Chapter 4: Echoes Beneath the Stone
The storm that had once loomed beyond Darn Hollow finally broke, but it brought no rain. Only wind—cold, dry, and whispering through the trees like the voice of a forgotten god. The shrine near the edge of the Blackwilds stood silent in its aftermath, but something beneath it was stirring.
Kael stood in its shadow.
The vision he'd seen—his former self, the burning throne, the fractured sword—haunted him like a phantom. And Lira's intervention... that was something even more dangerous. He had questions, too many, but no answers. Only a heavy silence that pressed tighter with each passing day.
He reached out again to the altar stone, fingers grazing its strange sigil, the spiral broken by a jagged line. The symbol pulsed faintly again beneath his touch, but this time, there was more. A whisper of power slid under his skin—cool, ancient, familiar.
A voice unfurled from the stone itself. Older than time.
"You were not the first to fall."
Kael staggered back. The voice was not his own. Not from memory. It came from below.
He pressed his hand again to the stone. The earth groaned.
Then, from beneath the shrine, a pulse of light—deep crimson, like blood remembered by the earth—throbbed through the cracks. The old altar shifted, and Kael's instincts screamed: not divine... not entirely. Something older than the gods. Something that had been sealed.
He clenched his fists. What did they bury beneath my feet?
---
Back in the village, Lira watched from her attic window as the shrine lit briefly, then dimmed again. She was no ordinary girl. She'd known that for years—though even she didn't understand how much she had forgotten. But seeing Kael awaken had sparked something dormant inside her. A connection, like a thread tugging at the soul.
She had lied to him—partly.
She'd never seen those shadowy hunters before. But she had dreamt of them. In dreams where Kael stood at the center of the cosmos, broken and burning, and she… she stood beside him in armor made of starlight, wielding a blade that sang with grief and wrath.
She remembered his fall. She remembered the betrayal.
The gods had feared Arkan. Not because of his power alone—but because of what he discovered. A truth buried deep beneath creation, older than the pantheon, older than time:
The Root Flame.
A primordial force, neither divine nor mortal, that burned at the core of all existence. It gave birth to the gods—and it could unmake them.
Arkan had touched it once. And for that, they cast him down.
But now, Kael stood once more above the flame.
And it was calling to him.
---
That night, Kael returned to the shrine alone. The earth still pulsed. The sigil on the altar had deepened, almost alive now, as if breathing. His breath clouded even though the air was warm.
Then he heard the voice again—clearer this time.
"You bound me. But I do not forget. And I do not forgive."
From beneath the altar, the ground cracked.
A circle of glyphs ignited around the stone, and something began rising—a structure hidden for millennia. Slabs of obsidian, lined with gold veins, emerged from the earth like the ribs of some colossal beast. At its heart: a sealed door, etched in a language Kael had not heard since before his fall.
He stepped forward, translating by instinct. "Here lies the First Flame. Sealed by the Coward Kings. Guarded by the Slain."
And below that: "Only the Marked may awaken it."
Kael raised his hand. The divine sigils on his arm shimmered faintly in response. The door pulsed.
But before he could touch it, Lira appeared behind him.
"I knew you'd come back here," she said softly.
He turned, eyes dim and thoughtful. "There's something beneath us. Not just old power. Something betrayed."
Lira stepped forward. "I remember it… pieces. I don't know how, but I do. You were trying to reach it before. You wanted to use it to end the gods' reign."
"They feared it," Kael said.
"And so they feared you," Lira replied. She reached out, fingers brushing his wrist. "But you weren't alone then. You had someone."
Kael looked at her, his gaze flickering. "Her name was… lost to me."
"Maybe," Lira whispered, "she's closer than you think."
Their hands met over the altar. The sigil flared—once, twice—then the ground shook violently, and a sound emerged from below. Not a roar, not a scream.
A heartbeat.
Kael's voice turned low. "It's waking. And it remembers us."
Lira met his gaze. Her eyes burned faintly gold, echoing power long buried. "Then we wake too."
---
Far away, in a temple of white marble beyond the mortal realm, a divine council stirred. High above creation, gods turned their eyes toward the trembling earth below. And one god, veiled in chains of golden fire, whispered through gritted teeth:
"He found the flame."