Hidden Flame

12 YEARS LATER – OLIVIA'S BIRTHDAY.

I woke up to the soft glow of morning light slicing through the cracks in my curtains, thin golden beams spilling across my sheets. My eighteenth birthday.

Not that it mattered.

Birthdays had lost their magic years ago. The thrill of cake, gifts, and celebrations had long since faded, swallowed by the monotony of days that blurred into one another. Another year older, sure, but it felt like just another day—another tally mark on a calendar that never really changed.

Outside my window, the world kept moving. The war may have ended on paper, but its ghosts still walked our streets, haunted our homes, dictated our lives. And me? I was just here. Trapped in the shadows. Living the same day over and over again.

This was all Vorrath's fault.

Everything was Vorrath's fault.

The war they started, the war that was supposedly over, had left the world fractured beyond repair. We lived in its aftermath, in a state of perpetual defense, waiting for an enemy that never truly left.

Cadence—the territory my father fought to protect—had once been a place of acceptance. A city that thrived on freedom, on the belief that people should live as they pleased, without fear. But war had drained the color from its streets. Once-vibrant avenues now lay washed in muted grays, their spirit crushed beneath years of conflict and loss. Safety wasn't a given anymore; it was a privilege we fought to keep.

Vorrath had always been the opposite. Cold. Calculated. Efficient.

They believed in control—absolute and unwavering. Their society thrived on rigid structure, where obedience wasn't a choice, but a law. To them, free will was a weakness. They had one rule: if you weren't with them, you were against them.

They were a machine fueled by research, always searching for ways to make themselves stronger, smarter, untouchable. Their hunger for power was insatiable, their leaders relentless. And while Cadence struggled to rebuild itself from the rubble of war, Vorrath had only grown stronger.

They had numbers. They had technology. They had the upper hand.

And some people—people who had once stood beside us—were willing to trade their freedom for the illusion of a better life. They abandoned Cadence for Vorrath, lured by promises of wealth, security, advancement.

Rumor had it, they were wrong.

But I wouldn't know. I had never left Cadence.

I couldn't leave.

Because my existence was a secret—the best-kept secret of this territory. No one in Vorrath could ever know I was alive. In truth, most people in Cadence didn't know either. Only high-ranking military officials and my father's most trusted allies knew who I was.

Because if Vorrath ever found out the truth...

They would come for me.

My father had always told me it was because of his position as Cadence's leader, because Vorrath had been trying to break him for years. They had already taken my mother in their attempt to force a surrender. He was terrified they'd do the same to me.

At least, that was the story I'd been told.

I pushed back the covers and swung my legs over the side of the bed, my feet pressing into the cool wood floor. My room was warm despite it, a sanctuary in the otherwise cold world outside. My life, pieced together in photographs along the walls—a timeline of memories, a collection of moments frozen in time. Hints of purple, my favorite color, softened the space. My bedspread. The small trinkets on my dresser. The things that made it mine.