Adodeme — Daughter of the Bloodfang
Evening fire paints the mountains of the west in molten red.
Smoke rises from the forges of the Bloodfang Dominion, where orc clans train beneath banners stitched with claw and flame. Every heartbeat here belongs to war—or to the beasts that give war its power.
At the center of the training arena stands Adodeme Bloodfang, youngest daughter of Warchief Voryn and Matriarch Delaya. Her twin axes sing through the air, silver lines against the glow of the torches. Around her, two great spirits circle:
Rukhar, the Ember Lion, mane flickering with molten sparks.
Velith, the Shadow Panther, moving like liquid night.
When she commands, the two spirits collide in perfect rhythm—fire and darkness twisting together, obedient and fierce.
A voice echoes from the platform above.
"Enough."
Her father, Voryn Bloodfang, looms like the mountain itself. "Your control is precise. Good. You will need it when you take your mate's mark."
Adodeme freezes. The gathered warriors lower their eyes. Everyone knows what the Warchief means: a marriage pact, a political chain to seal peace with a rival tribe.
"You ask me to bond with someone I have never met?" she says, forcing her voice steady.
"You will do what the clan requires," Voryn replies. "Bloodfang strength is not yours alone. It belongs to all of us."
Adodeme bites back her reply. The weight of lineage presses heavier than her armor.
That night, she sits before the Shrine of Embers, where her mother, Delaya, tends the sacred fire. The Matriarch's eyes shimmer like amber glass; she is the clan's oracle, keeper of ancient oaths.
"You resent him," Delaya murmurs.
"He would trade my life for a treaty," Adodeme answers.
"He would trade your freedom for the clan's survival," her mother corrects softly. "But the gods speak of another path for you, child of twin flame and shadow."
Delaya draws a sigil in ash upon Adodeme's palms—two intersecting rings.
"They say the child born beneath the mirrored moons will awaken a power that binds or breaks the world. You were born under that sign."
Adodeme laughs bitterly. "Let the gods keep their riddles. I make my own fate."
Yet when she lifts her hands, the sigil glows faintly gold, and she feels a tremor—like another heartbeat echoing through her own.
Outside, the wind shifts. She looks east, toward lands she has never seen. For a moment, her beasts lift their heads, ears twitching to some distant call.
In the far east, under a different sky, Teinshi Raen pauses mid-breath as his wolf spirit growls softly at the same unseen sound.
Neither knows the other's name, but both feel it—the pull of something older than law, older than hate.
A thread tightens between them, invisible yet unbreakable.
End of Chapter 1 – The Rule of Two