Prologue: The Chalice Of Ruin
~GWENIEVERE~
The moment Gabriel raises the chalice, the world holds its breath.
Not figuratively—literally.
The air crystallizes around us, each particle suspended in frozen anticipation, as if reality itself recognizes what is about to unfold. The crimson sky overhead fractures into a thousand shades of bleeding red, and the obsidian ground beneath our feet trembles with recognition of ancient power finally awakening from its slumber.
My brother stands at the apex of the hill where Elena's shadow army parts like dark water before a divine force, his form no longer translucent or borrowed butsolid. Real. Independent for the first time since we were children playing in meadows that no longer exist.
His silver hair—so like mine, yet somehow sharper at the edges—catches light that shouldn't exist in this hellscape, transforming him into something between mortal and divine.
The leather uniform he wears shifts in the strange illumination, shadows pooling in the creases before fleeing from the chalice's awakening glow. His impossible eyes—mirrors of my own, silver shot through with veins of gold that pulse withincreasing intensity—hold determination that transcends mere courage.
The chalice gleams in his grip—small enough to fit in a child's palm yet radiating power that makes my bones vibrate with recognition. Metal that can't decide if it's gold or silver shifts between states with each beat of my thundering heart, and the symbols carved across its surface writhe like living things, rewriting themselves in languages that predate speech itself. Some symbols I recognize from the incantations that appear on my skin during moments of great power—royal markers, bloodline insignias, the ancient script of our parents' domain. Others are foreign, alien, belonging to magics that existed before the Infernal Realm was even a concept whispered into the void.
The air around the artifact warps and shimmers, heat-mirage distortion that has nothing to do with temperature. Power bleeds from it in visible waves—golden light that pulses with the rhythm of a massive heart, each beat sending ripples through reality itself.
The chalice.
The artifact I've been searching for since the very beginning.
The key to the Academy's domination, as our parents called it.
The prize Elena has been willing to destroy worlds to claim.
The key to everything…
And Gabriel has had it this entire time.
"How?" The word escapes me in a whisper that shouldn't carry, yet somehow reaches every ear in this fractured battlefield. "When? Where was it hiding?"
But even as the questions form,deep within my depths I know the answer.Feel the truth resonating through the space where Gabriel and I have shared existence for so long. The chalice was never in some vault or hidden chamber.
It wasn't guarded by ancient beasts or protected by impossible trials.
It was in me.
Hidden within my heart—the only place pure enough, loved enough, protected enough by the bonds I've formed to keep it safe from Elena's grasping hands.
Gabriel's eyes meet mine across the chaos of battle, and in them I see everything we've never been able to say aloud. The apology for keeping secrets. The gratitude for providing shelter. The fierce, protective love of a brother who stayed trapped within his sister's consciousness foryearsrather than risk leaving her alone.
"NO!"
Elena's screech tears through the frozen moment like claws through silk.
Her diseased form lurches forward, those dark veins pulsing beneath parchment-pale skin as rage contorts features that were once beautiful before our mother's dying curse began its work. Even from this distance, I can see how far her deterioration has progressed—flesh hanging loose from bones that seem too prominent, hair that was once lustrous now hanging in limp, lifeless strands that look more like dead weeds than anything human. Her eyes—wild, bloodshot, consumed by madness that's fermented for centuries—lock onto the chalice with hunger that transcends mere desire.
The shadows around her writhe with agitation, responding to her emotional state like extensions of her corrupted soul. They're not beautiful the way Cassius's shadows are, not elegant or controlled. These are sick things, twisted by the same curse that's consuming their mistress, leaving trails of wrongness wherever they pass.
This obsession.
Desperation.
This is a woman who was told she would only ever know failure, fighting against the prophecy that shaped her into the monster she's become.
"Don't youdareuse what's MINE!" Elena shrieks, her voice carrying harmonics that shouldn't exist in mortal throats.
