The tree bled from its bark.
Kael stood before it, unmoving, barely breathing. A gnarled titan of petrified roots and twisted limbs, the tree clawed toward the sky like a prisoner pleading with gods who had long since stopped listening. Its trunk split open at the center, a weeping wound of dark sap that trickled like ink into the ash-soaked soil below.
The air here was heavier, denser—as if time itself dared not move too quickly.
Lira stood beside him, barefoot and quiet, watching the tree with solemn reverence.
"It speaks sometimes," she said. "But only to those who died and came back."
Kael's jaw clenched.
Deren and the others stayed a respectful distance away, forming a loose semicircle in the clearing, eyes fixed on the tree like it might rise and speak judgment. Some knelt. Others whispered prayers Kael hadn't heard in years—forgotten tongues, half-hopes disguised as reverence.
The wound in Kael's side throbbed as he stepped closer to the tree. Heat surged up his spine, and he caught the bitter scent of fire—not the comforting hearthfire of a home, but the raw, choking stench of burning flesh and bone.
He touched the bark.
It felt alive.
And then it began.
Visions tore through him, ripping the world away in a scream of light.
He stood in a hall of flame and gold.
The throne was molten. The bodies beneath it were familiar.
Soldiers of the Flamebound. Friends. Brothers.
Their faces melted into skulls, their mouths opened in silent screams as ash devoured them. And Kael—Kael sat on the throne, hands soaked in fire, a crown of emberglass melting into his scalp.
"No," he whispered. "I never—"
But the vision ignored him. It forced him to watch as he raised a blade—his blade—and plunged it through a woman's heart.
Her eyes were silver.
Lira?
No.
Elira.
His wife.
Dead and buried in the city's ruin.
But her eyes stared up at him in this vision, calm and knowing.
"You broke the oath," she said.
Kael screamed.
The vision shattered.
He collapsed to the ground, gasping, clawing at his chest. The bleeding tree towered over him, still silent, still weeping. Lira reached out and touched his hand, and the storm inside him began to ebb.
"You saw her," she said softly.
Kael nodded, not trusting his voice.
"She sees you too."
"What is this place?" he croaked.
"A mirror," Deren answered, stepping closer. "The oldest kind. Long before the Flamebound, before the Orders, the Vale was sacred. The tree is a root from the world before ours—a scar left behind when the gods turned away."
"I don't believe in gods," Kael spat.
"Doesn't matter," Deren said. "They still believe in you."
The words burned.
Kael staggered to his feet, staring at the tree. "What do you all want from me?"
"You were the last to carry the Ember Oath," Deren said. "You burned the city. You bound the fire to your soul. We need you to finish what you started."
"I didn't start anything."
"But you will end it."
A silence stretched between them, heavy with history and blood.
Then Lira pointed to the horizon.
"There's something coming."
Kael turned, and his breath caught.
Far beyond the tree, over the black hills and twisted ruins, a light moved through the ash. Cold, pale, and relentless. Not fire. Not moonlight.
Frost.
An unnatural wind blew through the clearing, scattering the ash into spirals. The Flamebound remnants tensed, weapons drawn.
"What is that?" Kael asked.
"The Pall," Deren said grimly. "The opposite of everything we are. It's why the tree weeps. It remembers the cold."
Kael stared as the light approached, slow and steady, swallowing everything in its path. It was beautiful and terrible. A single figure walked at the center of the frost, shrouded in a veil of ice and silence.
He was tall. His skin pale, almost translucent. Eyes hollow and white.
Kael felt something inside him recoil.
"I know him," he whispered.
"Who is he?" Lira asked, voice trembling.
Kael's voice cracked. "He was one of us."
Deren nodded. "Arlen."
"But he died during the fall."
"Not died," Deren said. "Transformed."
The frost figure stepped into the clearing.
Silence followed him like a shadow.
Even the tree stopped weeping.
"Kael Azreth," Arlen said, his voice like snow cracking beneath a boot. "I found you at last."
Kael raised his blade.
"You're not him. You're something else."
"Correct," Arlen said. "He died screaming. I do not scream."
Kael didn't wait.
He lunged, sword flashing through ash and air. But the blade met no flesh. Arlen moved like mist—his body dissipating and reforming several steps away.
The temperature plummeted.
Frost spread from Arlen's feet, racing along the ground, creeping toward the tree.
"No!" Lira cried.
Kael turned toward her—then froze.
The bleeding tree was dying. The dark sap turned white. The bark cracked and split. It moaned—not a sound heard with ears, but one felt deep in the soul.
The tree was being silenced.
Arlen raised a hand. Ice formed in the air, coalescing into a spear of shimmering frost. He hurled it with divine precision.
Kael barely deflected it, his blade ringing with the impact. The force sent him crashing into the ash.
The Flamebound charged.
Deren led the assault, a roar tearing from his throat. Emberblades ignited, shields raised, spells chanted. But Arlen moved like a ghost, untouchable, his presence spreading cold and death.
One by one, they fell.
Not killed—frozen. Encased in ice, their final expressions etched into the crystal.
Kael forced himself up.
"You came for me," he said.
Arlen turned. "I came for the fire. The last ember."
"I don't have it anymore."
"Yes, you do. You just forgot how to burn."
Arlen lunged.
This time, Kael met him in full.
Their blades clashed—flame against frost, memory against oblivion. Sparks and ice scattered, a storm within the ash. Kael shouted, pouring every ounce of rage, guilt, and grief into each strike.
And then—something changed.
His sword ignited.
Not with conjured flame, but real fire.
Fire from within.
The Ember Oath stirred.
The scar on his chest glowed bright, pulsing with light.
Kael roared.
With one final blow, he drove Arlen back, sending the frost figure skidding through the ash. For the first time, Arlen looked shaken.
The fire within Kael surged, spiraling into the blade, forming runes long forgotten. Heat rippled from his body in waves.
But it cost him.
His legs buckled.
He dropped to one knee.
Arlen stood, body steaming from the clash.
"This isn't over," the frost-being said. "The wound grows. And when it opens fully… you'll wish you had let it bleed."
With that, Arlen vanished, dissolving into a snowstorm that scattered across the Vale.
Silence returned.
But the tree…
It still bled.
Barely.
Kael fell forward, catching himself on one hand, gasping.
Lira knelt beside him. "You remembered."
Kael didn't answer. He stared at the wound in the tree.
"What did he mean… the wound grows?"
Deren approached, face pale.
"He meant the thing beneath us."
Kael's eyes narrowed.
"There's something under the Vale?"
"Not just something," Deren said. "The First Flame. And the First Betrayer."
Kael's blood ran cold.
He knew the name, though it had been erased from history.
It was whispered by dying priests and mad seers.
The name of the one who lit the world… and tried to destroy it.
Ashurion.
And the worst part?
Kael remembered his voice.