Chapter 1

"Hurry, Alexander... I can't take much more..."

Not far away, my sister Isabella huddled in her maid's arms, wrapped in a thick snow fox fur coat. Her face was deathly pale, tears clinging to the corners of her eyes, her weak voice edged with urgency.

At those words, the man gripping the sword hilt—my husband, Alexander, ruler of Aurora City—went rigid.

Without hesitation, he drove the blade deeper. Dark crimson lifeblood flowed rapidly down the grooved channel, dripping into the crystal vessel at his feet.

"Cecilia, grit your teeth and bear it. It's just one bowl." Alexander looked down at me, those sapphire eyes that once held such warmth now cold as winter ice.

"Isabella's corruption is flaring again. Without pure phoenix blood to contain it, she won't survive the night."

Enchanted chains pinned me to the stone floor, each breath bringing waves of searing pain that felt like my chest was splitting open.

I didn't beg. Didn't cry out as he clearly expected. I simply met his gaze with bitter amusement.

"Just one bowl?"

I worked my cracked lips into something resembling a smile, my voice raw. "Alexander, this is the third time this month. You really don't know what happens when you drain this much lifeblood from my heart?"

Alexander's jaw tightened, his fingers flexing on the sword grip.

But before he could respond, Isabella erupted into violent coughing.

She pushed away her maid's support, sobbing in that sickeningly delicate voice of hers:

"Alexander, stop... I don't want her blood anymore. I'm dying anyway. When I absorbed that dark magic in the abyss to save you, I made my choice. How can I sustain this broken shell by draining Cecilia's life? Please, let her go. Just let me slip away quietly..."

"Don't you dare!" Alexander spun toward her, his voice cracking with barely restrained panic. "I won't hear you talk like that!"

When he turned back to me, his expression had gone glacial. "Cecilia, you heard her. Isabella took on that corruption saving me—saving this entire city. She's the Phoenix Goddess from the prophecy. She's the empire's only hope."

"And you?" His lip curled. "You're nothing but a failed copy who borrowed a drop of her divine blood and still can't light a candle flame. Giving your blood to ease her suffering is the only worthwhile thing you'll ever do."

Watching his self-righteous fury, I almost laughed at the sheer absurdity of it.

The Phoenix Goddess? Saved him in the abyss?

Five hundred years ago, when the demon dragon attacked Aurora City, Alexander led the defense. The beast mortally wounded him and sent him plummeting into the endless chasm below.

I jumped after him. I burned my truest phoenix fire for three days and three nights, giving everything I had to drag him back from death's door.

The cost? My divine seal shattered into dormancy. My power scattered like ashes on the wind. I became the "worthless failure" everyone whispered about.

Meanwhile, Isabella—who'd hidden in the cellars, trembling, while the dragon tore through our city—crept into my chambers while I lay unconscious.

She stole Alexander's bloodstained pendant. When he finally woke, she was there, clutching it, playing the dying savior.

From that moment on, she became the goddess in every ballad, the great love he'd protect until his last breath.

And I became the pathetic, powerless wife who'd trapped him in a political marriage.

"Worthwhile?"

A harsh laugh scraped up my throat, making fresh blood surge from the wound in my chest. "Alexander, you keep insisting she saved you. Have you ever wondered why someone with divine power can't heal herself? Why does your precious goddess need to feed on my blood just to stay alive?"

Crack!

The slap came so hard my head snapped to the side.

Alexander's face contorted with rage. "Cecilia, you're not just pathetic. Isabella absorbed that corruption for me. Her divine flame burned out keeping my heart beating. And you have the gall to call her a fraud?"

The coppery taste of blood flooded my mouth. I didn't bother arguing. There's no reasoning with willful blindness.

Besides, this nightmare was merely my "mortal trial"—the final crucible before divine ascension.

I am—I WAS—the First Phoenix, the Fire God from the supreme celestial realm. I command the purest forces of creation and destruction.

Ten thousand years ago, to transcend my limitations, I sealed away my divinity and descended to this world as a mortal, memories locked away.

It wasn't until five hundred years ago, when I nearly died in that abyss saving Alexander, that my true nature began its slow, agonizing reawakening.

Now I watched this grotesque farce with detached clarity, feeling the chains binding my divine power fracturing as this mortal shell crumbled.

Soon. Once this body died completely, once I severed my last foolish attachment to Alexander, the trial would end.

"Mother!"

A child's scream tore through the dungeon as the iron door crashed open. A small, thin figure burst through.

Arya. My daughter.

Only seven years old but skeletal from neglect and starvation. When she saw the sword embedded in my chest, she shrieked and threw herself at Alexander, sinking her teeth into his wrist.

"Let her go! You're hurting her!" The words came out garbled around her desperate bite.

Alexander yanked his arm back. A violent surge of magic burst from him, sending Arya flying into the stone wall. She crumpled with a sickening crack, blood streaming from her temple, her breathing faint and ragged.

"Arya!" The scream ripped out of me. I thrashed against the chains, trying to reach her, but the enchantments held fast. "She's YOUR daughter! Your own child!"

For one heartbeat, something flickered across Alexander's face but then Isabella whimpered.

"Ah... the pain... Alexander, please..."

She pressed a hand to her chest and collapsed in a practiced swoon.

Whatever humanity had surfaced in Alexander's eyes vanished like smoke.

He wrenched the ice blade from my chest. Flesh and blood came with it, and the crystal vessel finally filled to the brim with dark crimson.

He scooped up the vessel and strode to Isabella, gathering her into his arms like she was something precious and fragile.

"This is the debt you owe her, Cecilia." He didn't even glance back. "Lock them both down here. If anyone brings food, water, or medicine without my direct order, execute them."

The iron door boomed shut. Absolute darkness swallowed the dungeon whole.

I bit down hard, choking back a sob, and dragged myself across the freezing stone. Blood painted a long streak behind me as I crawled to Arya, pulling her small, cold body into my arms.

"Arya, sweetheart, I'm here... Mother's here..." I pressed shaking kisses to her bloodstained face.

Blood poured from the gaping wound in my chest. I could feel my life draining away, faster and faster.

My vision dimmed. As darkness crept in at the edges, my mind drifted to three centuries ago. Alexander kneeling beneath the Starlight Tree, slipping his signet ring onto my finger.

"Cecilia, I swear on my soul—I will never let harm come to you. You'll never shed blood because of me. If I break this vow, may my soul be damned to the abyss for eternity."

Three hundred years. That beautiful promise had become the sword through my heart, had become this pool of my blood soaking into the stone.

As my last fragile hope in that vow finally died, my heartbeat slowed to almost nothing.

Midnight's final bell tolled across Aurora City—

Crack.

The seal I'd placed on my own soul ten thousand years ago finally shattered. The first fissure split open deep within me as this mortal body failed and my last earthly attachment was severed.

From that crack, a thread of pure dark-gold flame flickered to life.