Chapter Three
The Ember That Spoke
Kael staggered to his feet, boots crunching across fractured ice. The altar still radiated heat, cracks glowing faintly beneath a thin layer of frost, like veins of dying starlight.
The figure stood in the center of the ruin—humanoid in shape, but not human.
It had no face, only a smooth mask of shifting ash. Its body flickered like a flame fighting wind—there, then almost not. Bound by threads of silver and black, like someone had stitched it together from dying stars and shadow. And those eyes…
Those eyes were mirrors of Kael's mark—silver fire, flickering with memory.
"What are you?" Kael asked, voice raw.
The being tilted its head. "I am what remains of what came before. A flicker. A fragment. A whisper that survived the silence."
"That doesn't help," Kael muttered, hand still on his sword.
"You called me," the thing said. "By the name buried in your blood. That name binds us."
Kael's palm burned again. He looked down—the mark was no longer three lines of fire. It had become something more: a sigil, faint and shifting, like a forge still cooling. A symbol that didn't belong to any god he knew.
"What do you want from me?" he asked.
The figure stepped forward. Snow hissed where it landed near its feet.
"You are the Ashten," it said. "The last mortal bound to the Accord not by choice, but by inheritance. And that sword on your back?" Its voice grew quieter. "That's not just a weapon. It's a key."
Kael's grip on the hilt tightened.
"A key to what?"
The being turned, staring north, toward the Riftlands. "To a prison. To a god. To the final truth of the war your world forgot."
Kael was silent.
Not because he didn't believe it.
But because, deep down, part of him always had.
The dreams. The mark. The sword. The voice that sounded like his mother telling him to run. Everything was a trail—and he had followed it straight into the storm.
"Why now?" he asked. "Why me?"
The figure looked back at him. For the first time, its voice softened.
"Because you're the last one who still gets to choose."
Kael's throat tightened.
He had a hundred questions. A thousand fears.
But only one answer.
"I'm not running," he said quietly.
The being gave the faintest nod, then began to fade—embers on the wind, unraveling with the storm.
"I'll find you again, little heir," it whispered as it vanished. "When the gods remember what they buried."
Kael stood alone on the summit, the world below silent.
Then he turned and began to descend.
Toward a war he didn't start.
Toward a fate he hadn't chosen.
But his all the same.
Continue to chapter IV...