Damn… it happened again.

And this time, I really thought it would be different.

Silly me.

Let me start from the beginning.

The date was Accord Year Twenty-Seven, Ninth Moon. Yes, I know—I said I was starting from the beginning. Pay attention. My mother—oh, that woman—brought me into the world without a single ounce of concern for what that world might do to me afterward. But I suppose that’s what women who love only themselves tend to do, isn’t it?

She wasn’t royal.

Not by any standard the Empire recognizes.

But she did give birth to royalty.

Me.

In Noctyra, royalty is not a matter of crowns or courts. It’s a condition… a resonance. A divine wrongness the universe either tolerates or corrects. Most children are born screaming. I was born listened to.

I don’t know why the heavens chose me. I never did. My fate wasn’t written in the stars anyway. It was written somewhere far more inconvenient… in my heart. All I had to do was survive long enough to uncover it.

The midwives knew the moment they touched me.

Hands froze. Breath caught. One of them dropped to her knees before she realized what she was doing.

By the time I drew my second breath, the bells had already begun to ring.

The child was barely cleaned when the Red Couriers of Vermyre were summoned.

They arrived cloaked in rose and vermilion, boots already stained from hard travel, eyes sharp with the kind of intelligence bred into bloodlines meant for obedience and violence in equal measure. No questions were asked. No blessings spoken.

Only orders.

“Ride for the Empire,” the eldest courier commanded.

“To the High Court. Now.”

They did not need to be told why.

The sky had already begun to change.

In the birthing chamber, the candles guttered.

The walls—stone that had stood untouched since Noctyra was still called Solmere—creaked softly, as if remembering something it had sworn never to speak aloud again. My mother turned her face away from me, fingers clutching the sheets, jaw tight with resentment or fear. I never asked which.

When the astrologer arrived, his hair was unbound, his robes half-fastened. He took one look at me and went pale.

“She was born beneath the veil,” he whispered.

Outside, the moon darkened.

The Sapphire Omen slid across the heavens like a deliberate hand, eclipsing the stars one by one until only a cold blue ring remained. Somewhere above us, a constellation erased from official charts flickered into brief, undeniable existence.

The Sol Veil.

The astrologer fell to his knees.

By the time the couriers reached the Empire, the High Court was already in chaos.

In the Hall of Accord, marble floors gleamed beneath rows of towering columns veined with gold. Ministers gathered in tight knots, voices sharp with disbelief. The Emperor sat rigid upon the throne, hands clenched, eyes fixed on the darkened skylight above.

“This is impossible,” someone said.

“Noctyra was cleansed generations ago.”

“Heaven would not—could not—”

The doors opened.

The astrologer entered, trembling, face streaked with sweat and fear. Behind him trailed the Red Couriers, heads bowed low, rose insignia bright against their cloaks.

“Speak,” the Emperor commanded.

The astrologer swallowed.

“Your Majesties,” he said hoarsely. “The Mandate has named her.”

The hall went silent.

“The child was born during the Sapphire Omen,” he continued. “Under the Sol Veil. The signs are… unequivocal.”

The Emperor stood.

“What is her name?”

The astrologer closed his eyes, as if bracing himself for punishment, for annihilation, for correction from Heaven itself.

“…Seraphae.”

Something old and dangerous stirred in the air.

A noblewoman fainted. A minister crossed himself. Somewhere, very far away, something laughed.

In Ironreach, the bells of the High Citadel rang without being touched, their iron throats shuddering once before falling silent.

In Vermyre, the rose banners along the eastern walls wilted for a single breath, their color paling before returning—softened, subdued.

And in a place the Empire refused to acknowledge on any map, a demon lord opened his eyes and smiled slowly into the dark.

I told you this would happen.

The only mistake they made… was believing they could decide what came next.