Rosalinda

The villagers came at dawn.

Rosalinda had barely opened her eyes when the door splintered inward. Cold hands dragged her from the floor where she’d slept, her wrists bound with rope that bit into her skin. No one spoke. Not even her mother, who stood in the corner, eyes hollow, lips pressed into silence.

Outside, the sky bled crimson. The sacred forest loomed in the distance, its twisted trees whispering secrets only she could hear. Shadows curled around her feet as she was marched through the village square, past neighbors who once smiled at her, past the well where she used to play, past the chapel where she had prayed for answers that never came.

They called her cursed.

They said the fire that consumed the granary had danced in her eyes.

They said the shadows that moved unnaturally in her home were her servants.

They said she was not one of them.

At the forest’s edge, they tied her to the ancient stone — the one etched with runes no one could read, the one the elders warned children not to touch. The executioner raised his blade, and the priest began to chant.

Rosalinda did not scream.

She looked up at the sky, at the swirling clouds that seemed to pulse with something old, something watching. Her lips moved, not by choice, but by instinct. A word slipped out — guttural, ancient, buried deep in her bones.

“ _Azrakar._”

The world stopped.

The wind died.

The priest choked mid-chant.

Then the earth split.

From the abyss beneath the stone, fire erupted — black and gold, licking the sky. The villagers screamed, scattering like leaves in a storm. The executioner dropped his blade. The ropes around Rosalinda burned away, not with heat, but with something colder than death.

He rose.

A figure of shadow and flame, eyes like molten gold, wings unfurling with a sound like cracking bones. The demon looked at her — not the villagers, not the forest, not the sky. Just her.

“You called,” he said, voice like thunder wrapped in silk.

“I didn’t mean to,” Rosalinda whispered.

“But you did.”

He stepped forward, and the ground trembled. The villagers fled, but the forest held them. Vines twisted around ankles. Roots pulled them down. The sacred trees had chosen sides.

Rosalinda stood, her body untouched, her soul trembling.

“What are you?” she asked.

“I am what sleeps beneath your skin,” the demon said. “I am the fire in your blood. I am the name you forgot.”

Memories surged — flames in her childhood bedroom, whispers in the dark, dreams of wings and war. She had always been different. Not cursed. Not broken.

Chosen.

The demon knelt before her, one hand outstretched.

“Command me.”

Rosalinda looked back at the village. Smoke rose from rooftops. The people who had hated her, feared her, tried to kill her — they were now begging for mercy.

She could give it.

Or she could take everything.

Her fingers twitched. Fire danced at her fingertips.

She took the demon’s hand.

And the forest burned.