The morning fog lay low over the crimson spires of Kael-Terun, wrapping the palace in a quiet, misted breath. Marble towers soaked in hues of red and gold stretched toward the sky like blades drawn toward war. Beneath one of these towers, in the silent barracks courtyard, Victoria stood barefoot on cold stone.
She was six years old, but already taller than most children her age—elegant, poised, burning from within.
Her platinum-white hair was tied tightly into a braid that glowed in the morning sun, and her red eyes reflected the rising light like twin embers. Her wooden practice sword hung loosely in her grip. She wore no armor. She didn't need it.
She was royalty. But no ordinary child of blood and crown.
She moved with precision, as if every step had been etched into her soul long before her feet touched the earth.
Each strike, each stance—tested, failed, corrected, tested again.
Victoria closed her eyes.
And then, she split.
A thousand versions of herself unfurled within her mind. Each one a small, different choice.
One stepped too soon.
That version took a wooden blade to the ribs—wind knocked out.
Another swung too high.
Disarmed.
A third waited, too hesitant—struck across the jaw.
The pain wasn't imaginary.
Every false version left an echo. A sting, a throb, a whispered reminder of how the fight could be lost. Her body learned by dying in every way it could. Her heart remembered each bruise never dealt.
This was her Imprint.
Eia, the Seed Forgotten, had told her: "What was never chosen still lives in the soil of you."
And Victoria, now just a girl learning to hold a sword, had turned that lesson into her weapon.
She opened her eyes, breathing sharply as the pain of a dozen hypothetical failures curled down her spine.
The wooden sword in her hand blurred with speed, slicing into the air with perfect rhythm, guided by every mistake she didn't make.
A voice rang from across the courtyard.
"Again!"
Sir Halveth, the old knight assigned to her training, watched her from beneath a crimson cloak, arms crossed over weathered armor. His face bore the weariness of battle, but in his eyes flickered something else: awe... or fear.
She obeyed without a word. Again.
And again.
Each time she fought against the possible futures of herself. Each time, she emerged slightly stronger. Slightly faster. Slightly more terrifying.
Later, as the sun leaned toward noon, Victoria sat alone on the edge of the barracks wall, her feet dangling above a steep fall into the palace gardens.
A maid tried to approach her but paused when she saw the girl was humming.
That tune again.
The same strange, aching melody she'd hummed since she could first walk. A song no one taught her, but one that seemed to come from the marrow of her bones.
Even the Empress, Seraphine, had stopped asking about it.
The song never had words, only that lonely familiarity—like something sung long before the world began. It was soft, sorrowful, but hopeful.
Victoria hummed it now, as she looked out over the horizon.
She saw Kael-Terun's crimson banners flapping high. The army below, drilling like insects on red-tinged soil. The royal spire where her mother ruled like a flame unquenchable. The blood throne.
It was a future built for her.
But there was something else.
A feeling beneath her ribcage, like a heartbeat too distant to truly grasp. Something far away. Someone far away.
Someone she had not met—yet somehow already missed.
She touched her chest and closed her eyes.
A thousand Victorias flickered behind her lids.
And in one of them, far in a dream that never happened, she stood under a tree that hadn't yet been born, her hand reaching toward someone humming the same tune.
That night, Seraphine entered the girl's chamber without her guards.
Victoria was sitting by the window, polishing her wooden sword with calm intent.
"You fought well today," the Empress said.
Victoria didn't answer. She never bowed to her mother, not in the ways others did.
"You do things no one can explain." Seraphine's voice was quiet, not angry—merely observant.
"You gave me a gift when I was born," Victoria said. "You said I would conquer."
Seraphine stepped forward. Her long red hair was pinned back in obsidian combs. Her crimson armor whispered when she moved.
"I gave you nothing, child," she said. "You came with it. Whatever you are... the gods whispered it long before I held you."
Victoria looked at her, eyes unreadable.
"Do you ever feel like something inside you is older than you are?"
The Empress tilted her head, expression unreadable.
"No," she said. "But I see it in you."
Victoria turned back to the window.
Her mother stood behind her for a moment longer, watching as the pale-haired girl hummed her forgotten tune and polished the blade she hadn't earned, but already mastered.
Then Seraphine left the room.
Alone again, Victoria whispered to the air:
"I don't know who you are... but I hope you're not alone."
Far away, the Tree of Life rustled.