Kael stood by himself in the sanctum of the lower levels of the Ministry, gazing into a mirror surrounded by obsidian runes that glowed with leftover Essentia. The same mirror that the sovereigns of times past had gazed into to look at their own reflections and wonder if their power was truly legitimate.
But what Kael saw wasn't his reflection.
It was the past.
Flickering fragments of memory danced across the mirror's surface, images of the old world before the Empire's divine order. A boy, born not to royalty but to rebellion. A blade forged from stardust. The burning sigil was carved into his soul. The scream of a man betrayed by heaven itself.
The face in the mirror blinked.
And smiled.
Not his smile.
"You're remembering," said the voice, low and thunderous, not spoken aloud but resonating in his bones.
Kael clenched the edge of the basin.
"Who are you? " he whispered.
"You know me," the voice answered. "You were me."
He staggered back. The runes around the mirror flared, responding to the rising chaos in his soul.
"No," Kael said. "I'm not your puppet. I'm not your echo."
The voice laughed, bitter and eternal.
"Then why is your being smoldering in ancient rhythm? Why does the world warp with every breath of yours? You are Sovereignty rekindled, Kael Thorne. You are rebellion personified. And you shall either rise to reign—or crumble and watch this empire asphyxiate on your quiet."
Kael bashed his hand on the glass.
The reflection broke apart.
The runes faded.
But the voice persisted, echoing within the marrow of his being.
Through the Imperial City, under cover of dusk and masked flame, Seris navigated the inner halls of the ministry's Shadow Wing. Her gaze followed the sentinels. Her breathing was calm. She had penetrated further into the capital's spiritual repository than anyone without a divine sigil should have.
But she wasn't anyone.
The symbol concealed under her cloak, the mark of the Ashborn Pyre, emitted the slightest glimmer of awakened soulflame. Enough to protect her essence. Enough to conceal her truth.
She stepped into a locked room, runes whirling across the face of the stone door.
Authorized access only: High Arcanum clearance level necessary.
Seris laid her hand on the stone.
Her soul flame flared.
The runes stopped. Identified. Unsealed.
Within the room, books covered walls like the fangs in a monster's jaws. She perused the texts—centuries of forgotten facts, hidden behind by the Divine Concord to propagate the fiction of harmony and hold sway.
Yet she was not here for novels.
She came for one roll.
One mention.
"Thorne, Kael."
She discovered it at an enclosure within Blacksteel, sealed behind with a blood-seal rune.
She cut the palm of her hand.
The seal sucked voraciously.
The container snapped open.
And there, bound in ash-thread parchment, was the Decree of Annihilation.
A letter penned more than two hundred years ago, commanding the death of Kael Thorne—not the prince standing before her now, but the man he once was. The first Sovereign Soul. The lad who had crawled from the earth to defy the gods themselves.
Seris's fingers shook as she read.
Not with terror.
With understanding.
He wasn't a reincarnated soul.
He was the soul the Empire couldn't kill.
The first and sole mortal to go against divine law and live.
"Kael…" she said softly. "You weren't selected. You self-selected."
She rolled up the scroll and vanished into the darkness again.
In his own private room, Kael stood at the window, gazing up at the stars over the Grand Veinspire, the spire that reached the heavens at the city's center. He heard music down below—soft flutes and strings—the capital rejoicing at his triumph in the Proving. Nobles spoke of omens and fate, of thrones moving and gods watching.
He could not sleep.
Not with the voice still resonating in his head.
Not with the memories tugging at the corner of his soul.
Ash. Fire. Blood.
A fight lost.
A war never won.
A vow not yet kept.
Footsteps came up behind him.
He spun around.
"Seris," he panted.
She walked through the edge of his warding glyphs without them activating.
"I arrived as quickly as I could," she replied, pushing back her hood.
Her gaze met his, and something unsaid passed between them. Not love. Not trust.
Recognition.
"You did it," Kael said.
"I did," she replied. "The scroll. The decree. Your death was commanded long ago in this life. They knew what you were becoming. What you would become once more."
Kael took a slow breath, grappling with the gravity of it.
"They attempted to extinguish me."
"And they didn't succeed," Seris said. "Because some fires do not die. They shape themselves into something greater."
He gazed aside.
"I don't want to be a symbol."
"You have no choice," she told him. "Symbols don't request permission. They are. And you are presently the sole one who can redefine what it means to hold truth in a world governed by deception."
Kael's tone lowered. "And how about the Ashborn? Are they prepared?"
Seris nodded once.
"They recall, and they will follow you."
He looked out at the stars again.
"They'll hunt me," he stated. "Once they know what I am—the Seer's Circle, the Divine Concord, my father."
"They already are," Seris answered. "You just haven't seen the blade yet."
That same evening, in the corridors of the Imperial Palace, Emperor Virel sat upon his throne, a golden raven sitting on his shoulder. He listened to the whispers of the Seer's Circle, who were convened through soul projection in an arcane mosaic of light and memory.
One of them, a woman shrouded in violet mist, spoke first.
"Your son… is waking."
Virel's eyes narrowed.
"He's not safe," growled another, a voice that was like wind across bone. "His sound does not fit along the ways we know. He is not merely talented; he is changed, touched by something ancient."
The raven croaked once.
The Emperor stood.
"Then we commence Phase III."
"And if he fights back?" asked the woman of the mist.
Virel's eyes blazed like a sun.
"Then we remind him what it is to bear a name not bestowed upon him by heaven… but taken from it."
Kael rested against the corner of his bed that evening, awake.
The voice had fallen silent.
But his own thoughts rang out.
He had been offered a second chance. But it wasn't a gift.
It was a test.
The Empire had founded its power upon the ashes of the previous world. Upon the bones of such rebels as himself. And he had come back not to claim a throne, but to burn the falsehoods to their foundation.
He touched the sigil at his back, a concealed rune beating in harmony with his soul.
Not a symbol of loyalty.
A badge of defiance.
Seris sat next to him, still.
They did not require words.
Only intention.
And that purpose was just starting.