Storm clouds gathered unnaturally fast over the highlands of Vareth. Not from weather—but will. Dark, cold will.
Atop a jagged tower of stone and frost, the Lady in Silver stood unmoving, her moonlit hair twisting in windless air. Behind her, ten stone sarcophagi cracked open as whispers leaked from within. Not words—echoes.
From the first coffin, a knight of onyx armor and no face rose. A void where eyes should be. A chest hollowed and glowing with caged souls.
From the second, a twisted assassin of shadows, her body flickering between forms.
Then came the rest—The Hollowborn.
Ten in all. Crafted in secret. Fed on forgotten names. Bound to the Lady's will by a spell that unmade mercy.
She spoke one name.
"Kaelen."
The Hollowborn bowed, silent.
She lifted her hand, a gleaming obsidian shard floating between her fingers.
"Track him. Break his blade. End his line. Burn no village—just him."
They vanished into smoke, faster than arrows, faster than breath.
Elsewhere…
In the tunnels below Emberspire, Kael tightened the straps of his new armor—blackened steel reinforced with scale from Merrik's forgebound vaults. Ashreign pulsed at his back, humming with purpose.
Ysera adjusted her bowstring beside him. "Are you sure about this?"
"If I stay," Kael said, "she'll send more. I need to move. Reclaim what I lost. Find the Crown. Make them remember me."
Serana nodded grimly. "Then we go east. To Flamewatch Keep. The Flame Crown lies beneath its ruins—if the old legends are true."
Merrik stepped forward. "You'll need a guide. The wildlands between here and the Keep are cursed. Marked by shadowroot and worse."
Kael met his gaze. "You?"
"No," Merrik said, glancing at the forge behind him. "She stirs. The flame needs me here."
He handed Kael a scroll wrapped in firegut leather. "This will reveal the hidden door beneath Flamewatch."
Kael took it, then grasped Merrik's wrist. "You've given me more than weapons."
Merrik grinned. "Give me victory, then."
They rode before dawn—Kael, Ysera, and Serana—through canyons still marked by the ancient flame wars.
By dusk, they reached the jagged ridgeline of Howlspire Pass.
But just as the stars blinked into view…
…a shriek unlike any mortal sound split the sky.
Ysera drew her bow. "Something follows."
Kael unsheathed Ashreign.
From the blackened trees ahead, a figure emerged—faceless, armored, and humming with void.
Then another. And another.
The Hollowborn had arrived.
"They found us," Serana whispered.
Kael raised Ashreign.
"Good."
"Let them remember why they tried to erase me."
The wind froze.
The Hollowborn knight stepped forward—its armor engraved with twisted runes that seemed to writhe under moonlight. Where a face should be, there was only a yawning blackness, drawing in heat, breath, and hope.
Kael planted his feet. "Ysera. Serana. Circle them. I'll hold the center."
Ysera nocked an arrow tipped with emberglass. "Aim for what, exactly? They don't have hearts."
Serana's sword glinted as she stepped sideways. "Then we cut until they stop moving."
The Hollowborn moved as one. Silent. Swift.
Kael charged first.
Ashreign met shadowsteel in a blast of sparks and flame. The impact threw Kael back—but he landed on his feet, grimacing.
"These aren't ordinary wraiths," he muttered.
The second Hollowborn emerged from a cloud of flickering smoke—female in form, flickering like a candle's death. She spun, daggers whispering through the air, too fast for thought.
Ysera let fly—one arrow, then three. Two missed. One struck the Hollowborn in the shoulder. No blood. Just a hiss as the wound filled with darkness.
Serana lunged, her silver blade catching a third creature's blow mid-strike. "They're testing us!"
"No," Kael growled. "They're learning us."
A moment later, two more joined—hulking, twisted warriors dragging black-bladed scythes.
Kael surged forward, Ashreign singing a furious cry. Flames erupted along the sword's edge, trailing fire like the tail of a comet.
He struck—and for the first time, one Hollowborn screamed.
It staggered. Its runes cracked.
"Fire hurts them!" Kael shouted.
Ysera grinned. "Then let's burn these bastards down."
She struck flint to a flameroot arrow and loosed it into the nearest Hollowborn. It exploded, tearing half the creature away. The torso twitched, trying to reform.
"Keep them down!" Serana yelled, slicing another's leg clean off. It kept fighting, dragging itself with bone-like claws.
Kael's blade glowed brighter. The words along its edge flared gold:
"From ash, vengeance."
He slashed, ducked, rolled—moving like the prince he once was.
Then a dagger caught him in the ribs—one of the flickering assassins. He grunted, turned, and drove Ashreign through her chest.
She wailed as light filled her.
Then she burst into embers.
Three were down. Five remained. But they retreated, melting into the trees like shadows at dawn.
Ysera, panting, scanned the treeline. "Why'd they run?"
