The light was blinding.
Kael shielded his eyes as the wound in the earth spat him out, body sprawled on the edge of a cliff overlooking what remained of the Ashen Vale. He gasped for breath, every inch of him aching, soaked in sweat, blood, and something deeper—something not his.
A scream clawed at his throat, but he swallowed it.
He was alive.
He wished he wasn't.
The Vale, once a place of thorns and twilight, was now a battlefield. Not one of swords and spears, but of silence and smoke. Charred remnants of trees stood like gravestones, and ash blanketed everything in soft death. The only movement came from the cinders that danced in the breeze like lost spirits.
Kael staggered to his feet, clutching his side where the reflection had struck. No blood poured from the wound. It wasn't physical. But gods, it burned.
A voice echoed from behind him.
"You came back wrong."
He turned fast, sword raised, instincts coiled.
The speaker was a man draped in the cloak of the Flamebound Order—his old Order. But the sigil on the chest was torn, burned, and scrawled over with something crude: an ouroboros etched in blood.
Kael recognized him.
"Deren," he muttered. "You should be dead."
Deren grinned. His face bore a dozen scars, but his eyes still burned with the same reckless light.
"I was. Until your fire woke me."
Kael lowered his blade an inch, confused. "What fire?"
Deren laughed—ragged, broken. "You don't understand, do you? You were the last to carry the Ember Oath. When the Oathbreaker returns, so do the ashes he left behind."
"I didn't return. I was pulled back."
"Doesn't matter. The land remembers. And so do we."
From the shadow of the trees, more emerged—warriors, twisted echoes of the Flamebound, their armor scorched, some half-dead, others half-mad. One wore a crown of emberglass that crackled with heat. Another dragged a blade carved from obsidian bone.
They knelt.
To Kael.
"No," he said, stepping back. "I'm not your savior. I'm not your king."
"But you are," Deren said. "You died with the city. Now you rise with its vengeance."
Kael's voice cracked. "I didn't ask for this."
"And yet, the ashes follow."
A storm was gathering—Kael could feel it in his bones. The sky above the Vale turned a deep crimson, clouds spiraling like smoke in a dying hearth. Thunder cracked, but no rain fell. Only ash.
He turned away.
But something stopped him.
A girl. Small, shivering, barefoot. Standing alone on the ridge.
She wasn't part of the Flamebound.
Her eyes were silver.
Kael approached her slowly, kneeling so she wouldn't flinch. "What's your name?"
She looked at him without fear. "Lira."
"Where are your parents?"
"They burned."
He swallowed hard. "Why are you here?"
"I was waiting for the Ashking."
The name hit him like a blow.
Kael gritted his teeth. "That name is a myth."
"No," Lira said. "It's you. The dream said so."
"What dream?"
Lira turned her head toward the dead forest. "The tree told me. The one that still bleeds."
Kael exchanged a glance with Deren, who only nodded.
"She's a Seer," Deren said. "They've started appearing again."
"Why now?"
"Because you returned. And because the Wound is waking."
Kael looked back at the girl. "Take me to the tree."
Lira nodded and led him forward, barefoot steps silent across the ash.
They journeyed through the Vale, the flamebound remnants following in solemn silence. Kael tried not to look at them too closely—their faces held too much memory, too much of the past he'd buried. He focused on Lira, on her small back, her silver eyes that shimmered like the stars that once watched over the Old Kingdoms.
They reached it by nightfall.
The tree stood alone at the heart of the valley, surrounded by a ring of scorched earth. It was massive, twisted, its bark split open with deep red sap that dripped like blood. The wind carried a scent of incense and rot.
Lira stepped forward and touched the trunk.
The ground trembled.
Kael tensed, hand on his sword, but the child didn't flinch.
Instead, she spoke.
"You left behind more than fire," she whispered, eyes rolling white. "You left behind him."
Kael blinked. "Who?"
"The one you betrayed. The one who waits beneath the roots. He never died. Not truly."
The tree's trunk split open, revealing a stairwell of stone and shadow descending into the earth.
Kael looked back at Deren. "Do you know about this?"
"We've never seen it," he said. "Only the girl."
Lira looked at Kael, tears streaking her ash-stained face. "You have to go. He's awake now. And he's angry."
Kael drew his blade. "Then I'll face him."
As he stepped into the tree, the bark sealed behind him with a sound like a heartbeat. He descended in silence, the air growing colder, the darkness thicker with every step.
At the bottom, he found a chamber.
Not made by hands, but shaped by grief.
Chains hung from the ceiling. A pool of liquid shadow bubbled in the center. And floating above it—
A man.
Or what had once been one.
His body was burned, skeletal in places, but his eyes glowed with a cold, brilliant hate.
Kael knew him.
"Varos."
Varos smiled.
"My brother," he rasped.
Kael's grip on his blade tightened. "You died."
"No. You killed me. For the crown. For the flame."
"I didn't want it."
"But you took it."
Varos descended slowly, feet brushing the ground. "Now the cycle begins again."
"I broke the Oath."
"No," Varos said, stepping closer. "You only delayed it."
Chains shot from the walls—Kael barely dodged, slicing one aside as it whipped toward his throat. Varos moved like shadow, flickering around the chamber, voice echoing from all directions.
"Do you know what it means to burn forever, brother? To remember every betrayal, every scream, and wear it like skin?"
Kael yelled and charged, steel meeting shadow, flame against sorrow. They clashed in a storm of sparks and screams, the chamber trembling with their fury.
Kael struck true once—twice—but Varos only laughed, bloodless and cold.
"I am not a man," he said. "I am what you left behind."
Kael dropped to one knee, exhaustion taking its toll. His blade was heavy. His heart heavier.
Then he heard her voice.
"You have to go. He's awake now. And he's angry."
But Lira hadn't sounded afraid.
She sounded ready.
Kael stood, flame igniting along the edge of his blade, and pointed it at his brother.
"Then let's burn together."