Chapter 0
Alriéa dreamily collapsed onto her perch of silk and gold, hands tucked beneath her weary lips. The day at the Academy had stretched endlessly—studies, strange faces, magic, vampires. Her mind danced through fragments of drama and shifting truths, unable to settle.
But soon, exhaustion crept in like a slow tide.
Her warm, brown eyes fluttered shut, breath softening as the weight of it all dissolved. No more tension. No more stares. No more questions.
Just the hush of sleep.
She drifted into an ancient slumber, her heart quietly lulled by the dewy pitter-patter tapping gently at the windowsill.
Soon, the room around her withered away.
She was just a girl upon a throne of shadow, gold, and dust—sleeping peacefully as nothing stirred but the rustling leaves upon somber trees.
“Alriéa…”
She heard it—a voice like a siren’s call, enchanting, its vibration angelic. Each vowel strummed like a divine chord, as if the spaces between them carried prophecy from the heavens. But she did not wake. Sleep was sacred. Rare. Hard-won in the Academy’s halls.
“I know the truth for which you seek,” the siren whispered.
Alriéa’s lashes trembled. Her eyes fluttered open—but the world remained blurred, vision dulled by restless dreaming.
A woman stood before her, skin toasted like sun-warmed earth, curly white hair cascading over her shoulders in moonlit coils.
“Let me help us,” the woman said.
Her figure came into sharp focus then, and Alriéa’s heart stilled. The woman’s eyes—blood-chilling, wine-dark red—pierced into hers, burning with eerie recognition. It wasn’t just a stare. It was a testament.
This woman was her. Or—not quite. Alriéa didn’t have red eyes. She didn’t have white hair. But that was her face. That was her body.
Her breath caught as she rose from the throne.
And then—she woke.
The sun hung high in the sky, its white-gold light spilling through the window. It stung her eyes. She winced, blinking against the brightness. Her body felt heavier than before. Her heart, quieter. Her mind, no longer her own.
