In the glittering ballroom of Artemisia Grand, hundreds of elites — sons and daughters of trillionaire families, moguls, and global royalty — danced under crystal chandeliers. Cameras flashed. Champagne flowed. Gossip danced through the air like perfume.
But none knew their glasses were laced.
Callista, now marked as a traitor by the Dray family council, arrived in a plunging black velvet gown. Her Bloodstone Necklace pulsed — as if alive — as she brushed past the whispers and eyes heavy with suspicion.
Meanwhile, a waiter carrying the poisoned champagne paused behind Lucien Soriano, the 22-year-old heir of the Soriano empire — believed dead for the past five years.
He turned, catching the waiter's wrist with deadly precision.
"You blinked," Lucien said coldly. "Real servants never blink under pressure."
He twisted the wrist. A capsule dropped. Poison. Everyone turned.
The music stopped.
The room descended into chaos.
Lucien stared across the room — locking eyes with his half-sister Elowen, a 21-year-old fashion mogul and seductress with violet eyes and a venomous heart. She smirked.
"So... you're really alive," she whispered under her breath. "What a shame."
---
Lucien, dressed in a custom obsidian tuxedo, stood tall — commanding the room. He raised a glass, refusing to drink.
"I'm not here to dance," he said, voice sharp. "I'm here to claim my birthright. And to bury the Soriano name, starting tonight."
People gasped.
Giovanni Soriano, his father, stormed in from the side hall. "You ungrateful wretch—!"
But he was interrupted by a blood-curdling scream.
Dozens collapsed.
The poisoned champagne had already begun working on the second batch.
Lucien stepped back, untouched.
He had switched the drinks earlier. It was his trap — not theirs.
"Now… let's see who's loyal," Lucien said.
---
Miles away, in The Glass City, an artificial utopia in the desert known for floating towers and sky trains, chaos erupted.
One of the towers, Seraphim One, exploded from within.
Onlookers screamed. Helicopters fled.
At the top of the tower had been a secret meeting between leaders of 5 billionaire dynasties and a hidden AI council.
They were dead before the fire even reached them.
Projected across the city sky appeared three words in burning red:
> "HE IS BACK."
> "THE BLOOD WAR BEGINS."
> "GLASS SHALL SHATTER."
---
Back in Craveston, a town where secrets bred faster than truth, a new girl stepped onto campus.
Her name was Zamira Voss — 20, transferred from an unknown university. Slender frame, emerald eyes, golden-brown skin that glowed like polished amber. Sharp-tongued, her beauty could paralyze crowds, but her background? A ghost.
Boys turned. Girls froze.
But when Ochieng saw her — something in him stirred.
She winked at him, mouthed:
> "I know what you are, Devil's Heir."
His blood chilled.
She wasn't just beautiful.
She was dangerous.
---
At the estate of the Kuria family, a scandal unfolded. Nyla's engagement to a European duke was called off after a video leaked — her in the arms of Emory Vrek.
The Kurias, furious, demanded Nyla renounce him.
But she didn't.
She proposed to Emory publicly on a hacked billboard in downtown New Volaris:
> "Let the world burn. I choose you, bastard or not."
Her parents disowned her instantly.
But that night… they received a black envelope.
Inside: their family tree, rewritten.
Their real daughter wasn't Nyla.
It was Callista.
---