The corridors of the palace were not built for warmth. Stone walls, cold and unyielding, swallowed any sound that dared to escape. Even the torches, lined like silent sentinels along the high, vaulted ceilings, seemed wary of illuminating too much. For Nyra Vaeloria, the darkness was not frightening—it was home.
She had not yet spoken a single word in her life, and yet, the world around her seemed painfully loud. The scrape of a sword against stone, the low murmur of men plotting, the soft hiss of magic whispering through the walls—they all carved themselves into her consciousness. She smelled the iron tang of sharpened blades before she felt the weight of them, heard footsteps echoing long before the figures themselves emerged.
Even at three years old, Nyra knew she did not belong among the children of the palace. Not really. Her eyes, pale silver and sharp as frost, betrayed the truth the servants dared not whisper aloud. She was not human, yet not entirely monster. She was the Twice-Born, the child of a human mother and the cursed blood of the Nightbound—blood that hummed through her veins with a rhythm older than the kingdoms themselves.
A scream tore through the stone hall, and Nyra's small body stiffened. Not a cry of pain, not yet—but the sound of a panicked guard, running. She turned her head slightly, her gaze catching the flicker of torchlight on the polished steel of a sword. She did not blink. The world was moving slower for her. Faster. She was unsure which. All she knew was that she needed to move.
And move she did.
Her small fingers curled around the cold iron rail of the stairway, and she descended, silent as a shadow. No one stopped her. No one ever stopped her. By design, they feared her too much, and by instinct, she understood they were right to.
At the bottom of the stairway, the training hall stretched before her, a cavern of discipline and cruelty. Men in dark leathers, swords raised, shields locked in place—yet none of them noticed her, or perhaps chose not to. They were instruments of the king, forged to obey and to endure. And she—Nyra—was the instrument they had yet to realize could cut them all down.
She walked past the training dummies, past the puddles of sweat and blood, and paused at the far end of the hall. There, in the dim lamplight, she saw the man they called Captain Arvel. His beard was streaked with gray, his face scarred from decades of war, but his eyes—those piercing, iron-gray eyes—watched her as if he could see the river of magic that ran beneath her skin.
"You move too much," he said quietly, voice like gravel over steel.
Nyra cocked her head, unafraid. "I am not moving," she said, her voice small but unnerving in its precision.
Arvel's lips twitched, almost a smile. "You are too still, then. Children are not meant to observe so carefully. Perhaps it is because you do not belong to them."
She did not answer. She had learned early that words were weaker than presence, weaker than intent. She did not need to belong.
---
Far beyond the kingdom, where the eternal night of the Eclipsed Realms stretched like a velvet ocean, the Nightbound Prince stirred. He had slept for centuries, his heart locked in frozen silence. And yet, he had felt the shift the night Nyra was born—a pulse of power, a wrongness woven into the threads of the world.
He rose from the shadowed throne of his obsidian palace, long hair cascading over shoulders as dark as the void. His fingers brushed the carved stone of the armrest, and the air trembled beneath his touch.
"Twice-born," he whispered.
The word echoed across dimensions, caught in the wind of realms not meant to hear such names. He closed his eyes, feeling the vibration of a life that should not have existed. The girl was small, yet her presence was vast, ancient. She carried the blood that had been stolen, stolen and hidden, forced into the cradle of a human womb.
A frown darkened his features. "Why now?" he asked the silent air. "Why has she come?"
He did not move immediately. He waited, as one waits for the tide to shift, for the currents to reveal themselves. Somewhere, deep within the veil of the mortal world, the pulse of her existence beat against his senses. Stronger. Defiant. Hungry.
---
Back in the palace, Nyra followed the sound of footsteps—not loud, not careless, but deliberate. A figure approached, cloaked and hooded, moving with a grace she recognized instinctively. Not human. Not exactly. And yet… not dangerous, at least not yet.
"You are Nyra Vaeloria," the figure said softly, voice like velvet and smoke. "Do you know who you are?"
Nyra's eyes narrowed. She had asked herself the same question in the long, silent nights when the guards left her alone in the training hall. She was not a princess. She was not a child. She was something else, something forged from the cruelty of men and the blood of monsters.
"I am…" she began, then stopped, uncertain. Her voice faltered. "I am me."
The figure laughed quietly, almost regretfully. "Yes, for now. But you will be more than that soon. You are the Twice-Born, the bridge between worlds, the harbinger of change. And change… does not ask permission."
Nyra tilted her head, curiosity flickering in her silver eyes. She wanted to ask questions—about the Nightbound, about her blood, about the man who stirred in the dark beyond the world—but she did not. Words had always felt small, inadequate to the enormity of what she was.
The figure stepped back, cloak falling away slightly, revealing eyes the color of midnight itself. "I am the one who watches you until the king's men forget you exist. I am your shadow until you understand your purpose. Remember this: you are both weapon and curse. And some things… some things you cannot yet imagine will come for you because of what you carry."
Before Nyra could respond, the figure melted into the shadows, leaving only the faint echo of movement, the whisper of presence that chilled her small body.
---
Hours passed—or perhaps days, for time was a strange thing in the palace, bending to the will of the Twice-Born. Nyra explored what little freedom she was given. She climbed walls like a cat, stole into the kitchens to taste food meant only for adults, and observed the guards as they trained, learning patterns and weaknesses the moment she recognized a lapse. She did not tire. She did not cry. She did not falter.
And in the dark, beyond the veil of the mortal realm, the Nightbound Prince watched.
His thoughts were a storm of fury and confusion. "She is mine," he said aloud, and the words carried a weight that bent the shadows around him. "By blood. By fate. By the oath I swore to the night itself. Whoever touches her shall answer to me."
But even as the words left him, he knew the danger was already upon her. The human king, Alderic, had cast his die with cruelty and ambition, and the Twice-Born child was both his tool and his undoing.
---
Nyra's first taste of true awareness came when she confronted a guard—one particularly cruel man who had mocked her silence and called her an unnatural creature. She had been small then, barely able to lift the dagger hidden in her belt. But she had lifted it nonetheless.
The guard laughed when she approached. "What do you think you're doing, child?"
Nyra's hand shot forward. The dagger's edge found its mark—not flesh, not yet—but the guard staggered back as if struck by a physical force he could not name. His eyes widened, terror searing his features.
Nyra did not speak. She had no words for what she had done, and yet she understood instinctively that she had crossed a line. The power within her was no longer a whisper. It had grown teeth.
---
Somewhere, in the cold shadows of the Eclipsed Realms, the Nightbound Prince felt it. A shiver ran through him, part alarm, part exhilaration. She had begun. The Twice-Born was waking, and with every heartbeat, every pulse of her blood, every flicker of her silver eyes, the balance of the world was shifting.
"Soon," he whispered, voice low and certain. "Soon, child. You will understand. And I will come."