Episode 1
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The winds of Ardentia howled like restless spirits. The city sat upon the cliffs of the Flamecoast, a gleaming jewel of white stone and blue crystal towers, but the beauty was a lie. Beneath the glittering spires and floating market districts, the Lower Quarters crawled with hunger, rot, and forgotten souls.
Kael lived among them.
His home was a box of rotting wood and stone fragments behind a tanner's shop. At sixteen, he had learned to survive by watching, stealing, lying when he had to — but mostly, by staying invisible. The world didn't care for orphans in the Lower Quarters. He had no name, no bloodline, and no future.
But he had dreams.
Every night, Kael burned.
Flames licked at his skin in visions, dragons soared across blood-red skies, and a sword of light throbbed in his grip as he stood atop a hill made of bones. A voice always called to him — a whisper just below hearing, a name on the edge of memory.
"Kael… Kael…"
The fire never hurt. It welcomed him. And yet every morning he woke drenched in sweat, the echo of power still lingering on his fingertips.
He never spoke of it. Not after what happened to his mother.
She had been "touched," they said. She'd healed a dying dog with her hands, and within a day, the Circle's Enforcers came in their white hoods and burning brands. Kael had hidden in a cellar and never seen her again.
From then on, he kept quiet.
Until the day the fire woke outside of his dreams.
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Kael was hauling water barrels through a foggy alley near the tannery when it happened. The sun had barely risen, but already the district buzzed with the noise of work — blacksmiths hammering, bakers shouting prices, and the acrid stench of boiling leather filling the air.
He was halfway down the alley when a strange silence fell.
A man in a silver cloak blocked the way.
No — not a man. A woman, maybe, but not like any he had ever seen. Her skin was pale like moonlight, her eyes like molten silver. She wore no crest, no badge, only a simple pendant etched with a flame.
Kael froze.
"Move," he said gruffly, trying to push past her.
"You dream of fire," she said without blinking.
He went still. "What?"
"You see the blade of starlight. You feel the wings of flame. You hear the voice. The dreams are memories, Kael."
He stumbled back a step. "Who are you? What do you want?"
She didn't answer directly. "They will come for you. You must choose now — live in fear… or burn your path."
A deep hum echoed through the stones beneath his feet.
"What's that sound?" Kael asked, his voice trembling.
"The awakening," she whispered.
Suddenly, the world shook.
From the direction of the main square, a boom cracked like thunder. Screams rose. Bells began to toll — not the usual clangs of city hour-changes, but the rapid, panicked wail of the siege alarm.
Kael turned toward the noise — and the woman vanished.
Just like that. Gone.
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He raced to the main square. Flames flickered across the rooftops. People screamed and scattered. Guards rushed past in loose ranks, blades drawn. And at the heart of it all — a thing stood.
Tall, dark, and wrong.
Its body was shaped like a man's but stretched — with six jointed arms and a face that boiled like smoke. Where its eyes should have been, black fire pulsed. Its voice came not through mouth but mind.
"KAEL…"
Kael stopped cold. "No. No, no — how do you know my name?!"
"You are marked. You belong to the Flame."
The creature lunged, moving faster than anything that size should move. Kael barely dodged, rolling onto the stone pavement. A claw ripped through a barrel where he had stood, scattering boiling water across the square.
Kael screamed and ran.
He didn't get far.
The creature leaped onto a rooftop and pounced again, but as it reached him, instinct took over.
His hand flared — not with light, but with heat.
A wall of flame burst from his palm, catching the shadow-thing mid-air and slamming it back. The creature screeched — a metallic, tortured sound — and fell smoking to the ground.
Kael stared at his hand. Flames licked across his knuckles, dancing in golden curls.
People around him gasped. One guard dropped his sword.
A voice shouted, "Sorcery! Call the Inquisitors!"
"No—no, wait, I didn't mean to—" Kael turned, but the guards had already drawn their blades — not at the creature, but at him.
"You'll come with us," barked a grizzled man in white armor. "Alive or in chains."
Kael backed away. "I didn't do anything!"
The creature behind him stirred.
Kael spun — the fire in his hand pulsed again — and a second burst of flame shot from his palm. It hit the shadow-thing squarely in the chest.
This time, the creature didn't fall. It shattered — into thousands of embers, each flickering with the voice.
"We will return…"
And they vanished.
A moment of silence followed. Then chaos.
The guards advanced. People ran.
Kael turned to flee, but again — the silver-eyed woman appeared.
"You're not ready for this," she said. "But ready or not, your story has begun."
She raised her hand, and the air bent.
The ground twisted. Light poured from the cracks between cobblestones. Kael's world turned upside-down — and then, darkness.
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He woke in a tower.
A real tower. Stone walls covered in etched runes. Shelves of books that floated slightly off the floor. Glowing orbs hovered in the air like lanterns. Through the arched window, he saw a sky full of stars — but they moved, spinning slowly like a wheel.
He sat up on the cot. "What… is this place?"
"You are in the Ember Sanctum," came the woman's voice. "A safe place. For now."
Kael stood, staring. "You kidnapped me."
"You would be dead if I hadn't."
He turned sharply. "Why me? Why the dreams? What is happening to me?"
"You were born with the Ember Mark," she said. "The spark of a long-dead god. That fire in your veins is not magic — it is legacy. The old world is waking, and so are its champions."
Kael shook his head. "I'm no champion. I'm a tanner's brat."
She stepped closer. "You were a god once. In another age. The world died, and so did you. But the flame never truly goes out."
His breath caught.
"You're insane."
She raised her hand. A flicker of flame bloomed in her palm — not red, but silver and quiet. It shaped itself into a sword, then a bird, then the mark he had seen in his dreams — a ring of fire.
"No sorcerer alive can summon this," she whispered. "Only the Flameborn."
Kael stared at her.
And deep in his chest, the fire stirred again.
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