The wind outside the Tower of Echoing Fate howled like a beast in mourning.
Kael stumbled from the glass doors, his armor scorched, breath ragged. Behind him, the tower groaned—its once-imposing spire now cracked, shedding shards of crystal like falling stars.
Ysera caught his arm. "You did it. The vision... it's gone."
"No," Kael said, eyes distant. "It's only begun."
The words on the tower floor still burned in his mind: The second seal awakens.
Mira approached with unease. "What does it mean?"
Kael didn't answer immediately. He looked to the sky—now pulsing with veins of red fire, as though something vast and ancient stirred beyond the clouds.
Thorne cursed under his breath. "Looks like we rattled the wrong cage."
Ysera's voice grew cold. "It's the Flame. It felt the confrontation… and now it knows he's resisting."
A low rumble shook the valley.
From the horizon, a pillar of fire burst from the earth—tall, furious, unnatural. Around it, ash-darkened clouds gathered. Lightning forked in silence.
"The second seal..." Kael repeated. "There are seven. If each is bound to a piece of the old world's magic, then breaking them… it's releasing something buried."
Ysera nodded grimly. "The Old Flame. The one that burned the gods. The one sealed by the first Highborn Lords in the Age of Ending."
"And it's waking up," Mira whispered.
Kael's grip tightened on Ashreign. "Then we need to move faster."
"Where to now?" Thorne asked, already checking his crossbow.
Kael closed his eyes, letting the blade speak to him. A soft thrum answered, like a heartbeat in stone.
"North," he said. "Beyond the Ebonwild. There's a tomb in the ice, older than any map. That's where the third seal sleeps."
Ysera paled. "The Tomb of Soroth."
Thorne groaned. "Of course it's got a name like that."
Suddenly, the wind changed—carrying with it a scent Kael hadn't smelled since his childhood: burnt iron and cold roses.
He turned sharply.
A figure stood at the edge of the shattered cliff, wrapped in black feathers and bone-metal. A helm shaped like a beak obscured their face.
"The Flame sends its greetings," the figure rasped. "And its hunters."
From the shadows behind him, twelve warriors emerged—each clad in crimson mail, their swords whispering with smoke.
"Run," Kael said without looking back.
"No," Mira said, drawing her blades.
Ysera raised her staff. "We stand."
Thorne sighed. "Every damn time."
Kael raised Ashreign, its light flaring against the coming darkness.
"Then we fight."
And the Flame stirred again.
They moved like phantoms, the twelve hunters. No sound. No warning. Only the glint of firelight on steel.
Kael met the first strike head-on. Ashreign sang—a hiss of ancient magic as it cleaved through the attacker's blade and breastplate alike. But the hunter didn't scream. Didn't bleed. It crumbled to ash, leaving behind only smoldering air.
"They're not alive," Mira shouted, dancing between two of them. Her daggers sparked as they struck unnatural bone beneath enchanted armor. "They're bound!"
"Worse," Ysera called. "They're forged from the dead—fused with the Flame's will. Soulless. Unrelenting."
Thorne fired bolt after bolt, but only the enchanted ones struck true. "What kills something already burned to ash?!"
Kael spun, cutting through a second. "Ashreign. It disrupts the link."
"Then stay close!" Thorne yelled, retreating toward Kael. "I'm fresh out of soulfire bolts!"
A hunter lunged at Ysera—its blade dripping red vapor—but she cast a ward just in time. The impact cracked her barrier, forcing her back.
Kael's heart pounded. The helm-wearing figure hadn't moved. Watching. Studying.
"You're testing me," Kael muttered.
The figure nodded slowly. "The Ash Flame judges all. And you, Kael of Veyra, are not yet worthy of its ruin."
"Then I'll earn it," Kael snarled—and charged.
The last three hunters converged on him, but he cut through them with brutal, perfect strokes. Each death sent sparks flaring from Ashreign's runes.
When he reached the masked figure, he struck without hesitation.
The blade passed through shadow.
Illusion.
Behind him, the figure's voice echoed. "The third seal awaits. But know this—each one you break brings the Flame closer."
Kael turned, too late.
A burst of ash consumed the figure, leaving only a scorched sigil in the ground—the Mark of Ruin.
