The Heartfire's Judgment
Dawn clawed its way over Vel'Thara's jagged horizon, staining the courtyard in hues of rust and blood. The Heartfire burned low in its new brazier. A pitiful replacement for the towering pyre that once crowned the academy's spire. Its flame guttered weakly, choked by ashfall and the weight of unspoken oaths.
Kael stood at the edge of the embers, arms folded, his shadow stretching like a scar across the Remembrance Wall. Fifty names. Fifty faces he'd once called friends. Mira, who'd stolen his boots during Initiation. Jorin, who'd taught him to cheat at dice. Now they were etchings in stone, their laughter silenced by Spiral teeth.
Claire leaned against a shattered pillar, flipping a dagger with restless precision. Not her usual blade. This one was older, its hilt carved into a serpent coiled around a crescent moon. She'd pried it from the eastern vault's rubble days earlier, its edge still humming with inverted glyphs that made her teeth ache.
"You sure about this?" she muttered, her gaze slicing toward Kael. "That thing's a walking betrayal." She nodded to the gates, where the trial's subject would soon arrive.
Kael didn't look at her. "We need every weapon."
"Even ones that bite the hand?"
"Especially those."
The gates groaned open.
The Proving
Kaelen Velrin walked alone.
His armor, once polished to a conqueror's gleam, was dulled by soot and dried ichor. A fresh scar split his brow, mirroring the Spiral fissure that wept violet light above. The survivors tensed as he passed—recruits gripped staves tighter, veterans traced hidden blades. He was a ghost here, a man who'd once burned their outposts to cinders. Now he knelt before them, head high, fire flickering defiantly in his eyes.
Silver Lance Eirien stepped forward, her voice colder than the steel she wielded.
"Kaelen Velrin. Do you claim loyalty to Vel'Thara?"
"I do."
"Do you forsake all former ties, all past debts?"
"I do."
"Will you bleed for this ground and its flame?"
"I already have."
Silence pooled like spilled ink. Claire's fingers tightened around the serpent-and-moon dagger, its edge grazing her palm.
Kael stepped forward, his voice cutting the stillness. "Actions are words here."
Claire's blade twitched. "No forgiveness."
Lira's glaive hummed, her gaze unblinking. "No forgetting."
Kael finished, his tone final. "Only flame."
Kaelen rose, his eyes locked on the dagger in Claire's grip. "I'll prove it."
First Trial: The Spiral's Echo
The northern training field reeked of corrupted Ki. Spiral-warped dummies twitched and spasmed, their wooden limbs fused with jagged glyphs and shards of stolen memory.
Kaelen's squad—Verris, a sharp-eyed scout; Mara, a medic with trembling hands; and Grenn, a hulking brute with a suppression hammer—flinched as a dummy lurched forward, its "face" a grotesque mosaic of splinters and screaming mouths.
"Flank left! Suppress the glyph cluster!" Kaelen barked, his voice steady as stone. He moved with lethal precision, severing Spiral tendrils with controlled strikes. But when the largest dummy surged—a monstrosity of broken swords and bloodied banners—he froze.
Its core pulsed with a sigil that halted his breath: a serpent coiled around a crescent moon.
Claire stiffened on the observation ridge. "That symbol—!"
Kaelen's hand drifted to his belt, where the inverse-glyph dagger hung. With a snarl, he drove it into the dummy's chest.
The construct screamed, its Spiral core unraveling in a burst of black ash. The dummy collapsed, its remnants scattering like dead leaves.
Tiv adjusted his cracked spectacles, scanner whirring. "The resonance… it inverted the corruption! How?"
Kaelen stared at the dagger, his brow furrowed. "Where did you get this?"
Claire's glare sharpened. "You tell us."
Second Trial: The Ghost in the Codex
The rogue Spiral researcher spat blood as Kaelen entered the sealed chamber. The man's eyes were hollow, his skin mottled with glyph burns.
"Traitor," the man hissed, chains clinking. "You smell like them. Ash and failure."
Kaelen sat, placing the dagger on the table. The researcher's gaze snapped to it, his sneer faltering.
"Where did you see this symbol?" Kaelen demanded.
The man laughed, high and broken. "In the dark, where the Spiral weeps. She comes for you, Burner. The one with your face."
"Who?"
"The sister-shadow. The unremembered." The man leaned forward, breath reeking of rot. "She carves her mark where the Spiral bleeds. Burns what it loves."
Kaelen's fist slammed the table. "Talk straight, or I'll—"
"Or you'll what?" The researcher grinned, blackened teeth glinting. "Kill me? I've died a thousand times in its jaws. You'll meet her. In the cracks."
A tremor shook the chamber. The dagger's glyphs flared, casting serpentine shadows on the walls. For a heartbeat, the shadows formed a face. A woman with Raka's eyes, her lips parted in warning.
Kaelen recoiled. "What the hells—?"
The researcher wheezed. "Ask your ghost."
Raka's Approach
Far from Vel'Thara, Raka paused at a crumbling archway. The symbol etched into the keystone stopped him cold—serpent and moon, half-buried under ash and time.
A memory flickered:
—A girl's voice, laughing. "You'll forget me, won't you?"
—Young Raka, pressing a dagger into her hands. "Never."
—The girl, Sereth, tears cutting through the grime on her face. "Liar."
The vision shattered. Raka traced the symbol, his chest aching as if the Spiral Seed inside him had clenched into a fist. "Who were you?"
The wind answered with a whisper: "Papa, come on!"
He walked faster, boots crunching over brittle bones and dead steel. The dagger's twin symbol glowed on fallen pillars and shattered shields, a trail only he could see.
The Verdict
At dusk, the tribunal reconvened. Kaelen stood before them, the dagger's hilt glowing faintly in his grip.
Eirien's voice rang out: "Kaelen Velrin. By flame and by oath, you are accepted. Under observation."
Claire snorted. "Don't waste it."
As the others dispersed—Sylva muttering about reckless idiots, Tiv and Jace fist-bumping—Kael lingered.
"Where did you find this?" He nodded to the dagger.
Kaelen's voice dropped. "It was hers. The girl in the Spiral's cracks. I… I can't remember her name."
"But you've seen her."
"In dreams. Burning. Always burning." Kaelen's jaw tightened. "She's coming. And she's not alone."
Above them, the wounded sky trembled. New stars glimmered in the fractures—not healing, but watching.
The Unseen Bridge
That night, Raka reached Vel'Thara's outer ruins. The dagger's twin symbol pulsed on a fallen pillar, its light guiding him toward the shattered gates.
A child's shadow darted ahead, giggling. "Papa! Hurry!"
He followed, his flame flickering in recognition. The Spiral Seed in his chest hummed, not with corruption, but with something older.
Something like hope.
Council's Secret
In the war room, Tiv and Jace hunched over the dagger, scanners whirring.
"These glyphs aren't just inverted," Tiv muttered. "They're a key. See the resonance patterns? They match the Spiral's fractures, but… backwards."
Jace traced the serpent's tail. "Like someone's unpicking a knot. Who the hells made this?"
Lira leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. "Someone who knew the Spiral's heart. Someone who hated it."
Claire flipped her own blade, scowling. "Or someone setting a trap."
Kael studied the dagger's edge. "We'll find out soon enough."
Outside, the wounded sky wept ash. Somewhere beyond the walls, a bridge was burning.