The city of Velkarth lay cradled in the throat of the scorched valleys—a place of black spires and white altars, where flame replaced law and purity was enforced by ash. Once a merchant city, now a theocratic fortress, its streets echoed with sermons and screams alike.
On the tallest tower, beneath the Watchfire Sigil, the High Inquisitor knelt in prayer.
The flames before him whispered.
They always did.
He wore no armor. No robes. Only cloth burned raw around the edges, revealing skin tattooed with scripture—inked in lines of molten gold that pulsed faintly with every heartbeat. His face was gaunt, sharp, pale as old paper left in the sun too long. But it was his eyes that silenced rooms.
They were pure white.
Not blind.
Purged.
Behind him, an acolyte approached slowly, careful not to step within the painted circle of salt and soot.
"My lord Inquisitor... the scouts report the Redborn has breached the Ashwood line. She—"
"Exists." His voice cut like a knife drawn across glass. "That is enough."
The acolyte swallowed. "The Ember Cage is ready. The Forge-Masters bled ten angels to complete it."
"Ten?" He tilted his head. "Wasteful."
He stood, slow and deliberate. His height was unassuming, but the heat around him pulsed like a living furnace. The acolyte took a step back as the air shimmered.
"She walks without name. Without past. A vessel of sin given flesh." He turned to face the flame. "And yet she awakens love in the darkest heart. The Puppeteer moves again."
He touched the flame with his fingers.
It did not burn him.
It sang to him.
"I saw her in the pyre-visions," he murmured. "Naked in a pool of god-blood. Spiraling into a wound that splits the world."
"The priests grow afraid," the acolyte whispered. "They say she broke the Power Gem. That she bent fire to her will."
The Inquisitor said nothing for a long moment.
Then: "Fear is not disloyalty. But it must be... burned away."
He turned from the flame and strode across the sanctum. The air trembled with his passing. Behind him, the fire dimmed.
"Prepare the Ember Cage," he ordered.
"Yes, my lord. Shall we deploy the Scorchborn?"
"No." He paused at the stairway. "We will send the children."
The acolyte blinked. "The... the Orphan Choir?"
"They sing of purity," the Inquisitor said. "Let them remind the Redborn what it costs to live unrepented."
"And if she resists?"
He smiled.
"Then I will greet her myself. Not as priest. Not as judge. But as flame."
Meanwhile...
Far to the east, the Redborn stood atop a ridgeline of cracked earth, watching lightning dance across the sky. Something in her bones ached—sharp and cold, like ice through marrow.
A storm was coming.
But not of rain or wind.
Of fire.