The Accord had been forged in fire and blood, but peace was a fleeting dream.
Kael stood alone in the lower sanctum of the petrified temple, where ancient chains dangled from the ceiling—relics from a forgotten war. The stone beneath his boots bore carvings in a language so old even Ysera hesitated to translate it.
They whispered to him.
Not in words—but in feelings: betrayal, endurance, vengeance.
Kael touched one of the chains. It was cold. Too cold. Not the chill of weather, but the memory of captivity.
Behind him, Mira approached silently, her voice low. "These were used to bind soul-walkers. During the Age of Sundered Flame."
Kael didn't turn. "I can feel them."
"Feel what?"
"The screams."
He let the chain go, and it rattled—loud, metallic, unnaturally resonant. The sound echoed across the chamber as if striking something unseen.
Ysera descended the stairs, her eyes wide, her staff glowing faintly. "This sanctum was once a prison. Not just for people—but for truths. Old ones."
As if in answer, a glyph flared on the floor. Red and jagged, like a wound.
Kael stepped into its center.
A rush of sound slammed into his mind—ghostly voices shrieking and wailing. Visions flooded his thoughts: men shackled in lightless halls, kings brought low by their own bloodlines, and a girl with fire in her eyes… whispering his name across centuries.
Then he saw it.
A massive chain, the size of a mountain, wrapped around a bleeding star.
A voice thundered from beyond the veil:
"Unbind the forgotten... and the world shall burn again."
Kael gasped, stumbling back as the vision snapped.
Ysera caught him. "What did you see?"
Kael's voice was hoarse. "A prisoner. Something ancient. Still bound. And it wants… me."
Mira's eyes narrowed. "We need to leave this place. Now."
But the chains had already begun to stir.
One by one, they started to rattle—not from memory this time, but from awakening.
The sky outside the petrified temple had turned the color of bruised metal. Ominous clouds curled inward like a great beast preparing to strike, swallowing the sunlight in silence. Yet beneath the surface, deeper in the earth, a slumbering force pulsed faintly—like a heartbeat trapped within stone.
Kael had no time to ponder. The chains in the sanctum shrieked as they twisted, pulling inward toward the glyph-etched floor. Sparks of red lightning danced across the stone, and the glyphs pulsed like veins beneath skin.
"We have to go!" Mira shouted, her sword already drawn, reflecting flickers of otherworldly crimson.
"No," Kael growled, stepping forward. "It's calling for me."
Ysera's eyes glowed gold. "You don't understand what you're awakening."
Kael closed his eyes. "I think I do now."
The vision he'd seen wasn't just a warning. It was a tether—a glimpse of something that had seen him before he was born. His blood answered the glyphs; the magic here remembered him. Or rather, remembered what was bound inside him.
He extended his hand, letting his palm hover above the glyph at the center of the sanctum.
Mira stepped forward. "Kael, please—"
The glyph blazed to life.
A shockwave knocked them all back. Chains snapped from the walls and flew upward into the air, vanishing into darkness. Then came silence. And in that silence—a low, rhythmic pulse echoed through the stone, the dust, the marrow of their bones.
Thoom.
Thoom.
Thoom.
A fissure split the floor beneath the glyph.
Ysera's voice was faint. "It's awakening…"
From the chasm emerged a sphere—black as void, yet glowing faintly from within, as if stars were trapped inside it. It floated upward, slowly, then pulsed in rhythm with the sound.
Kael whispered, "The sleeping star…"
The sphere stopped before him. It did not speak, but a fragment of memory—not his own—pierced his thoughts. A war fought in the void. A pact broken. A king consumed by his own shadow. And a blade born of starlight—shattered and scattered to the edges of creation.
The sphere flared—then fractured. And from within came not light…
…but a voice.
"You bear the Mark. The time has come. The Starborn King must rise again."
Kael fell to his knees as burning sigils etched themselves into his skin. The glyphs on the floor went dark. The chains lay silent. The sphere was gone.
But Kael's eyes—now burned with starlight.
The sanctum no longer hummed with power—it breathed with it. Quietly. Deeply. As if the world itself had taken a long, expectant breath.
Kael stood slowly, dazed but unharmed, though his veins glimmered faintly beneath his skin like constellations in motion. Mira looked at him with wide, stunned eyes.
"Kael… your eyes—"
"They're not mine anymore," he said, voice low and distant.
The glyphs beneath him, once chaotic, now formed a perfect sigil: a radiant spiral with eight flaring arms. Ysera stepped forward cautiously, her golden gaze narrowed.
"That mark… it belongs to the Astral Line. The ancient bloodline of the Starborn."
Kael blinked. "I thought they were a myth."
"They were. Until now."
Mira sheathed her sword, stepping beside him. "What does that mean for you?"
Kael looked down at his hand. The sigil that had burned into his palm shimmered with soft white-blue light.
"It means… I'm part of something much older than I ever imagined."
Ysera circled the newly formed symbol. "This is no coincidence. The weapon you seek, Ashreign—it was forged in the Astral Wars, meant only for a king of the stars."
Mira frowned. "You mean he is supposed to wield it?"
"No." Ysera stopped and looked at Kael. "He must."
Suddenly, a gust of wind roared through the sanctum, carrying with it a whisper of sound. A language not spoken, but remembered—etched into the bones of the world. Kael understood none of the words, yet knew their meaning.
"They've found us," he murmured. "The Echo Blades."
Mira's hand flew to her hilt again. "Already?"
"They felt the awakening," Ysera said grimly. "They will come with death in their mouths."
