The blue-lit tunnel narrowed, pressing close around Kael, Serenya, and Selira as they pressed forward. Unlike the warm, pulsing heat of the Bastion's ember veins, this place was cold—not in temperature, but in spirit.
The walls were slick with black stone that shimmered with violet firelight. Whispers drifted on the air. Not from behind them… not from ahead.
From within.
Kael stopped suddenly, brow furrowed. "Did you hear that?"
"No," Selira answered. "But I felt it."
Serenya's flame flared instinctively in her palm. "There's something here. Something ancient."
As they advanced, glowing runes began to appear on the walls—faint, angular, shifting. One caught Kael's eye. He stepped closer, reaching out to trace it.
"Don't," Selira warned, but too late.
His fingers brushed the rune, and in an instant—
He was alone.
—
Kael stood in a vast, black void. The Flameheart was gone. So were the others.
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, old as time and soft as silk.
"You are not the first to bear the crown of fire. But you may be the last."
A figure emerged from the shadows—a man dressed in tattered royal garb, with flame crackling in hollow sockets where eyes should be.
"Do you know what it means to burn for a throne, Kael?"
Kael lifted his chin. "I don't want the throne."
"But you carry the sword. You bear the mark. You are already a weapon. You cannot run from destiny… only delay its flame."
—
Meanwhile, Serenya gasped as Kael's body froze mid-step, eyes vacant.
"He's trapped," she said. "A vision spell. The runes are trying to test him."
Selira frowned. "Or corrupt him."
Serenya stepped forward and laid a hand on Kael's shoulder. Her fire pulsed out—warm, golden, and steady.
"Come back, Kael," she whispered. "Don't let it pull you under."
—
In the void, Kael turned away from the flaming shade. "I've lost people. I've seen what power does when it rots. I won't let that happen to me."
"But it already has," the voice replied. "You would kill for peace. You would burn a nation to protect your blood."
Kael's hand clenched.
"What will you become when she falls? When he returns?"
"…He?"
The shadow didn't answer. Instead, it collapsed into ash—and Kael gasped, blinking as the vision shattered.
—
He staggered forward, caught by Serenya's hand. "I saw… a king. But not from our line. Something darker."
Selira crouched beside one of the runes, her eyes cold. "We're not alone in these tunnels. That was the Hollow Flame. An echo of the last king who tried to steal the Flameheart for himself. The one Queen Virelya descended from."
Kael looked back toward the rune. "He said someone is returning."
Selira rose, blades already out. "Then we need to move. Now."
They hurried forward, the tunnel beginning to widen into what looked like a grand underground hall—pillars twisted in dark flame, an altar ahead glowing with strange violet fire.
But far behind them, one of the runes still pulsed faintly… and across the realms, Queen Virelya stirred.
Her breath caught.
"He's awakening," she whispered, touching her heart.
In the shadows of her court, an unseen figure stepped from the veil of smoke—his eyes black as coal, smile sharp as a knife.
"It's almost time, my queen."