VEILFIRE: CURSED TO BURN, BORN TO REIGN

THE MOON-TOUCHED CHILD

POV: PRIESTESS VAELORA, THE LAST VAULT SCRIBE

They brought her to the Temple in silk.

A girl no older than six — with dusk-hued hair and eyes too wide, too deep, too star-stained for someone so small. Her parents whispered that she was Moon-Touched from the womb. That Selene had kissed her brow before her first cry. Her breath turned dew to frost. Her shadow never obeyed the sun.

They said she was a blessing.

But blessings don’t stare at altars like they remember dying on them.

The other children danced, laughing, chasing ethereal butterflies that shimmered through the ceremonial runes.

But not her.

She stood still. Watchful. Listening. As if someone—or something—was already speaking to her.

Even the elder priestesses paused. Even Vaelora felt her spine stiffen.

The child turned her face to the moonstone spire at the centre of the Temple.

Not in reverence.

In recognition.

It was a sacred day — the Feast of Starlit Wombs — when children of six winters were offered for Moon-Blessing. Scrolls of lineage unrolled across the altar, candlelight flickering over blood-sealed names. A thousand prayers whispered beneath the breath.

And Lana had not blinked once.

Vaelora descended the steps slowly, robes brushing the marble floor, the scent of sanctified myrrh trailing behind her like a veil. She crouched to meet the child’s gaze, her hands slick with sacred oil, heart thudding.

“What is your name, little one?”

The girl blinked once.

“Lana,” she said softly. Then, more distant— “I can hear the stars screaming.”

A scribe dropped her quill.

Vaelora hesitated, but ritual was ritual. She reached out to bless her—

“Don’t touch her!” a voice bellowed across the Temple.

Kaelith — Keeper of Prophecies — stood pale and wide-eyed, panic etched deep into her face.

But it was too late.

Vaelora’s hand touched the child’s brow— And the world shattered.

---

The seizures began instantly.

Lana’s small body arched unnaturally, limbs thrashing. Blood gushed from her ears, her nose, and her mouth. Her eyes rolled back until only silver light poured through.

“Help her!” her mother screamed. “Goddess Selene, please help my daughter!”

The moon glyphs carved into the temple pillars warped — pulsing like living things, their shapes shifting into unreadable sigils. The moonstone cracked with a groan that split the air — a jagged vein slicing down its centre.

The sacred scrolls ignited.

Not with flame — but with cold blue fire. Each parchment burst from the edges inward, curling into ash mid-air. Names were erased. Genealogies severed. Bloodlines forgotten in an instant.

The altar wept.

Yes — wept.

A slow stream of silvery fluid trickled down its carved edge, staining the marble with glyphs no one had seen in generations. The scent of burned prophecy choked the Temple.

Then Lana sat up.

Too slowly.

Her eyes were no longer her own.

They glowed with silver not of this world. Not light—memory.

And then she spoke:

> “They thought they could kill her.”

Her voice reverberated across marble and marrow.

> “They buried her in dirt.

But fire remembers.”

A priestess moved to grab the child’s trembling hand—

“No!” Kaelith shouted.

But Lana touched her.

And the trance deepened.

The priestess gasped, and then—

She spoke in unison with the child:

> “The gods will fall like snow.

The stars will bleed.

The one they forgot shall rise from ash and ruin.”

“Call the scribes!” Vaelora yelled. “Every word—every line! Don’t let a single mark go unrecorded!”

Ink spilled. Tears fell. Panic surged like a tide.

Lana and the possessed priestess began drawing symbols on the marble floor in blood.

A black root strangling a shattered moon.

A girl crowned in fire.

An empty throne, burning from within.

> “She will not kneel,” they chanted.

“Not to stars. Not to fate. Not even to the gods.”

The temple bells began to toll — though no priestess had touched the ropes. They rang in thirteens — the forbidden count. The last time they had tolled thus, the Oracle vanished.

---

Vaelora hadn’t touched the girl.

But the vision took her anyway.

She fell—through sky, through flame, through herself.

The Temple was gone.

She stood in a forest turned to ash. Trees like bones. A sky split down the middle, bleeding flame.

At the centre stood a girl—naked, crowned in shadow and searing fire. Her hair whipped like smoke. Her eyes burned like silver blades.

Behind her, the moon fractured.

Her shadow stretched—antlered, crawling with glowing runes.

> “Nyxara,” a voice whispered in awe.

The girl raised her hand.

Flame obeyed.

From the cracked earth, roots tore free—black, gnarled, ancient.

And from them rose a man.

No—a god.

Eirik the Black Root.

Ashvyr.

The Forgotten Flame.

The God-Eater.

He breathed, and the stars dimmed.

He smiled, and mountains cracked.

> “They tried to kill her,” he hissed.

“But they failed.”

He turned toward the flaming girl.

> “So I will kill her first—before she can stop me.”

The golden gates of Aetheria shattered.

The gods screamed as their thrones fell.

Mortals prayed—but none were heard.

> “She is the Flame That Walks,” the stars whispered.

“And she remembers.”

Vaelora saw temples collapse.

Priestesses burning.

Flame consumes all.

And Nyxara—standing alone.

She raised her hand—

And the world burned.

---

Vaelora gasped awake, drenched in sweat.

The Temple stank of blood and scorched incense.

Scribes were still sobbing. Priestesses knelt in prayer or shock.

Lana lay motionless at the centre of the chaos, as if she’d fallen asleep after playing too hard.

Kaelith knelt beside her, stroking her hair.

“Are you with us?” she whispered.

Vaelora looked down at her palm.

A rune had been branded into her flesh.

Not inked.

Burned.

> Flame.

Ruin.

Return.

The scroll shelves were bare. The old prophecies had combusted into dust. Not a single line remained.

Only one page had survived.

A blank scroll — untouched by fire — now bore a single, smoking glyph: the antlered flame.

And beneath it, a name written in divine tongue.

Nyxara.

---

Lana stirred.

Her eyes weren’t silver anymore.

Just soft. Wide. Human.

She blinked at the broken ceiling above, then turned to her mother.

> “Mummy… did I do something bad again?”

AETHERIA VAULT

The Vault had no doors.

The only stone that forgot how to open.

He lived within it. A man made of dust and ritual. He hadn’t seen the sky in twelve years.

But tonight—

The stone wept.

Something cracked beneath his feet. The altar where cursed prophecies were sealed split clean down the middle, like the spine of a dead god.

A scroll rose.

Unbidden. Untouched.

It hovered in the air—

Wrapped in moon-gold seals. Bound in silk older than language.

And then—

The seals screamed.

One by one, they tore open. The silk bindings twisted. The wax bled like opened veins.

The scroll unfurled by itself.

Not downward.

Upward.

Ink bled up the page, symbols forming backwards, as if time was remembering what it tried to forget.

> “She has been born,” a voice whispered.

Not in his ears.

In his bones.

He tried to run. There was nowhere to go.

His tongue split. His eyes boiled white.

The scroll ignited in midair—

Not fire. Not divine. Something older.

Hollowfire.

It didn’t burn the scroll.

It devoured it.

And him.

When the priestesses finally broke the Vault stone, there was nothing left but ash and one line seared into the blackened marble:

> The Hollow-Blood walks.