Prologue

160 Years Ago

The first Valcairn ruler wore power like a lover’s touch: pure, undeniable, and seductive.

The Great Hall of Dariana rose like a citadel of stone and shadow. Its towering arches were entwined with crystalline veins that hummed faintly with dormant energy. Ancient tapestries draped the walls, their threads depicting battles, conquests, and betrayals that had faded from all memory save that of the Twelve Houses. Tonight, those houses would bear witness to the dawn of a new era.

At the heart of the chamber stood Lord Valcairn, surrounded by Dariana’s elite. Twelve houses, twelve bloodlines steeped in centuries of treachery and ambition, yet they paled before him. He was a force forged in struggle and tempered by power. Only thirty-two years old, but legend already walked in his shadow.

Twenty pairs of eyes tracked his every movement, each gaze sharp with suspicion and hunger.

“For centuries,” Lord Valcairn began, his voice rolling through the hall like distant thunder, “you have feasted upon the blood of the Blessed. You have torn their gifts from their veins, draining them dry to fuel your petty ambitions. In doing so, you have condemned yourselves to a slow decay.”

The nobles bristled at his words, but none dared interrupt. Even those who despised him could not deny the truth of his accusation.

“Your greed has poisoned this world.” His blue eyes gleamed with fierce conviction as they swept across the assembled elite. “You leach power from others, slaughtering the Blessed for mere fragments of strength. It is a primitive cycle, a pathetic, inevitable march towards death.” His gaze lingered on each face, daring anyone to challenge him. “I offer you something far greater.”

The hall fell into absolute silence. The nobles sat captive to promise and threat alike. Lord Valcairn raised one hand, and threads of magic twisted around his fingers like living serpents.

“I have discovered the means to harness magic itself: to gather, refine, and store it.” The air around him shimmered with possibility. “I can draw power from the very air we breathe, from the roots that pierce the earth, from the echoes of death itself.” His voice darkened, each word striking deeper than the last. “And I alone can wield it without draining another soul in the process.”

He spread his arms wide, and the atmosphere thickened until the very walls seemed to tremble. Tendrils of magic coiled and writhed around him, simultaneously radiant and dark, shimmering in hues of violet, silver, and deepest black.

“No longer will you need to kill for power. No longer must you bleed your sources dry.” His voice carried the weight of prophecy. “I will grant you magic that has been refined, collected, and stored within charms, tokens forged by House Alcerra.” His gaze shifted to Lady Alcerra, whose eyes blazed with barely contained avarice. “Imagine it: currency forged from pure power itself.”

“A currency made of magic?” Lady Alcerra leaned forward, her sharp features alight with interest. “Something we can carry without needing a Blessed to siphon from?”

“Precisely.” Lord Valcairn’s attention remained fixed on her. “House Alcerra will master the art of imbuement. You will fashion these charms and infuse them with the magic I collect and grant you. In doing so, your house will hold privilege above all others.”

“And what price do you demand for this gift?” Lord Alcerra’s voice carried a brittle edge, his greed warring with caution.

“Loyalty.” Lord Valcairn’s smile was sharp as a blade’s edge. “Each house will appoint one member to join the Vashara Twelve, a council that answers to me alone. Once they join, they renounce all allegiance to their birth houses. They become my advisers, my enforcers. Their identities will remain known only to me and to each other.”

“Why would anyone surrender their power to you?” Lord Ravik’s sneer dripped with scepticism. “What could the other houses possibly gain from such an arrangement?”

“Because those who join the Vashara Twelve will transcend all others.” Shadows coiled around Lord Valcairn like living armour. “They will wield power beyond imagination. Their influence will shape the very fate of this world. As for each house, you will receive a gift of magic specific to your nature. Each will hold dominion over a particular aspect: illusions, strategy, necromancy…” He paused, letting the promise sink in. “Your role as a ruling house will dictate your gift.”

“And what of those who refuse?” Lord Hadrian asked.

Lord Valcairn’s gaze turned winter cold. “They will be left behind to wither in obsolescence.”

He raised his hand higher and the sphere of darkness expanded, unfurling into tendrils of raw energy that sliced through the air like spectral blades. The hall shook. The crystal sconces flickered as waves of power rippled outward.

“Behold,” his voice thundered, echoing off ancient stone. “Magic refined. Power made pure.” The tendrils twisted into brilliant threads of light and darkness, fusing into small charms that materialised in his palm. “These tokens contain more power than you could ever hope to tear from a dozen Blessed. I will gift them to you. In exchange, you will swear fealty.”

The nobles stood transfixed, their faces pale with equal parts awe and terror.

One by one, the heads of the Twelve Houses dropped to their knees and swore their oaths, voices trembling with desperate greed.

Lord Valcairn smiled. This world belonged to him now.

But even as the nobles prostrated themselves before him, his thoughts drifted to ghosts. To his sister, the only family he had ever known, one of the few people he had ever loved.

She had brought him to this place when he was only five, herself barely ten. A child raising a child, fierce and stubborn against impossible odds. She had kept him alive, had shielded him until the world finally wore her down. When she had vanished – lost, dead, or simply gone, abandoning him in a world he still struggled to understand – something fundamental inside him had shattered.

He had searched for her through blood and shadow, through betrayal and ruin. But she was gone, and he could no longer afford to dwell on her memory.

The world had never been kind to those he loved.

Now there was only the empire he would forge from its ashes.