Chapter 1
**Six years ago**
Screams ripped through the night, the air was thick with smoke, mixing with the stench of blood, and burning wood. Twelve-year-old Isaldora stood frozen in the chaos, tears streaming down her face, too terrified to move. Her breathing was heavy, the smoke stinging her lungs. Everything she knew—everything she loved—her home—her people— was collapsing around her.
Aetherwyn was burning.
Her hands shook so badly she could hardly keep them up. She wanted to help. She wanted to fight. But all she could do was watch as her world came apart. Flames ate the sky. Bodies lay twisted across the ground. She could hear the cruel laughs of the attackers—mixing with the dreadful screams.
“FATHER!”
Her voice cracked as her bare feet pounded against the blood-slick stone. Her father, the man she thought could never fall, was on his knees. His silver eyes, once strong and steady, flickered as a vampire tore into his throat and a werewolf clawed down his side.
Her mother blasted them to ash, but she was staggering too.
Her father sagged into her mother’s arms, blood soaking both of them.
“No!” Isaldora dropped at her father’s side, her heart was pounding so loud against her chest.
He grabbed her trembling hands, his own grip weak and shaking. He gave her a small, faint smile. And then the light in his eyes dimmed. His chest going still.
Isaldora froze.
“No… no, no, no!” Her words came out broken, choked by her sobs. She couldn't believe.
Beside her, her mother’s scream tore through the night.
Around them, enemies were closing in—wolves with dripping fangs, vampires with red-slick mouths, witches and warlocks she knew. People who used to share her family’s table. People who used to smile at her. Now those same faces sneered as they stepped over bodies.
Her heart shattered again when her eyes landed on her brother. “Ivan!” Her brother’s body hit the ground with a thud, his throat slashed open. Blood spilling everywhere.
She stumbled to him, hands pressing desperately against the wound. “No—no, stay with me—please, IVAN!” She screamed his name until her voice broke, shaking his body. But his skin was already cooling.
Behind her, a faint, broken voice called her name.
“Mama…”
Her mother was dragging herself across the ground, barely upright. Her body was torn up, soaked in blood. Isaldora rushed to her, trying to hold her up.
Her mother’s bloody hands cupped her cheeks. Her eyes glistened with love and sorrow. “Listen to me, my little star. You have to go.”
“No! I can heal you, I can fix this, just don’t—”
“You can’t.” Her mother’s voice broke, but it was firm. “There’s no time.”
“I’m not leaving you!” Isaldora sobbed, shaking her head. “I couldn’t save anyone—”
“Enough.” Her mother’s tone cracked like a whip. Fierce, even as her body failed. “You will survive. You are the last of us. Our blood. Our light. You are the only hope left.”
She leaned her forehead against her daughter’s, her breath shallow. “You are more than you know. One day, you’ll fight and rise again. But right now—run.”
"Ma..Mama—please—please don't leave me—
please."
“I’ll never leave you, sweety. I'll always be with you. Here.” Her mother pressed a blood-soaked hand against Isaldora’s pounding heart. “Swear to me you’ll live.”
“I—I swear,” she choked, sobbing.
Her mother’s hand lingered on her cheek a heartbeat longer, feeling her. It broke her heart to leave her baby alone. Then, with her final breath, she whispered, “Go.”
Isaldora wanted to refuse, wanted to fight it, but the sob tore out of her chest and the world blurred as she vanished into thin air.
Silence swallowed the ruins of Aetherwyn. A silence too heavy, too cruel.
From the smoke, the last attackers stepped out, laughing low as the looked around the destruction they created.
“They’re gone. The scum who thought they could rule us.”
“Master will be pleased.”
Their laughter carried as they disappeared into the trees.
But when the night fell still again, Isaldora reappeared.
She hit the ground with a thud, knees scraping against broken stone, but she didn’t even feel it. The world around her was quiet now—no more screams. Just silence, thick and heavy, broken only by the crackle of dying flames. Her eyes locked on the bodies scattered around her — her mother, her father, her brother — faces she’d kissed goodnight a hundred times now frozen, lifeless.
“No… no, no, no!” Her voice cracked as she crawled forward, grabbing at her mother’s hand, shaking it like she could wake her. “Mama, please, please get up! You can’t leave me, you promised, you PROMISED!”
"Somebody help them!”
Her screams tore through the silence, raw and desperate. She pressed her forehead against her father’s chest, sobbing until her throat burned. She shook her brother’s shoulders, hysterically. “Stop playing Ivan—wake up! Please, I’m begging you—I swear I won't annoy you—please—don’t leave me!”
Her hands clutched Ivan's limp arm, pulling him against her chest. “Okay… you're hurt—It's hurting right?—I'll make it go away—okay, I’ll fix this—” She pressed her glowing hands over his wounds, trying, forcing the light to work but it was useless.
Her cries turned into wild, broken shouts. “Why?! Why them?! Somebody—anybody—please—help us—HELP!” she screamed into the empty air, “ANYONE, PLEASE!”
