Thunder brooded over the Third Draekart estate. Not the kind that breaks the heavens and sends rain cascading from the sky—though those clouds loomed, heavy and gray. No, this storm lived in the steady cadence of footsteps echoing down empty halls, in the sound of something that had long been held back finally approaching. Emberlyth Draekart walked alone, her stride purposeful, her resolve carved from years of silence and shadow.

“Young miss, you can't…” a servant trailed behind her, his voice thin and uncertain. But Emberlyth didn’t slow, didn’t turn. His words were swallowed by the weight of her determination, forged over countless weeks spent pacing these same corridors, alone and unanswered. How many times had she been told to wait? To be patient? To remain behind walls that kept out the world as much as they kept her in?

She was tired of waiting. Tired of being told what could and couldn’t be. The silence had stretched long enough.

Even now, through the thick oak of a door, she could hear them. Voices. They drifted down the hall, foreign in these quiet spaces where sound itself felt out of place, an intruder. In this house, silence reigned three seasons of four, and any disruption was as loud and unnatural as a lone flicker of flame in a darkened room.

Once, she had longed for such noise, craved the proof of life beyond her own solitary existence. Now, it itched at her, a maddening reminder of her exclusion.

Not anymore.

The guards posted by the door barely moved as she approached. Perhaps they knew better than to try and stop her. Perhaps they were simply too stunned by her audacity. It didn’t matter. Her momentum didn’t falter as she reached for the doors, shoving them open with a fiery force that rattled their hinges.

“Enough,” she said.

It wasn’t a shout. It wasn’t a plea. It was the toll of an iron bell in a room where nothingness had made its home. It was a statement.

The room stilled. Heads turned, a dozen pairs of eyes settling on her. Some were familiar, others less so. Chamberlain Olsen, who’d taken up a graying mustache as of late, raised an eyebrow. Lady Efrain sighed, rubbing her temples in a way that spoke volumes about her thoughts. But there were others here, too: a foreign merchant with sharp eyes, an elderly woman from the main branch of the family, and a pair who looked every inch the seasoned militants they likely were.

An odd gathering. One not meant for her. Her breath caught, her throat tightening as her heart thundered. There was a grave scent to the room, one not fully caused by her. Whatever discussion she had interrupted couldn’t have been pleasant.

Emberlyth clenched her fists. That only strengthened her resolve. She was a daughter of this family. She had a right to stand here, a right to contribute.

“I’ve had enough,” she repeated, firmer. “I’ve heard your excuses. I’ve memorized them. I could recite them in my sleep, word for word. But none of you have stood in this house, year after year, watching people come and go while the world outside becomes a stranger. You don’t know what it’s like to be the last to learn what’s happening in your own family.” She stepped further into the room, letting the heavy doors groan shut behind her. “I’m done being the forgotten Draekart.”

Vyrmion leaned back in his chair, rubbing his temple with a weary hand. “Emberlyth—”

“You say I’m reckless,” she cut in. “That I don’t have the wisdom or the eloquence to act as a Draekart. Fine. Then teach me. Bring me to Erboria. Show me what I need to know. Let me prove that I’m more than the girl you think I am.”

Her uncle sighed, a long, drawn-out exhalation of someone far too accustomed to this conversation. He let the papers in his hands fall to the table. “And this is how you demonstrate your readiness? By barging in, disrupting matters beyond your understanding?” He gestured toward the door, where faint scorch marks marred the wood, some bits still smoldering where her fingers had dug in.

“If I don’t approach the subject like this, you won’t listen,” she said, lifting her chin. “And what better time than now? You have Olsen and Efrain going down with you. You could keep a closer eye on me there than if I remained here.”

“Do you want me to assign you extra guards?” Vyrmion asked, his tone mild but his meaning sharp.

“No, Uncle,” Emberlyth said. “I want to be of use. I’m already eighteen. I can’t stay locked up–”

“No one has locked you up,” Chamberlain Olsen interjected gently, his voice a balm meant to soothe. “You know why—”

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She raised a hand, stopping him mid-sentence.

Once, that voice had been enough. The tone of gentle reproach, the weight of quiet authority. Olsen had been a constant, his words a warm tether to steadier times. But Emberlyth had grown used to the rhythm of his arguments, as familiar as the echo of her own footsteps through these empty halls. The same pleas, the same warnings, circling back on themselves like vultures over a wounded beast.

She had replayed them all, late at night, in the stillness of her room. They had sat with her in every lonely meal, followed her like ghosts up to the rooftops, where she would stare at skies too vast, too distant, to believe in. And in all that time, they had ceased to be comforting.

