For there shall be no more night, darkness or shadow,
For behold the light shall overcome the darkness,
And the Earth and the Heavens above shall be full of light,
For the enslavement to darkness and all evils shall end,
For only light and righteousness shall prevail.
- An excerpt from the book The Future of The Heavenly Realm.
The chamber was dim, lit only by a ring of bluish flame in sconces high on the walls. Shadows danced like restless spirits across the cold obsidian stones. The air was thick with incense and sweat, and the low chant of protective wards murmured from the lips of the old midwife.
Mira lay on a silk-draped bed, her hands clutching the sides as another wave of pain surged through her. Her dark hair clung to her forehead, soaked with perspiration. She bit down on a cloth to keep from screaming.
"You must not cry out, my lady," the midwife whispered urgently. "If the wrong ears hear this, the child will be dead before she draws her first breath."
Mira nodded weakly, her storm-grey eyes brimming with pain and fear. But deeper than both was something more resolute — something ancient. A mother's will.
The old physician, a gaunt man with trembling hands and a voice like dry parchment, worked swiftly at the foot of the bed. "She's coming. Another push now. One more, Lady Mira. You must."
"I can't…" Mira's voice cracked, but the midwife grabbed her hand with a strength that belied her age.
"You can. For her. For him."
At the mention of Lord Tristan, the Lord of Darkness himself, Mira clenched her jaw, and with a guttural cry, pushed once more.
A sharp silence followed. A breathless instant. Then—
A wail.
Shrill, fierce, and defiant.
"She lives," the physician breathed. He lifted the tiny newborn, wrapped her in a dark velvet cloth etched with protective runes, and handed her to Mira.
Mira took her daughter into her arms, weeping silently as she looked down into violet eyes that looked so much like Tristan's eyes. "You are the last," she whispered. "The last heir of the Realm of Darkness. The day will come when the world will know you. But tonight, you are my secret… and my salvation."
The midwife moved to trace a ward of silence on the child's brow, but Mira stopped her. "No," she said. "Let her voice be heard. Let her first cry echo in this cursed place. Let the shadows remember her name."
The midwife hesitated, then bowed her head.
"What shall she be called?" asked the physician, his voice barely above a whisper.
Mira pressed a kiss to her daughter's brow. "Nyx," she said. "Daughter of night. Heir of shadows. Light of my darkness."
Thunder rumbled low above the castle, far beyond the hidden chamber's enchanted roof. Somewhere, across the Blackened Vale, Lord Tristan stood unaware, or perhaps not, that his legacy had been born into the world in secret.
The storm had begun in earnest, lightning cracking across the skies above the Realm of Darkness. Thunder shook the hidden chamber, as if the world itself sensed a shift in fate.
The midwife swaddled baby Nyx in a black linen wrap laced with enchantments to dull her presence. "We must move quickly," she said. "They'll be looking for you soon, my lady. The seers have spoken of unrest in the shadows."
"I know," Mira whispered. She cradled Nyx for a moment longer, savoring the warmth of her daughter's tiny body. Her heart ached. She had dreamed of raising her child by her side, not sending her into exile before her first night.
The old physician approached, holding a satchel of healing tinctures and herbs. "I will remain behind," he said quietly. "They will come. Someone must stall them, mislead them. You have only hours at best."
Mira met his gaze with unspoken gratitude. He had been loyal to her long before Lord Tristan's court had become a nest of whispers and ambition.
The midwife opened a concealed door at the back of the chamber — a narrow passageway carved into the stone, long forgotten, veiled by illusion. Beyond it lay the tunnels that led beneath the fortress, into the cursed wood and beyond the borders of the realm.
"She cannot go alone," Mira said. "She's too young. Too fragile."
"She won't be alone," the midwife replied, revealing a small, silent figure from the shadows — a dark-cloaked woman with no scent, no sound to her step. "The Raven Sister will take her. To the temple hidden in the Hollow Mountains. She is sworn to silence. Sworn to protect."
Mira looked into the woman's shadow-veiled face. No words were needed.
