Ashes of the Amoreil House
Smoke has a sound.
Not just a smell, or a taste, but a low, keening wail — like something ancient being unstitched from the world. That was the last thing Seraine Amoréil remembered: the sound of her home burning.
The House of Amoréil had always smelled of lavender and old parchment. Its halls once shimmered with candlelight, lined with portraits of lovers and warriors, of noble women with books in their hands and secrets in their eyes.
But now?
Now the portraits were bleeding fire, and the secrets were dying.
She ran barefoot through the collapsing corridors, throat raw from smoke. Screams echoed from the lower quarters — servants, her little cousins, her aunt's dog. Her father had already fallen in the courtyard, pierced by an arrow with the sigil of the Black Crown.
And her mother — gods, her mother — had dragged Seraine into the hidden alcove beneath the altar in their ancestral shrine.
"Take this," her mother had whispered, pressing a thin silver chain into her palm. "And remember: fear is not your enemy. Forgetting is."
She kissed her daughter's forehead — and shoved her back into the world.
Because Seraine did not stay hidden.
Not when she heard her younger brother screaming.
Not when she saw him dragged by the crown's soldiers, blood running down his temple, crying out her name.
She burst from the shrine in a rage, hair soaked in soot, eyes wild — no strategy, no armor, just a silver blade clutched in one hand and the chain clutched in the other.
"Seraine, no—!" her brother shouted.
But she was already swinging.
Already cutting.
Already too late.
The soldiers grabbed her by the arms. One struck her across the mouth. She spit blood at his feet.
"Cowards," she hissed. "He's just a child."
The general only laughed. "So are you."
Then they forced her to her knees.
She watched her brother's body hit the ground first — head turned toward her, mouth still open in a cry.
And then the sword came down on her own neck.
She did not scream.
She couldn't.
Her head rolled.
---
And that's when everything turned black.