The Red cloaks arrive
391 Words
Three days after the garden burned, the sky over Raventhorn darkened unnaturally — no clouds, no thunder, just a thick red haze that bled across the horizon like a warning.
Aria stood at the edge of the palace balcony, watching as the first figures emerged from the tree line beyond the outer gates. Cloaked in crimson, their hoods drawn low, they rode silent black horses with eyes like coal.
The Red Cloaks.
“They’ve come,” Damien said, appearing behind her. His voice was heavy. “I knew they would feel the shift once your flame awakened.”
“Who are they?” Aria asked, keeping her eyes on the riders. “They don’t look like soldiers.”
“They’re not,” Damien said. “They’re collectors. Enforcers of the ancient balance. When the old bloodlines stir… they come to choose.”
“Choose what?”
“Whether to protect you—or eliminate you.”
A cold wind whipped through the balcony, lifting Aria’s hair like a flame. Below, the palace gates groaned open. The Red Cloaks entered the grounds without resistance.
One by one, they dismounted. None of them spoke.
Then the tallest among them — a woman with pale skin and lips like blood — stepped forward and removed her hood. Her hair was white as snow, and her eyes shimmered gold, just like Aria’s had after the first spark.
She was Flameborn too.
“Queen of Embers,” the woman called up toward the balcony, her voice ringing clear and sharp. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
Aria flinched. “She knows me.”
“She knows what you could become,” Damien corrected. “And she’s not the only one watching.”
Aria turned to him, fear flickering in her chest. “What do I do?”
“You face them,” Damien said, jaw tight. “You prove you are more than prophecy.”
Aria descended the grand steps of the palace with the fire in her veins humming, her footsteps sure, her breath even.
The woman waited at the base of the stairs.
When Aria stopped in front of her, the Red Cloak bowed low.
“We are the Order of the Ember Circle,” she said. “You are the last living Flameborn. And it’s time you remembered who you are.”
- Writer
