Fire's out. Or, well, it's supposed to be—Kael could still feel it crawling under his skin, like embers shoved way too deep to smother. Real subtle, right? Every inhale brought it back for a second, that weird pulse: hey, remember me? Like the world was just waiting to catch fire again. He'd touched something old. Something you don't just walk away from. Guess that's his problem now.
He was hunched by the edge of some underground pool, stone digging into his legs, cold and wet as a grave. He leaned forward. Watched his reflection go all weird and shimmery, like the ripples were trying to erase him. The orange glow in his eyes? Faded, mostly, but sometimes when the water got real still—bam, there it was. Just a lick of flame, flickering where his pupils should be. The kind of thing that makes you wonder if you're even alone in your own skull.
His hands wouldn't stop shaking.
"What'd I do?" He barely got the words out.
The echo bounced right back at him. Mocking, maybe. Or just empty.
He never meant to hurt anybody. But the memory was there, sharp as broken glass—a shout, a blinding burst, heat like a dragon's guts roaring up inside him. That guard flung across the tunnel like a sack of laundry. Didn't get back up. The others—Kael could still see their faces. Not slave-fear, not prisoner-fear. No, this was the look you save for nightmares. For stuff that's not supposed to be real.
They'd seen a monster. Or a legend. Maybe both.
He folded in on himself, arms clamped around shaking knees. The scars on his back—mines'll do that to you—itched like the fire was scribbling new lines under his skin. His brain just kept spinning, tossing up little memory fragments, half-melted by panic and heat.
The burning disk. The explosion. That voice from inside the fire, whispering his name.
Flameborn.
What the hell did that even mean?
Didn't matter. One thing was obvious.
He wasn't going back.
Chains hurt, sure. But this thing inside him? Way worse. Trouble-magnet, if nothing else. And the wrong people already knew.
Footsteps, faint but getting closer. Metal against stone. Crap.
Kael snapped upright, heart banging like a drum. He pressed himself flat to the wall, scanning for shadows. Could feel the fire inside, twitchy, ready to go nuclear again.
Not again. Not another patrol. He didn't want to hurt anyone else.
A shadow slid into the room.
One person—hooded, cloaked, quiet as ghosts. Lantern at her hip, light bouncing off buckles and beaten-up leather.
Kael's hands curled into fists. Heat tingled at his fingertips.
The figure held up a hand, cool as you please.
"Easy," the voice snapped—female, sharp, like she wasn't in the mood for games. "If I wanted you dead, you'd already be a pile of ash."
Yeah, not comforting.
Kael didn't budge. "Who are you?"
She stepped closer, yanked her hood back.
Young. Twenty, maybe twenty-two tops. Messy braid, dark red hair, freckles, all cheekbones and attitude. But the eyes—storm-grey, restless, never still. Like she was thinking three things for every one she said.
Travel-worn cloak, patchwork leathers, not exactly guard-issue. Satchel slung over her back, marked with faded symbols Kael couldn't place.
She was out of place. Didn't belong here. And she knew it.
"I'm Lyra," she said, totally deadpan. "You're lucky I was down here when you went boom."
Kael blinked. "Come again?"
She pointed up. Dust trickled from the ceiling, where a fat crack ran through the stone.
"You kicked off a cave pulse," she said. "Took out half the shardlight grid. Overseers are losing their minds. They think someone woke up a Flameborn relic."
Kael swallowed. Hard.
Lyra's eyes narrowed. "That someone wouldn't be you, right?"
He just stared.
"I didn't mean to," he mumbled. "It just… happened."
Lyra crouched, tracing glowing lines in the wall—old glyphs, the kind Kael remembered from right before things went sideways.
"Magic doesn't just 'happen,'" she said, not even looking at him. "Not real magic. Especially not Flamecall. That stuff's been dead forever. Outlawed. Buried deep."
Kael leaned in. "You know what these are?"
"Bits and pieces," Lyra shrugged. "I've been poking around the old sigils for years—Emberkin ruins, collapsed forges, all kinds of forbidden junk. This one? Ancient."
"You some kind of scholar?"
Lyra snorted. "The Archive calls me a heretic. Kicked me out for saying Flameborn weren't bedtime stories."
She looked him right in the eye. "Looks like I win that argument."
Kael edged back. "I'm not a Flameborn."
Lyra nodded at his arms. "Then why're your veins lighting up?"
Kael glanced down—and yeah, his skin was flickering with these weird orange veins, like cracks in a log right before it catches. They glowed with his heartbeat. Seriously, like pulsing embers.
