Chapter 1: Smoke over Wolfsong

Ten years had passed since the day the fire fell like the wrath of gods on the quiet village of Wolfsong, but the memories still seared through Nia’s mind as though they had been born just yesterday. She had been a child, barely ten, clinging to the smell of pine and the sound of her parents' voices, safe in the isolation of the borderlands. But the world outside had come crashing in with banners of iron and flame.

Nia, buried beneath the cooling corpses of her parents and neighbors, could still hear the burning village crackling in the distance, the cries of the innocents, the imperial soldiers marching in a precise, terrifying rhythm. Their cloaks, sewn with raven symbols, had been seared into her memory. Her parents had whispered their last breaths as they shielded her, their blood mingling with the dirt beneath her. She had heard their final plea for her survival, a whisper lost to the wind.

For days, she lived on bark and snow, driven by hunger and hatred, vowing to burn everything they had built, to tear down the empire that demanded the extinction of her kind. The flames consumed her innocence. There was only one memory that burned brighter than the hatred in her heart: Ash.

Ash, the fearless Alpha boy who had once saved her from the bullies in the village, the one who had promised to protect her. And then, in the middle of the screams and smoke, he vanished.

Nia had spent the years since learning the ways of shadows, transforming into "Mist Fang," an assassin feared and revered across the empire. She honed her skills, her hands stained with the blood of those she killed in pursuit of revenge, all the while believing Ash to be either dead or enslaved. She carried his name like a weapon, hoping that one day, she would finally be able to find him, to bring him back to the light—or bury him under the weight of her vengeance.

Tonight, the time had come.

The marble halls of the imperial palace were within reach, and Nia, disguised as a lowly laundry maid, had been assigned to the northern garrison. She moved silently through the halls, her eyes scanning every corner, every shadow. The whispers of her target—General Ravenspine—echoed through her mind, a name she knew too well. Rumor said he was the key to the emperor’s secrets, and she had come to claim that key.

In the midst of servants preparing for the evening’s banquet, Nia’s thoughts drifted to Ash. Could she really kill him? Would this path, steeped in blood, bring her closer to what she sought? Or would it drive a final wedge between her and the boy she had once loved? The banquet would give her the answer—one way or another.

And so, she waited, her heart beating steady in the face of the coming storm, her every action a step closer to the vengeance she had long craved.