Mira limped to his side. "We won… right?"
Kael stared at the symbol, eyes hard.
"No," he said. "We survived."
Ysera approached, holding a small shard of emberglass. "It's begun. The world won't ignore this awakening much longer."
Kael sheathed Ashreign. "Then let it see us coming."
Thorne grunted. "You always say stuff like that right before everything goes to hell."
Kael allowed himself the faintest smile. "Then we better walk straight through it."
They turned north.
Beyond the Ebonwilds, beyond forgotten roads, the Tomb of Soroth awaited. And with it—the third seal.
The trees changed first.
The further Kael and his companions traveled north, the more twisted the forest became—no birdsong, no wind, only the creaking of darkwood limbs bowing beneath the weight of ancient silence.
They had entered the Ebonwild.
"Feels like the forest is watching us," Thorne muttered, adjusting his crossbow.
"It is," Ysera replied, her voice low. "The Ebonwild is a relic—older than the Flame, older than the Highborn Ages. It has memory… and judgment."
Mira crouched, brushing her fingers over a pattern in the moss. A circle of thorns twisted into a spiral. "Warding sigils. Fae-made. And recent."
Kael frowned. "I thought the Ebonborn faded after the Cataclysm."
"They did," Ysera said, narrowing her eyes. "Which means someone else is keeping the forest's old magic alive."
A sudden rustle above drew all weapons upward—until a voice, smooth and cold as silver, echoed from the canopy.
"You walk on cursed roots with steel drawn. That's a declaration of war."
Kael stepped forward slowly. "We seek passage. North. To the Tomb of Soroth."
A pause.
Then, from the trees, a figure descended in a spiral of black leaves.
He was tall, antlered, his skin like pale bark veined with green fire. Eyes of glowing amber stared into Kael's without blinking.
"I am Velryn, last pact-keeper of the Ebonwild," he said. "And I've seen your kind before, flame-marked and blade-bearing. You bring ruin with you."
"We bring purpose," Kael said evenly. "The Flame has returned. We need to reach the tomb before the next seal breaks."
Velryn's expression darkened. "If the Flame wakes fully, the forest dies. The rivers turn to blood. The sky burns."
"Then help us stop it," Mira said.
Velryn studied her, then Ysera, and finally Kael.
"Only with a pact," he said at last. "A bond in blood and root. If you pass through the Ebonwild, you carry its burden. You will owe it debt."
Kael stepped forward. "Name the price."
Velryn extended his hand, fingers tipped in thorns. "If you fail to stop the Flame… your soul becomes part of the forest. Eternal. Bound."
Kael didn't flinch. "Agreed."
Thorne swore. Mira gave Kael a look of disbelief. But Ysera only nodded.
Velryn sliced Kael's palm. The blood fell, soaked into the soil, and the trees groaned in response.
The forest parted.
"The Tomb of Soroth lies past the Hollow Fen. But beware, warrior of Ash," Velryn said. "You are not the only one seeking the seal."
Kael narrowed his eyes. "Who else?"
Velryn's voice dropped to a whisper. "A ghost with a crown… and a blade of mirrors."
Kael's heart skipped.
"Draeven."
The pact was sealed.
And the forest watched.
The air turned wet and heavy, dragging with it the scent of rot and ancient decay.
Kael led the way, boots sinking slightly into the spongey moss as the trees behind them slowly closed, sealing the pact-bound path through the Ebonwild. The light dimmed to a permanent twilight, not quite night, not quite day.
"The Hollow Fen," Ysera murmured. "It was once a battlefield. Before the forest reclaimed it."
Mira tapped her staff against the ground, her voice uneasy. "It's not just the dead here. Something older sleeps beneath the waters."
Kael stopped at the edge of a dark, glassy pool stretching far across the marsh. Mist skimmed the surface like skeletal fingers. "Velryn said the Tomb lies beyond this. We go through."
"No boat, no bridge. That can't be a coincidence," Thorne said, eyeing the water warily. "I don't like this."
From beneath the surface, ripples began to spread.
Then came the voice—soft, feminine, and filled with longing. "Come… warmth… come…"
Mira's eyes glazed over. She took a step forward into the water.
