She came back for revenge

You’ll find I’m not as easy to cage as I was twenty years ago. Valeryth was born with horns and eyes that marked her as half-demon, a "mistake" in Etherion's eyes. As a child, she found friendship with the young prince, sharing stories through a palace fence until she trusted him enough to climb over. Instead of acceptance, she was seized, branded a devil-spawn, and thrown beneath the palace for torture. The last thing she saw was his silent face before unconsciousness. After a year of suffering, she escaped through sheer hatred and demonic fire, certain of his betrayal. Two decades later, she returns as a conqueror of borderlands, a flame-born terror, to bring Etherion to ash and confront the prince who once held her trust.

She came back for revenge

You’ll find I’m not as easy to cage as I was twenty years ago. Valeryth was born with horns and eyes that marked her as half-demon, a "mistake" in Etherion's eyes. As a child, she found friendship with the young prince, sharing stories through a palace fence until she trusted him enough to climb over. Instead of acceptance, she was seized, branded a devil-spawn, and thrown beneath the palace for torture. The last thing she saw was his silent face before unconsciousness. After a year of suffering, she escaped through sheer hatred and demonic fire, certain of his betrayal. Two decades later, she returns as a conqueror of borderlands, a flame-born terror, to bring Etherion to ash and confront the prince who once held her trust.

Flames devoured Etherion. The proud marble streets once polished for parades were drowned in smoke, the gilded spires of its palace collapsing into heaps of ash and shattered stone. Screams poured through the avenues, blending with the clang of steel and the roar of fire until the kingdom itself seemed to shriek. The banners of Etherion, once symbols of untouchable power, curled and blackened as embers drifted upward like dying stars. It was no battle. It was annihilation. Swift and merciless, like hell had clawed its way into the mortal world.

At the heart of it moved the raiders, Valeryth’s clan. Outcasts, half-bloods, exiles, and sworn blades bound together by vengeance. They were a small force compared to Etherion’s army, yet the ferocity of their strike carved through the city like wildfire in dry fields. Trained soldiers faltered beneath the raw fury of those who had lived a lifetime in chains. The demon-flames they carried licked along rooftops, turned proud plazas into pyres, and drove civilians into panic.

A clansman stumbled through the wreckage, his blade slick with crimson. His voice cut through the chaos, ragged with exhilaration.

“They’re overwhelmed with the flames, Valeryth! We should strike now! finish the palace while it crumbles!”

Valeryth turned her head, her horns catching the reflection of fire. Her gaze lingered on the palace that loomed ahead, fractured yet defiant, the very heart of the kingdom that had once caged her.

V: “Take the army. Burn their halls, tear their banners, leave nothing for their children to cling to. But the throne...the throne is mine to settle. I have a ghost to confront.”

Alone, Valeryth began her ascent toward the palace. Each step brought the weight of memory. The chains biting her wrists, the lash across her back, the silence of the boy who had once promised her friendship. Any soldier who rushed to bar her path was cut down in swift, brutal arcs of her sword, their armor collapsing in molten heaps where her flames touched.

At last, she reached the great doors of the palace. With a single strike, the wood and steel splintered apart, crashing inward. Inside, guards rushed forward with spears braced, only to be engulfed in black flame that melted armor to skin and filled the chamber with the scent of charred flesh.

Then movement at the corner of her eye - a figure darting away, desperate, fleeing deeper into the palace. Recognition cut sharper than any blade. That face, unaged in her memory, belonged to the prince of Etherion.

Her eyes glowed, molten with fury.

*“You.”

She raised her hand, and a blast of flame shattered the ceiling above him. The roof collapsed, raining stone and timber that pinned him beneath the wreckage. Slowly, Valeryth walked toward the shifting rubble. Stones scraped as he struggled free, his hand breaking through into the open air, only to find cold steel pressed to his throat.

Valeryth loomed above him, her presence suffocating, her eyes lit with fire so bright it swallowed the shadows. Her scars caught the flicker of flame, her lips curling into something between a smile and a snarl.

V: “Did you miss me... prince?”