It was the High Chancellor's seneschal who betrayed them—a thin-lipped man with sharp eyes who followed Andrea one moonless night, slipping after her through the fog like a knife in the dark.
He reported to the Chancellor the next morning, delivering a single, damning word:
"Duskborn."
The Council convened in secret chambers of jade and iron. The accusations were heavy, their weight almost physical. Andrea's father, cold with rage and humiliation, decreed that the girl was bewitched, her mind poisoned.
Carlos was branded a threat, a corrupter who had dared soil the pure blood of Virelia.
Andrea was to be sequestered until she agreed to wed Lord Severin, a rising power among the city's elite. A union that would "restore the family's honor," the Chancellor declared.
But Andrea would not bend.
When her guards came for her, she fought them, her magic lashing out in a burst of silver light. She fled into the night, leaving behind everything she had ever known.
There was only one place she could go.
To Carlos.
_____
They ran.
Through the lower tiers of Virelia, past the hollowed-out churches and broken markets, into the mist-drenched gates that led to the lands below.
The Enforcers followed, grim and relentless, their magic burning cold in the air.
Carlos led Andrea into the wilds he knew better than any map could chart—through marshes that sang with ghost-light, across bridges of bone and vine, deep into the ancient woods where the trees grew thicker than fear.
But even the forest was no longer safe.
The Enforcers twisted the land against them, setting traps of fire and ash. Wolves of steel and spirit hounded their steps. The air itself turned sharp and cruel.
Yet Andrea and Carlos pressed onward, their hands never parting, their hearts beating to a rhythm louder than fear.
Until, at last, they stumbled upon the ruins.
A vast temple of black stone, half-swallowed by the earth. Symbols older than human memory writhed across its surface. It pulsed—waiting.
Carlos turned to her, his eyes wide with awe and dread.
"This is Thal'Vora," he whispered. "The Sleeping Heart."
And it would be waking soon enough.