The chamberlain’s voice, once a warm blanket, could no longer smother the flames in her heart. Even as some of her fire cooled as she spoke, “No. You’ve said your piece. Now listen to mine. You speak of danger, of tradition, of responsibility. I understand these things. I do. But what you don’t understand is this: keeping me here doesn’t protect me. It weakens me. It turns me into a shadow of what I could be. And worse,” her voice dropped, a knife slipped between ribs, “it insults the memory of my father. He didn’t fight and bleed so I could rot behind these walls.”

Vyrmion’s jaw tightened, the movement subtle but telling. “You’re walking a dangerous line, Emberlyth.”

“Then let me walk it,” she said. “I’m a Draekart. I deserve that much.”

The quiet that followed was the kind that sank deep, thick and heavy, entwining itself with the stone walls and the weight of old oaths. Emberlyth could feel her heart hammering in her chest, but she kept her gaze steady. This was her moment. She couldn’t falter now.

Vyrmion exhaled, long and slow. “This isn’t about locking you away, Emberlyth. Your father—”

“Gave his life so I wouldn’t have to. Yes, I know,” she interrupted, her words spilling over his like rain breaking on stone. “But I am not a child anymore. He would understand.”

“Would he?” Vyrmion said quietly.

“Yes.” Emberlyth’s voice wavered, but her resolve did not. “I want to be of use. Somehow. Anything. I’m already eighteen and—”

“And yet,” Vyrmion cut in, his voice carrying the weight of finality, “you’re still behaving like the same stubborn child who nearly mutilated herself—who once tried to stow away in our luggage, hoping to sneak aboard the caravans. If you had made it to the winching tower, you could’ve died as we descended into the Abyss.”

She opened her mouth to protest—I was only eleven—but Vyrmion pressed on. “And now you think you’re ready? You think Chamberlain Olsen and Seneschal Efrain are going for a pleasant jaunt into the Abyss? Our family needs their skill, their experience. We do not have the luxury of babysitting a restless girl with a head full of reckless dreams.”

“Eighteen years, Uncle,” she said. “I haven’t set foot beyond these grounds in eighteen years. If I stay here any longer, I will lose my mind.”

Olsen’s gentle voice rose again, soft and steady like spring rain, a balm to her fiery heart. “Emberlyth,” he said, in that same voice that had once rocked a weeping girl to sleep. It made her feel like that same child once more—afraid and ashamed. She shouldn’t have yelled. She was being unreasonable and…

Then he continued, “As I’ve tried to explain, no one has kept you locked away. It’s the Abyss—it’s dangerous. You don’t yet have your Ascension Path. Just a little more time. Let us speak with your grandfather. We’ll—”

“A little more time?” she snapped, her voice rising. “How much more? Another month? Another season? Another eighteen years until I’ve grown old and withered, still pacing these same damn halls?”

Lady Efrain bristled at that, her sharp features hardening. She was forty-two, yet to marry, and Emberlyth knew she had struck a nerve. But Emberlyth could not afford to hold her tongue.

“I’m not asking for special treatment,” she pressed on. “Most merchants and townsfolk don’t have Ascension Paths either, yet they cross the Abyss freely.”

“The Draekart name makes it different,” Vyrmion said, his tone heavy, like a gavel striking.

“You always say that,” Emberlyth groaned. “Everything’s different when it comes to me. But I was promised my Ascension Path three years ago. If it’s not ready, I’ll fetch it myself.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“What isn’t?” Emberlyth demanded. “I’ve mastered my Aethermarks. I’ve trained each day in what little sword arts you’ve taught me. What else is there to learn?”

The man from the militant couple finally spoke, his voice rasping, as dry and brittle as old parchment. “Mastered?” he asked, not looking at her but at some invisible flaw on his vest.

Emberlyth’s teeth clenched. “I’m good enough. As good as I can get on my own.”

He didn’t look up. He didn’t need to. His disinterest was a dismissal, and it stung.

Her gaze snapped back to her uncle. “What about Vaelen? She’s as much a Draekart as I am, and she’s been traveling into the Abyss for years.”

“It’s not the same,” Vyrmion said.

“What isn’t the same?” Emberlyth shouted, her voice tight with frustration. “Is this place meant to be my prison? Is that all it’s ever been?”

“It’s not like that, Emberlyth,” Olsen murmured, his voice heavier now, almost sad. “And you know it.”

But she shook her head, her heart a roaring crescendo in her chest. “If it’s not a prison, then let me go. Let me stay at the family home on the third layer. I’ll speak to Grandfather myself. I won’t set foot outside the house without your permission. Just… let me belong again.”

Lady Efrain’s voice cut through, sharp as steel and just as uncompromising. “You wouldn’t stay put, Emberlyth. You’ve got a dragon’s temper and none of the wisdom to wield it.”

The elderly lady from the main family nodded, and just like that, the argument unraveled, the voices of the room folding in on themselves, a choir of dissent. Not one voice rose in her defense. Not one. Emberlyth stood there, alone against the tide, as she always had. Bound to be left behind.