blinx_clef
Prologue - Ashes of Her Heart
The fire didn't start with gasoline. It started with betrayal.
Elira stood in the ruins of her family's estate, the scorched crest of House Nyre still faintly visible above the burning gate. Bodies littered the marble steps-her mother, her brother, guards who swore they'd protect them. The scent of smoke and blood painted the night air in shades of rage she would never forget.
She had screamed until her throat went raw. Not for help-there was no one left to come. She screamed for vengeance. For every lie whispered into her father's ear before his death. For every deal struck in back rooms that signed their fate. For every House that smiled at the funeral, their hands still warm from the torch.
She had been seventeen.
Now, seven years later, the girl was dead. Elira Nyre was a name buried beneath rubble and ash.
The world knew her as Sable-a ghost in the Syndicate's underworld. She didn't wear masks. She didn't need to. The families didn't know the fire they thought they'd extinguished still burned-and she was coming for them one by one.
But revenge was never clean.
She hadn't planned on Kael. She hadn't planned on softness. On being seen. He looked at her like she wasn't broken-like the flame in her chest wasn't made to destroy.
He made her believe, for a moment, that maybe she could be more than a weapon.
And so, in the end, she killed him herself.
Because no one else would hurt him like she could. No one else had earned the right.
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Would you like to continue with Chapter One from here-maybe showing Elira mid-mission-or would you prefer to jump to when she meets Kael?