The mountains loomed like jagged gods in the distance.
Seren pulled her cloak tighter around her, the wind biting through the fabric like knives. Snow had begun to fall in restless flurries, blanketing the ruined road and erasing their footprints almost as fast as they were made.
> "How much farther?" she asked.
Kael didn't look back. "Close. If the storm doesn't bury the pass first."
He hadn't spoken much since they fled Verath. Not about his brother. Not about what Rhael had become. But Seren could feel the weight he carried — the guilt, the anger, the fear he didn't want to admit.
Her own thoughts were no lighter.
The flame inside her had returned, but it no longer obeyed her. It flickered at odd times — when she was frightened, when she was angry, when Kael touched her arm too gently. It felt… alive.
And watching.
They reached the pass by nightfall.
The cliffs closed in around them like a jaw, towering walls of ice and stone. Far above, a citadel clung to the mountainside — dark, spiked towers silhouetted against the stormy sky.
Windgrave.
Kael raised a hand, and a flare of violet light sparked from his palm. A moment later, a distant horn replied — low and eerie.
> "They still watch," he muttered. "Good."
> "Who are they?" Seren asked.
> "The Silent Order. Blade priestesses. Assassins. Scholars. They don't speak unless they must."
> "You trust them?"
> "I trust Nyara."
The name made something twist in Seren's chest.
> "She's… important to you?"
Kael hesitated. Then: "She saved my life once. That's all."
The gates opened without sound.
Ten hooded figures emerged, faces hidden, blades drawn — not in threat, but ritual. They moved like shadows made flesh, silent as falling snow.
The tallest stepped forward, lowered her hood.
She was beautiful in a sharp, unsettling way — like a sword hilt carved from obsidian. Her skin was bronze, her eyes silver-blue, her scalp tattooed with runes that glowed faintly under the snowlight.
Nyara.
> "Kael," she said, voice like cold silk. "You live."
> "Barely," he replied. "I bring a guest."
Nyara's eyes shifted to Seren.
> "The flameborn."
It was not a question.
Seren lifted her chin. "I have a name."
> "Names are illusions," Nyara said. "But if yours matters, speak it."
> "Seren."
Nyara smiled faintly. "Then come, Seren. Enter the mouth of stone."
Windgrave was older than memory.
Carved into the heart of the mountain, its halls were lit by blue fire and echoed with silence. No one spoke. Even footsteps were muffled on velvet-draped stone.
They passed rooms lined with swords wrapped in silk, statues of forgotten gods, pools of still water that reflected not faces, but souls.
Seren felt exposed.
> "Why don't they speak?" she whispered to Kael.
> "Words are power here," he replied. "Spoken truth can bind. Spoken lies can kill."
> "Then I'll stay quiet."
Kael smiled. "For once?"
She elbowed him lightly. It was the first smile they'd shared in days.
Nyara brought them to the inner sanctum — a wide chamber with crystal walls, at the center of which lay an obsidian table covered in maps and relics.
On the wall behind it: a massive mural, painted in dragon blood.
It showed a crowned woman standing in a storm of ash, holding a sword wreathed in fire.
Seren froze.
> "That's the Thorned Crown."
Nyara nodded. "The blade, not the crown. It's both."
> "Where is it?"
Nyara unrolled a scroll, revealing a faded map with three glowing symbols.
> "There are three keys," she said. "Hidden in the bones of the world. Each one bound to a curse. Only by claiming all three can the weapon be reforged."
> "And then?" Seren asked.
Nyara met her eyes. "Then you choose."
> "Choose what?"
> "Who lives."
Later, alone in their chamber, Seren sat on the edge of the stone bed, staring into the fire.
> "She hates me," she said.
Kael sat across from her, tending a shallow cut on his arm. "She doesn't hate you."
> "She didn't want me here."
> "She doesn't want anyone here. That's how she survives."
Seren looked at him.
> "Did you ever love her?"
Kael didn't answer for a long time.
Then: "No. But I let her think I might. That was crueler."
Silence fell between them.
Seren looked back at the fire. "Do you think I'll be the one to end the world?"
> "No."
> "You saw the vision."
> "And I saw you."
He stood, walked to her.
Gently, he reached for her wrist, tracing the mark beneath her sleeve — the flame-shaped scar.
> "You're not her," he said. "You get to choose your ending."
Their eyes met.
So close.
Too close.
But neither moved away.
The next morning, the storm cleared — but with it came a scream from the southern ridge.
A scout. Dead.
Frozen in place. Eyes wide. Mouth still open.
Around him: claw prints too large to be human. And a symbol burned into the snow — a crown made of thorns.
> "They've found us," Kael said grimly.
Nyara drew her blade.
> "Then let them come. The mountain drinks blood as well as silence.