Tears smeared her face, her throat raw from shouting, but nobody came.
She clutched their bodies one after another, rocking, crying until her voice was nothing but hoarse gasps. Tears blurred her vision, dripping onto their skin. She rocked back and forth, wailing, her voice scraping her throat raw. “Wake up, please… please don’t leave me alone… Mama… Papa… Ivan…”
Her sobs slowed, her screams dead, because her voice gave out. Her tears still fell as she stared, her head on her knees, rocking back and forth. Her silence became deafeaning.
Then, like something inside her finally snapped, her sobs broke into a jagged sound—half-laughter, half-cry. Stumbling, she pushed herself onto her knees. Her hands trembled, dirt and blood smeared across her fingers where she had clawed the earth.
She looked at her family one last time—their faces, their lifeless bodies.
“I’ll kill them,” she whispered, voice shaking with rage. “Every last one.”
The tears dried hot on her cheeks. Her breathing steadied. Her eyes hardened, cold and merciless.
“I’ll make them bleed. I’ll make them suffer. I’ll rip their world apart the way they ripped mine.”
A scream ripped out of her chest, raw, broken, tearing the air apart. The storm answered like it had been waiting, lightning slashing across the sky.
Heat pulsed under her skin, her blood boiling with something powerful. Lightning split the sky as silver runes began to carve across her arms, her collarbone, her spine—glowing with the ancient magic of her bloodline.
She pulled a dagger from thin air, the blade glowing with her power. Without flinching, she slashed it across her palm. Blood spilled, dripping onto the ground as she pressed her hand to the earth.
“I, Isaldora Vaneese Aetherwyn, swear on my blood, on my family, on the fallen blood of Aetherwyn…” Thunder cracked above her. “I’ll give back every ounce of pain they gave me. I won’t stop until they’re all dead. I will become their doom.”
The ground shuddered at her vow.
Her voice dropped lower, heavier, almost inhuman. “Let this soil burn their flesh. Let their bones splinter. Let their lungs choke on ash. Let their minds rot with the screams of what they destroyed. May this ground bleed them dry.”
The sky cracked open in rage. Rain poured, thunder roared. Aetherwyn’s land—the beauty that had once been her home—dimmed under her spell. Its glow was swallowed by shadow, the land twisting into a barren wasteland, cursed forever.
And in the middle of it all stood Isaldora. She had once believed in love. In kindness. In good hearts. She had once believed the world could be gentle. That night burned all of it out of her. That night carved her hollow. Her heart froze solid.
She looked one last time at her family’s broken bodies. Whatever was left of her died there with them.
And when she turned away, she wasn’t the same girl anymore. She disappeared into the storm as something else.
Far off in the dark, the wolves began to howl. Their cries carried across the night—aching with a grief that had no name. Their sound bled into the silence like grief that would never end.
———
**Three years later**
Isaldora leaned back in the chair, calm as stone, eyes fixed on the trembling girl in front of her. She looked about nineteen, maybe twenty—wide-eyed, pale, trembling so badly her knuckles were white. Tears streaked down her cheeks, sniffling. Isaldora didn’t so much as blink as she stared at her with a boredom.
“Now, Ms. Renna,” she said, tilting her head slightly with a stern pout, “do you accept the job or what? Because let’s not pretend—you don’t really have a choice. Either you live… or you die.”
The girl’s lip quivered. She hesitated for a moment, before she finally dropped her head and gave a shaky nod.
“Good girl,” Isaldora murmured, satisfied. With a lazy flick of her fingers, a crisp sheet of parchment appeared on the desk, along with a thin silver spindle that glinted under the light.
“Go ahead, sign.”
Renna stared confused.
“Oh, yeah—silly me. You just have to drop a few drops of blood where your name goes.” Isaldora mentioned it like it was nothing, almost rolling her eyes at Renna’s stunned expression.
Renna’s face drained of color. “B-Blood?!” she whispered, horrified.
“Yes. Blood. Hurry up.”
With trembling hands Renna reached for the spindle and Isaldora almost scoffed at her dramatics. The prick was quick, she dropped few drops on the paper and as soon as she did, the paper shimmered and vanished.
Renna felt the invisible grip that had been holding her in place suddenly broke and she bolted to her feet, running for the door—only to collapse to her knees, clutching her stomach as a sharp, searing pain shot through her.
“Don’t be dramatic,” Isaldora sighed, standing slowly, her tone flat and mocking. “You just signed a blood contract. You’re bound to me now darling." She crouched down beside Renna, "Try running again, and you’ll be dead before you even realize you moved.”
Isaldora rose, smoothing her skirts as if nothing had happened, and returned to her chair. “But the good thing is, you do your job and you’ll be paid with more than you can imagine.” She slid an envelope across the desk, towards Renna.
“Your first payment,” she said with a deadly smile. “Welcome to Aether Enterprises, Ms. Vane.”
