Kaelen bowed, concealing the flicker of unease — and something else. For as Ashira's eyes burned with ambition, he found himself unable to look away. The curve of her mouth when she plotted, the iron in her bearing… Dominion itself seemed to bend around her.
And in that moment, Kaelen felt a dangerous stirring — loyalty, fear, and something unspoken.
The Shadow of Malrik
Dominion whispered. In taverns and alleys, two versions of Malrik walked the streets:
One painted him a savior — the man who would topple tyrants, free the chained, return the city to its people.
The other a monster — a butcher cloaked in stormlight, who drank loyalty like wine and left only ruin.
Serenya overheard one such argument in a tavern. At the name "Malrik," her fingers tightened so hard around her cup that wine spilled over the edge. She said nothing. But her silence spoke volumes.
Malrik Draeven did not need to stand in Dominion. His idea was enough.
Oracle's Whisper
And in the hush of the storm, the Oracle spoke — the voice of the Timeless Soul, neither bound by age nor undone by death:
"Masks of blood walk among you.
Friend's smile, brother's hand —
each a dagger hidden in the folds of kinship.
Dominion breeds not trust, but listening shadows.
Betrayal is not born in strangers.
It comes with the warmth of a name,
with the comfort of a cousin's voice,
with the hand you once held as child.
Such is the way of Dominion:
that even blood is but a mask to be worn…
and discarded."