"I didn't ask for any of this," he muttered, voice rough.
"Nobody does," she shot back, barely above a whisper.
Lyra got to her feet, brushing grime off her knees. Girl moved like she'd done this a hundred times.
"Look, we gotta move. If anyone saw that trick of yours, the Obsidian Crown's gonna send their real dogs. Not those idiots with chains. Hunters. The kind that collect relic-bearer heads."
Kael hesitated, swallowing hard. "Why are you even helping me?"
For a second, Lyra's tough-girl act slipped. Blink and you'd miss it—her hands balled up, then let go again.
"Because I knew someone like you once," she said, voice barely there. "He lit a forge with nothing but his hands. Flames just… showed up. He laughed, said it felt like music."
Kael just stared.
She went on, softer. "The Crown got him three days later."
"What'd they do?"
She shrugged, mouth tight. "Wiped him out. Like he never existed."
And then—yeah, just silence. Heavy, awful.
Kael shivered.
"I've been looking ever since," Lyra finally said. "For proof. For someone real. Now you're here—a myth, walking around."
"I'm not a weapon," Kael shot back, but he sounded more tired than angry.
Lyra met his eyes, dead serious. "Then figure out how not to be one."
He just stood there, stuck somewhere between terror and… what, hope? For so long, he'd been nothing but a number. A shadow. Suddenly, this stranger was handing him something he hadn't seen in years.
A choice.
"I… I don't even know who I am," he whispered.
"You're Kael," Lyra said, like it was obvious. "Good enough to start."
He blinked. "How do you know my name?"
She shrugged, not even looking at him. "You said it when you passed out. Back when you went all fireworks in the tunnel. Sounded important, so I remembered."
That name—it had shown up in the fire. Wasn't his before. But it felt right. Like finding a scrap of yourself you thought was lost.
Not a slave. Not a ghost.
Kael.
A real person.
He sucked in a breath. "Okay. Where now?"
Lyra grinned, just a hint. "East. Emberfall. Or what's left of it."
"Why?"
"That's where the first Flameborn died. And, if the luck gods aren't total jerks, where you start living."
—
Getting to the surface? Absolute nightmare. Lyra knew every twist, every tight crawl, every shaft with a rickety ladder. Kael kept his head down, burning with questions but too smart to ask. Survival first, right?
They ducked into side tunnels, some half-collapsed. Sometimes they just huddled in pitch black, holding their breath while footsteps clanged overhead. Lyra moved sharp, fast—like she'd been born in these shadows. Kael? He had fear. A lot of it.
But as they kept moving, something shifted. It wasn't just hiding anymore.
He was running. He was leaving.
When they finally popped out topside, the wind smacked him right in the face.
Kael reeled, almost fell over.
The sky—huge, gray, with streaks of bloody red at the edges. Cold stung his face, sharp as broken glass, tinged with pine and smoke and something icy. For the first time in forever, he sucked in air that didn't taste like rot.
He let it out, shaky.
"Didn't think I'd ever see the sky again," he said.
Lyra yanked her cloak tighter. "Don't get comfy. We're still in the crosshairs."
She pointed east, where a jagged ridge clawed at the sky. "We hit that ridge by nightfall. Caravan trail. I know a guy."
Kael nodded, falling in beside her.
They walked. Forever, it seemed. Boots scraping over old gravel and dead grass. The silence stretched out, heavy but not uncomfortable. Finally, Kael broke it.
"You said I'm not the first."
Lyra nodded. "You're not. Might be the last, though."
She dug in her satchel, pulled out this beat-up old journal. Tossed it to him.
Kael flipped through. Pages of scribbles, maps, drawings—cities on rivers of fire, people wreathed in flame, weapons that could scorch the sky.
"This stuff's real?" he asked, not really believing it.
"Some of it," Lyra replied. "Most of the records got torched after the Ember Wars. I've pieced together scraps—songs, ruins, charred scrolls. The Crown's good, but not perfect."
Kael turned a page. There it was—a spiral flame, ringed with strange runes.
His heart slammed.
"I've seen this," he whispered.
Lyra nodded. "Flameheart. Supposed to be the source. No one's ever found it."
Kael stared. It was everywhere—the disk, the walls, his own skin. Like it was stitched into him.
He didn't know where this road would spit him out. Fire, ashes, maybe something else.
But one thing was clear.
He wasn't running anymore.
He was Kael.
Flameborn.
And the world? The world was about to get lit up, one way or another.