"They weren't sent to kill," Serana said grimly.
"They were sent to test us."
Kael narrowed his eyes. "Then tell their mistress…"
He lifted Ashreign high.
"…we passed."
Far away, in the Lady's citadel, the obsidian shard in her palm cracked.
Her eyes narrowed.
"So. He remembers how to fight."
She turned to the last sarcophagus—the one sealed with moon-iron.
"Then it's time to awaken him."
"Let Kaelen face what he once called brother."
The moon hung low, crimson-tinged and watchful, as the Lady in Silver traced a finger over the last sarcophagus. Unlike the others, this one pulsed softly—alive, aware.
Carved into the lid was a single word in the Old Tongue: "Vaelion."
"Awaken," she whispered.
Cracks spread across the moon-iron lid like frost on glass. A slow hiss escaped as the seal broke. Then the lid shifted and fell, revealing a warrior clad in blackened plate, lined in red. His helm was off, revealing a pale, regal face—eerily similar to Kael's.
But his eyes…
They were not eyes anymore.
Just burning embers set in sockets that once knew mercy.
The Lady stepped back as Vaelion Rhaegor, Kael's elder brother, rose from the tomb of silence.
"I dreamed of fire," he said in a voice like steel dragged through ash. "And chains."
"You were betrayed," she crooned, brushing a lock of silver hair from his face. "By the one who should have knelt before you."
Vaelion blinked slowly, memories shifting behind the flames in his gaze. "Kaelen…"
She smiled. "He lives. He defies your legacy. He dares to reclaim the Flame Crown."
Silence.
Then a slow nod.
"I will burn him myself."
She handed him a blade wreathed in shadowflame—Ebonwake, the sword forged from the remnants of the last dark star. It pulsed with hate.
"Find him," she said. "And remind him what he forgot."
Meanwhile, in the Ashwind Foothills…
Kael, Ysera, and Serana made camp beneath the charred remains of an old watchtower. The fire crackled, casting flickering light across their tired faces.
"Flamewatch Keep is a day east," Ysera said, sipping from a flask. "If the Hollowborn don't catch us first."
"They won't need to," Serana muttered. "Something worse is coming."
Kael stared into the flames, his hand resting on Ashreign. A strange weight pressed against his chest, not pain—memory.
He remembered a brother.
A crown.
A duel beneath burning skies.
"He died," Kael whispered.
"I saw him fall."
The fire cracked.
And in the silence that followed, they heard it.
Hoofbeats. Slow. Heavy. Alone.
Kael rose.
Beyond the ridgeline, a rider emerged. His armor shimmered like obsidian kissed by lightning. His face… was his own.
A twisted reflection.
Ysera drew her bow, pale. "Is that…"
Kael took a step forward, stunned. "Vaelion?"
The rider dismounted. Drew a black blade.
Then spoke:
"Hello, little brother."
"Let's finish what you started."
For a moment, no one moved.
Kael stood frozen, staring at the figure he thought long buried—his brother, Vaelion, once the heir, once the light of the Flame Court. Now… an echo clad in ruin and shadow.
The fire between them sputtered, as if unsure whether to flee or burn brighter.
"Vaelion," Kael said, voice barely more than breath.
His brother stepped forward, Ebonwake in hand. The sword wept shadows that clawed at the ground like smoke yearning to become storm.
"You left me," Vaelion growled. "In the dark. Beneath the burning sky. Do you remember?"
Kael tightened his grip on Ashreign. "You tried to burn the entire kingdom. I stopped you."
"You betrayed me," Vaelion snapped. "I was the Flameborn. The chosen. You let them chain me. You watched me die."
Kael's jaw clenched. "I buried you. With honor."
"With lies." Vaelion's voice was thunder. "Now I rise with truth. And this time, brother—I finish it."
The ground cracked.
Vaelion struck first.
Ebonwake swept sideways in a blur, carving a trench through stone and fire. Kael blocked, barely, Ashreign meeting the blow with a howl of ancient flame. Sparks scattered like shooting stars.
Ysera and Serana moved to flank—but Vaelion's free hand snapped outward, releasing a shockwave that hurled them back.
"Stay out of this!" he roared. "This is blood's debt."
Kael answered with a flurry of strikes, each swing of Ashreign igniting the air. But Vaelion matched him, blow for blow—stronger, colder.
"You've grown," Vaelion said, pushing Kael back with a brutal shoulder slam. "But you still hesitate."
He slashed low. Kael leapt, twisting midair, countering with a downward strike that seared Vaelion's pauldron. The armor hissed. Vaelion staggered—then smiled.
"Good."
The sky above turned red. Clouds churned in unnatural circles.
From the heavens, thunder cracked—not from storm, but from the will of two brothers who once shared a throne, now tearing the world to settle its rightful heir.
Ysera, dazed, shouted from the hillside. "Kael! Behind you!"
