The Infernal Bloom

The forest was silent,unnaturally so. No rustle of leaves, no whisper of wind. Just the smothering hush of a place long abandoned by life. Where once silver blossoms had bloomed in the light of twin moons, now only blackened stems clawed toward the sky like the fingers of the dead.Nysera stood at the edge of the ruin, her bare feet sinking slightly into the ashen soil. It had been three hundred years since the fall of Lirien, her home, her crown, her curse. The humans called it a legend now, a fairy tale to scare children from wandering too far. But she remembered.She remembered the screams.The flames.The betrayal.Her wings, once gossamer and gleaming, now shimmered with veins of fire. Where her touch had once healed, it now scorched. In her hand she held the Infernal Bloom,a flower forged from the last heartbeat of her realm, petals of ember, a stem of twisted obsidian. It pulsed faintly, feeding off her fury, growing stronger with every step she took toward the lands of her enemies.She didn’t flinch when the first arrow flew past her head and thunked into a nearby tree."Identify yourself!” came the voice, commanding, nervous.Nysera’s eyes glowed a haunting green as she turned toward the voice, her lips curling into something between a smile and a snarl.“I am the end of your lineage,” she whispered.Then she spread her wings,and the forest caught fire.The forest wore its ruin like a crown—jagged, blackened branches reaching for a sun that no longer rose. Where light had once spilled through green canopies, only shadow reigned now. Crows no longer circled. Deer no longer fed. Even the wind seemed to fear what lingered here.Nysera walked alone, though the air shimmered around her like heat off iron. The ashes of her kingdom clung to her skin, pale gray smudges on golden shoulders that had once borne the weight of a fae queen’s mantle. Her wings—torn, firelit, alive—hissed softly as they brushed the trunks of the trees that dared still stand.She came to a halt at the heart of the clearing where the throne of Lirien had once bloomed from the roots of the Eldertree. Nothing remained now but scorched earth and crumbled stone, brittle with age and soot. The scent of death was faint but still there, like perfume clinging to an old dress.Nysera dropped to her knees, placing the flower—the Infernal Bloom—gently into the earth. Its obsidian stem pierced the soil like a dagger. Its ember-petals flickered as though catching breath.“You remember,” she murmured. “Don’t you, my bloom?”It pulsed once in answer.She touched the soil. Her mind filled with the memory of screams, of fire ripping through air, of steel slicing flesh. The day the human clans came. The day Lirien was erased from maps and memory.Except hers.“Queen Nysera of the Blossom Court,” they had called her. A healer. A diplomat. A symbol of grace and peace.That woman was dead.Something moved beyond the trees. Metal clinked. A boot snapped a twig. Nysera rose, and the bloom pulsed again, brighter this time.The first arrow flew and missed her cheek by a breath.“Identify yourself!” a voice called.She turned slowly, calmly. Three soldiers stood at the edge of the clearing, blades drawn, faces masked in iron helms engraved with the mark of the Rendor Clan.Her jaw clenched. Of course it would be them.“I am the last of Lirien,” she said. Her voice was wind, flame, thunder. “And I have come to make you remember.”They hesitated. The youngest—barely a man took a step forward. “You’re... one of them. A fairy.”Nysera smiled. “Not anymore.”She raised her hand, and the Infernal Bloom flared. Fire spiraled from the ground like roots of wrath, and the clearing was no longer silent.It screamed.