Ael stood on the edge of the Skyglass Plateau, the wind pulling at his cloak as he stared at the valley of lights below—city after city glittering in false peace. Each glow was a lantern of indifference. Each wall, a monument to forgotten cries.
He had spoken to nobles.
To guildmasters.
To generals and mage-lords.
He had laid bare the pain Vel's movement carried—the truth that peace had come like a warm sun only to those standing in its light.
But for every lord who nodded, ten more dismissed him.
"Survivor's guilt," they said.
"A romantic," some sneered. "He misses the war."
One called him soft.
Another called him dangerous.
Only three pledged to help.
And they were not kings or mages.
They were listeners.
—
The first was Rema, a former war courier who now ran an orphan hall in the ruins of Southmere. She had no magic. No army. But she had over two hundred children under her roof—all survivors of wars no one remembered. And when Ael asked what she needed, she said:
"Just ears that don't flinch when the story hurts."
She joined him.
—
The second was Arien Delthane, once a general. Now scarred, shamed, and exiled for disobeying a direct order to torch a civilian town. He lived alone in a quiet coastal tower. When Ael told him about Vel's second silence, Arien laughed bitterly.
"It was always coming. The world just hoped people like me would keep swallowing it down."
He joined too.
—
The third was Nirra, a dreamweaver who had fought in the war by preserving minds on the brink of madness. She had spent years silencing others' trauma so the victors could sleep.
Now, she wanted to speak.
Together, these three formed what Ael called:
The Circle of Red Ash — not an army, not a faction, but a council built to hear the truth before it bled into another war.
Their goal was simple.
Find the forgotten.
Hear them.
And offer something other than fire.
—
But even as they gathered, something watched.
Ael began to notice it in dreams.
Whispers that did not belong to memory. Shadows behind reflections. A lingering taste in the air, like old copper and thunder.
One night, as he sat in meditation beneath the Rootspire Tree, he heard a voice that made the very ground still.
"You fix what breaks. You soothe what burns. But what do you do… with what never should've existed at all?"
He stood, hand on his blade, but saw no one.
Not even with his soul-sense.
It wasn't a person.
It was a presence.
—
Later, Nirra confirmed it.
"There's something moving in the spaces between Vel's fires and your bridges," she said, her voice shaking. "It doesn't want healing. It doesn't want pain."
"It wants silence. Absolute. Permanent."
—
Ael had only one answer.
"Then we speak louder."
—
But in his heart, he knew.
The coming war was not just about Vel or the past.
Something deeper had been stirred.
And if he didn't uncover it soon…
It would devour both light and flame alike.