Prologue – The Masked Ball
Long before the masquerade, before the music and the glittering gowns, the chains had already begun to stir.
Beneath the ice-locked mountains of the North, where even the sun dared not linger, something ancient shifted. Its breath was frost, its heartbeat thunder. It had once been worshipped, feared, and bound in the age before men, when gods still walked and wolves bore wings of shadow. Now it waited, whispering through cracks in the stone, its voice threading into dreams.
The Daughter will come.
Far away, the halls of Saint Brigid’s Academy glittered with light. Candle flames shimmered against crystal, masks of gold and velvet hid sly smiles, and the sons and daughters of the elite spun across the marble floor. Music rose, sweet and sharp, drowning out the whispers of the old world.
But in the crowd, one girl stood on the edge of it all — laughter too loud around her, champagne too bitter on her tongue. Seventeen years old tonight. Seventeen years of pretending she belonged among silk and silver when her blood told a different story.
Her mask slipped as the first note struck inside her chest — not from the violins, but from something deeper, older. A fire under her skin, a tremor in her bones.
She staggered, the glass shattering in her hand. Eyes turned toward her. The music faltered.
And then the shadows came.
They tore from her like wings, black and alive, curling across the marble floor, swallowing the light. Screams shattered the ball as chandeliers shook, masks fell, and the gilded world crumbled in terror.
Above it all, the girl’s voice broke — not in a cry, but in a howl that split the night in two.
Far beneath the mountains, the chains shivered. The Bound stirred, tasting freedom in her awakening.
The Daughter had come.