With a final kiss to her daughter's forehead, Mira passed Nyx into the woman's arms. Her heart cracked — but she held her head high.
"She will return when the time is right," the midwife promised. "When prophecy stirs and the shadow realms begin to fracture, the last heir will rise."
"And until then?" Mira asked, voice brittle.
"Until then," the midwife said, pressing a ring of obsidian and silver into Mira's palm, "you must survive. For her."
Footsteps echoed above them.
The Raven Sister slipped into the tunnel, the child pressed close to her chest. With a flick of her fingers, the illusion resealed behind her.
Mira turned back to the chamber, her blood-stained gown fluttering around her feet as she stood tall. She quickly changed her dress. She wiped her face, straightened her shoulders, and walked toward the inevitable.
The door to the hidden chamber burst open with a clang of iron against stone.
Mira didn't flinch.
Six guards in obsidian armor stormed in, led by Captain Varyn, a brute with a cruel mouth and the eyes of a bloodhound. He surveyed the room like a predator scenting prey.
"My lady," he said mockingly, "we were told there were strange noises coming from these chambers. Screams, they said." His gaze fell to the sweat on her brow, the flush in her cheeks, the torn silks. "Are you unwell?"
Mira stood in the center of the room, her back to the bed now stripped of all evidence. Her magic pulsed faintly beneath her skin, a shield of calm over the rawness inside her.
"I had a fever," she said evenly. "And a vision."
Varyn stepped closer, eyes narrowing. He glanced around the chamber, at the glowing sconces, the lingering scent of blood and incense. "This place reeks of spell work," he muttered, gesturing to his men. "Search it. All of it."
The guards tore through the room, overturning chests, ripping down curtains, smashing jars and bottles in search of anything out of place. Mira remained unmoved, letting them see what they wanted: a noble consort trembling after a fever dream, not a mother who had just given birth to the last heir of darkness.
They found nothing.
But then the air shifted.
The temperature dropped.
And the guards froze as the shadows at the door parted.
An old man entered, hunched, cloaked in a mantle of deep plum lined with silver thread. His beard trailed down to his chest, and his eyes glowed faintly with light. He carried a staff of blackened wood crowned with a crystal that pulsed once as he stepped over the threshold.
Archmage Malrec.
The Seer of the Ebon Tower. Lord Tristan's most trusted arcane advisor.
"My lady Mira," he rasped, eyes sweeping the room with unsettling calm. "You look pale. Worn. And yet…" He sniffed the air. "…alive with power."
Mira met his gaze, steel beneath the exhaustion in her bones. "I was visited by visions," she said, echoing her earlier lie. "The fever broke not long ago."
Malrec drifted closer. "Perhaps. But there is blood in this chamber. New life clings to the air." His fingers hovered near the bed, and the bloodstains shimmered, briefly revealing the truth before vanishing under a glamour Mira had woven.
He turned slowly toward her. "You have given birth."
The guards stiffened. Varyn looked at Mira, stunned, hand resting on the hilt of his blade. "My lady… is it true?"
Mira lifted her chin. "No child lives here. Search all you like."
Malrec's eyes burned brighter. "You forget, child. I have seen a thousand births and a thousand deaths. The veil is thin around you now. You smell of it."
He leaned in, voice low and dangerous. "Where is the child?"
Mira's heart thundered but she didn't flinch.
"She died," Mira whispered, her voice cracking perfectly. "Too early. Too small. I buried her myself in silence… so no one would know my shame."
A long silence stretched. Even Varyn's breathing quieted.
Then the mage stepped back. "Curious," he murmured. "The Lord of Darkness's blood rarely dies so easily. Still… a corpse leaves echoes. I will look into the shadows. If you lie, they will show me."
Mira said nothing.
With a final lingering glance, Malrec turned and left. The guards followed, though Varyn cast one last glance over his shoulder, uncertainty etched deep into his frown.
When the chamber was empty once more, Mira collapsed to her knees trembling, but not from fear.
Her daughter lived.
But now the hunt for her little one had just begun.