Too late.
Vaelion vanished in a blur of shadow and flame, reappearing behind Kael. He plunged Ebonwake forward.
Kael spun just in time—but not fast enough.
The black blade sliced across his side.
Pain like ice and rot exploded through him. Kael dropped to one knee, gasping.
Vaelion stood over him, triumphant. "No Crown. No Court. Just us."
He raised Ebonwake for the final blow.
Then—Ashreign blazed to life.
The sword roared with light, brighter than the sun, and Kael surged upward, driving his blade through Vaelion's shoulder.
Vaelion screamed, the wound burning with golden flame.
But before Kael could strike again, a storm of shadow enveloped his brother.
When the smoke cleared—Vaelion was gone.
Kael collapsed, clutching his wound. Serana ran to him, pressing cloth to the bleeding gash. Ysera scanned the horizon, bow ready.
Kael whispered, "He's not lost… not completely."
Serana shook her head. "That wasn't a man, Kael. That was a curse in a prince's skin."
Kael stared at the flickering embers of their fire.
"No," he said.
"He's still my brother."
"And I'm going to save him—or end him."
Dawn broke in streaks of crimson and gold as Kael, bandaged and grim, limped beside Ysera and Serana toward the looming silhouette of Flamewatch Keep. Once the southern bastion of the Flame Court, it was now a scorched carcass, its towers crumbled, its banners long turned to ash.
Smoke curled faintly from the eastern wall.
"Someone's here," Ysera murmured, bow drawn.
"Or something," Serana added, tightening her grip on her crescent blades.
Kael nodded, eyes set on the ruined gate.
He felt it—deep in his bones. Ashreign pulsed softly at his side, not in warning, but in recognition.
This place remembered him.
Inside, the keep was a cathedral of silence. Charred beams jutted from the ground like ribs. Statues lay shattered, their eyes gouged out, their swords missing. And at the heart of the courtyard stood a great seal—an obsidian circle etched with runes, half-buried in soot and vine.
"This wasn't here before," Kael said, frowning.
Serana knelt, brushing away the dirt. The runes flared red for a moment, then dimmed.
"Ancient binding magic," she said. "But not complete. Someone tried to hide something under this."
Ysera circled it warily. "Or someone."
Kael knelt and placed Ashreign's tip at the center of the seal.
A sound like a deep exhale echoed from beneath the stone.
Then the ground split open.
The trio dropped down into darkness, landing in a forgotten crypt beneath the keep. Pillars of obsidian lined the chamber. Torches ignited of their own accord, revealing a long hallway lined with sarcophagi—each bearing the crest of the Flameborn Lineage.
Kael's heartbeat quickened.
"I know this place," he whispered. "It's the Tomb of Embers. My father brought me here once."
Serana's voice was tight. "Why would your family bury this place?"
Kael approached the last tomb—larger than the rest, engraved in both the Old Tongue and Flame Runes.
"Here sleeps Ardyn Rhaegor, Flameking. Guardian of the Crown Eternal."
Ysera stepped beside him, pointing to the altar just beyond.
A blackened throne stood there, and upon it—a gauntlet rested.
Not just any gauntlet.
One shaped like a dragon's talon, its fingers wrapped around a sliver of molten gold.
Ashreign vibrated in its sheath.
"The Flame Gauntlet," Kael said in awe. "The key to the Crown Eternal."
He reached forward—
But the torches went out.
And from the shadows, a voice slithered through the crypt:
"You are not yet worthy, son of fire."
Six eyes opened in the dark.
A form rose—twisted, ancient, a guardian of stone and flame: the Emberwrought Warden.
It charged.
"MOVE!" Serana yelled, pulling Kael back as the Warden's massive fist shattered the floor where he stood.
Kael drew Ashreign. "We fight!"
"No!" Ysera shouted. "We stall it—Kael, get the gauntlet!"
The chamber erupted in combat.
Flame and stone clashed. Arrows ricocheted. Serana danced around the Warden's blows, blades slicing molten cracks into its armor.
Kael sprinted toward the throne. Every step felt heavier, the weight of destiny dragging at his limbs.
He reached the gauntlet.
His fingers brushed the surface—
And a voice roared in his mind:
"Will you bear the burden of flame?"
"Will you burn the world to save it?"
Kael gritted his teeth. "I will do what I must."
The gauntlet latched onto his arm.
Pain surged through him like liquid fire.
The Warden turned, sensing the gauntlet's awakening.
Kael raised his hand.
And unleashed a torrent of fire so bright, it burned shadows away.
The Warden shattered.
Silence fell once more.
Kael collapsed to one knee, gauntlet smoking. Ysera and Serana rushed to his side.
"You've awakened it," Ysera whispered.
Kael stared at the golden flames still flickering across his fingertips.
"No," he said.
"I've only just begun."