Kael's mark flared once, and the air trembled.
"Let them come," he said, his voice no longer just his own. "I've slept long enough."
From beyond the sanctum walls, shadows slithered like ink, and dozens of flickering, crimson eyes began to blink into existence.
The Echo Blades had arrived.
The doors of the sanctum exploded inward—shards of ancient wood and rune-stone scattered like embers in a tempest.
Kael didn't flinch. His hand was already raised.
From the mark on his palm, a pulse of starlight rippled forth, washing over Mira and Ysera like a shield. The debris stopped mid-air and dropped harmlessly to the floor.
But beyond the broken threshold, death approached.
Silhouettes emerged, sleek and silent, wrapped in tattered obsidian cloaks that flickered unnaturally. Their blades—long, curved, and humming with cursed steel—dripped a slow, black mist that corroded even stone.
"Echo Blades," Mira muttered, stepping beside Kael with her sword drawn. "I counted six."
"Seven," Ysera corrected, pointing toward a form on the ceiling, crawling like a spider with silver daggers in hand.
The lead figure stepped forward. His mask bore no eyes, only a single red rune carved into the forehead—Sael—the symbol of silence.
He bowed mockingly.
"Kael Virelen," he said, voice distorted, echoing with layers of voices both male and female, child and ancient. "You woke something old. We're here to put it back to sleep."
Kael narrowed his eyes. "Try."
With a flash, the room became chaos.
Mira moved like lightning, parrying twin strikes aimed at Kael's back. Sparks flew from her blade, each clang sounding like thunder. Ysera vanished, reappearing behind the spider-blade and driving her glaive upward in a spiral of blue fire.
Kael raised his hand.
From his palm, the starlit mark burned white-hot. A spear of light shot forward, piercing the heart of one Echo Blade mid-leap. The assassin screamed as his body unraveled into dust and flame.
"Too slow," Kael muttered, turning to the next.
The masked leader snapped his fingers.
The remaining assassins blurred—moving faster than thought. One sliced toward Kael's legs; another dove at Ysera. Mira's shield buckled under three simultaneous strikes.
Kael closed his eyes.
Breathe. Feel the mark. Let it guide you.
And then… he moved.
It was as if the stars themselves whispered how to fight. Every twist, every sidestep, every strike became poetry. The blade Mira tossed him mid-spin fused with his energy, glowing silver-blue.
He cut two Echo Blades down in a single sweep.
Ysera roared as her glaive split the spider-assassin in half.
The leader hissed. "You shouldn't be this strong yet!"
Kael advanced. "And you came too early."
Their blades met—and when they did, the entire sanctum trembled.
Stone cracked. Light clashed with shadow.
Kael pushed forward, each swing fueled by the Starborn's strength, each strike driving the leader backward. The rune on the assassin's mask flared, then shattered as Kael's final strike cleaved through both steel and soul.
Silence returned.
Six bodies smoldered in ash. Only Kael remained standing.
He exhaled.
"First blood," Mira said, catching her breath. "But not the last."
Ysera picked up the broken mask. "No. This was a warning."
Kael's mark pulsed again—this time, with urgency.
"Then we warn them back," he said, stepping into the light. "We find Ashreign."
The morning after the battle came cold and sharp. Wind rolled over the cliffs of Eronvale like a knife, carrying with it the scent of ash and distant flame.
Kael stood at the edge of the ruins, staring at the horizon. His star-mark glowed faintly beneath the bandages wrapped around his hand. Each pulse reminded him of what had awakened inside him — and what was still waiting ahead.
Behind him, Mira tightened the straps on her armor, while Ysera knelt beside the burned remains of the last Echo Blade.
"They were sent by something worse than just coin," Ysera muttered. "Assassins that vanish into dust? That takes blood magic… old blood."
Mira nodded grimly. "Which means they're not the only ones watching."
Kael turned. "We move now. The Vault of Sorin lies beyond the Blackstep Peaks. If Ashreign has any echo left in this world, its secret will be there."
Mira's brows furrowed. "The Vault is sealed. Lost since the Age of Crowns. You think the blade will just be waiting for us?"
"No," Kael said. "But I think it's calling me."
Ysera's eyes narrowed. "Even if we reach it, the Peaks are crawling with Wyrmkin and worse. That's death for most."
Kael's voice was calm. "I'm not most."
They set off at dawn.
The road was steep and narrow, etched through canyons once carved by fire-rivers and dragons long dead. The further they went, the more twisted the landscape became. Trees bled sap like veins. Shadows stretched where they shouldn't.
On the third night, the stars vanished entirely—swallowed by a strange fog.
That's when they found the Watcher.
It stood in the path, unmoving. Ten feet tall, cloaked in rusted armor too heavy for any living man, with a single crimson lantern hanging from its spear.
Its voice boomed as they approached.
"Only the Marked may pass. Bleed or turn."
Kael stepped forward.
"I am marked."
The Watcher didn't move. Its lantern began to swing, slow and hypnotic. From it, images danced in the mist—Kael as a child, falling. Kael bleeding in the ruins. Kael... with the blade Ashreign in his hand, flames erupting from his body, screaming in rage.
He clenched his fists.
"I don't fear my future."
"Then prove it," the Watcher said—and drove its spear into the earth.
The mountain split.
Creatures poured forth from the gap—stone-forged beasts, their eyes burning like molten coal. The test had begun.
Kael unsheathed his blade. Mira stood beside him, shield raised. Ysera summoned her fire again, a cyclone building around her.
The fight for the Vault had begun.