The forest whispered in tongues long forgotten.
Its canopy blocked the moon, casting the world in velvet-black shadows. Only the scent of burnt sage and crushed yarrow lingered in the air—a sign that something ancient stirred between the trees.
Vireth walked barefoot through the wet earth, her once-immortal skin now bearing the weight of years lived outside time. Her robes, once shimmering with celestial light, were dulled to charcoal grey. And yet, in her eyes, the stars still flickered—remnants of a past that refused to die.
She had been running for centuries. First from death, then from memory, and finally, from herself.
But now, she sought help.
She reached the glade.
There, arranged in a crooked triangle, sat the Sisters of Cinder—three witches bound not by blood, but by belief. They were not human. Not quite. They were born of pact and shadow, tied to the pulse of the world beneath the world.
The eldest, Mora, stirred a blackened bowl with bone-white fingers. Her eyes were lidless, her mouth sewn shut, but her mind was as sharp as broken glass.
The second, Ninette, sat with her feet submerged in a bowl of ink, every thought she had rippling across its surface. She looked no older than twenty, but the birds in the trees never sang near her.
The third, Altha, bore a face half-covered in flame. The fire never consumed her—it fed on her lies.
They spoke in unison as Vireth approached. Their voices layered over each other like echoes in a canyon.
"She returns. The Seer. The last who remembers."
Vireth knelt. "The egg. I need to find it. Before he does."
The witches hissed.
Mora's fingers froze.
Ninette's ink bowl turned blood-red.
Altha's fire dimmed.
Vireth continued. "You know what was sealed within. You know where the path begins. I saw hands reaching for it in a vision—hands not meant to hold that kind of power."
Altha smiled. "Visions lie."
"Not mine," Vireth said. "Not about him."
The witches fell into silence. Then Ninette spoke, her voice high and hollow.
"There is a name whispered in the rootstone. A child of ash and accident. A bloodline thinned by science but still tethered to the old spark."
Vireth's breath caught. "A mortal?"
"A door," Mora rasped from her sewn lips, the words bleeding from her mind instead of her mouth. "To open the path, the door must walk willingly."
Altha stepped forward. "He has already dreamed of it. The egg calls to him. You do not need to find the egg, Seer. You must find him."
"Where?" Vireth asked.
Ninette raised a hand and let a single drop of ink fall onto the ground. It spread and shaped itself into a city. Skyscrapers. Bridges. A market with a neon sign: Greenhaven Grocers.
"He is closer to the god than either of them know," Ninette whispered. "The threads of fate tighten."
"And his name?" Vireth asked.
The witches looked at one another.
Then spoke together.
"Damon."
---
Elsewhere…
In a cramped apartment above a mechanic's garage, Damon Vale woke in a cold sweat.
His hands trembled.
Again, the dream: a metallic egg pulsing like a heartbeat. A voice whispering his name, but not in a voice he'd ever heard. It wasn't human.
It wasn't anything.