Kael grabbed her arm. "Don't listen."
But already, shapes were rising from the fen.
Pale and half-formed, they had no legs, only drifting wisps trailing into the water like drowned roots. Their faces flickered with the memories of others—lost loves, old friends, family.
One looked like Kael's brother.
"Ralor…" he whispered, before shaking his head violently. "No."
Ysera threw a handful of salt into the air, chanting in an old tongue. The mist hissed. The spirits shrieked and recoiled, but didn't vanish.
"These are the Fenwraiths," she gasped. "Souls twisted by sorrow and hunger. They mimic those you've lost. Don't believe anything they say."
Thorne loosed a bolt that passed through one wraith harmlessly.
"They can't be killed," he muttered.
"No," Kael said. "But they can be outrun."
He sprinted along the edge of the fen, leaping over twisted roots and patches of blackened swamp water. The others followed close behind. Wraiths drifted in pursuit, but the salt trails Ysera left behind slowed them.
Then the ground gave out.
Kael fell hard, tumbling into a pit of tangled vines. Something wrapped around his ankle—cold, wet, pulling.
He drew Ashreign.
The blade flared with crimson light as it sliced through the marshroot. The ground screamed—screamed—as if the forest itself felt the cut. He climbed out fast, bleeding from his side.
Ahead, through the thinning mist, stood a moss-covered archway. Stone, old and cracked, with runes half-swallowed by creeping ivy.
"The Tomb," Mira breathed.
They had reached it.
But the doors were already open.
And the shadows inside… moved.
Kael stepped cautiously beneath the moss-draped archway, Ashreign humming low in his grip. The air inside the Tomb was colder—unnaturally so. The silence pressed inward like a living thing, thick and watchful.
Behind him, Mira lit her staff with a pale orb of magic. The glow cast jagged shadows along the stone corridor, revealing carvings etched with a thousand years of dust and sorrow.
Ysera traced the markings with reverence. "This isn't just a tomb," she whispered. "It's a prison."
Thorne's voice echoed slightly as he said, "For who?"
The answer came not in words, but in a thrum of ancient magic that vibrated through the walls. Kael gritted his teeth and pushed forward, every step a protest against some invisible resistance.
The hallway opened into a wide chamber.
There, seated on a throne of obsidian and fractured glass, was a figure clad in mirrored armor—every inch of him reflecting the torchlight in distorted shards. His helm was split down the middle, as though torn apart by an invisible blade.
Kael froze.
The figure stood slowly.
Ysera gasped. "The Mirrorblade King… Aridane the Twice-Killed."
Legend spoke of him—a king betrayed by his own reflection, cursed to slay and be slain by a duplicate forged in shadow. A tyrant born of his own ambition, locked away when his mirrored soul became too powerful to control.
The king's voice was jagged and hollow, as though coming from behind glass. "Another bearer of Ashreign. How… predictable."
Kael stepped forward, unwilling to bow. "You know this blade?"
"I bled upon it first. Before it was bound. Before it chose you." The Mirrorblade King raised a hand—and from the ground rose a sword of translucent steel, forged from broken reflections.
"Ashreign was once my twin. Now, let us see which of us it favors."
He moved like lightning fractured through water—each step accompanied by a shimmer of alternate selves flickering and collapsing around him. Kael barely blocked the first strike, the clash of blades ringing like cracked crystal.
The duel was unlike any Kael had fought. Every blow he landed was mirrored, every movement countered by a version of himself. Ashreign pulsed with confusion, its crimson edge wavering.
"Fight him!" Mira shouted, casting a protective ward around Kael. "He's reading your intent—break the rhythm!"
Kael closed his eyes for a breath.
He let go of precision.
He let go of control.
And he changed—wild strikes, raw instinct. Unreadable chaos.
Ashreign flared red.
The Mirrorblade King faltered.
With a roar, Kael drove Ashreign through the mirrored helm. It cracked, then shattered, the shards screaming as they dissolved into dust.
The obsidian throne cracked in two.
The chamber trembled.
And from beneath it all, something deeper stirred—something that had watched the battle… and waited.
Ysera whispered, "The prison is weakening."
Kael sheathed Ashreign and turned to his companions. "Then we need to find who built it."