The obsidian door yawned open, revealing a stairwell wrapped in flame. But it was not destructive fire—it danced like living memory, casting scenes upon the walls.
Kael descended first. With every step, the fire whispered voices—echoes from forgotten lives.
Dovren hesitated. "This place… It burns with the past."
Kael nodded, eyes fixed ahead. "It's not just fire. It's truth."
As they walked deeper, flames coalesced into visions:
A battlefield strewn with the corpses of knights in silver armor. A young boy—Kael himself—watching a castle burn.
His mother's scream echoed. Her silhouette vanished into the smoke.
Kael staggered. "No... this isn't real."
"It was," the flame whispered.
Dovren gripped his shoulder. "They're not illusions, Kael. These are fragments of your soul, buried deep."
The path opened into a vast chamber. At its center, a throne of cinders. Upon it sat a woman cloaked in fire, her eyes molten gold.
"I am Serelith," she said. "Warden of Memory. And you, Ashreign's bearer, must face your greatest flame: the truth you've denied."
The walls blazed with a final vision—Kael, kneeling before a man with a crown of ash, a dagger in his hand.
Kael's breath caught. "That was… me. I killed him."
Serelith nodded. "You killed the Ash King. Your own blood."
Dovren stepped back, stunned.
"But why?" Kael asked, voice cracking. "Why would I—?"
"You forgot," Serelith said. "Because you made a pact to forget. To hide your guilt. But now Ashreign remembers."
The blade on Kael's back pulsed with light—demanding acknowledgment.
Kael fell to his knees.
"I want to know," he said. "Everything."
Flames surged, engulfing the chamber.
"Then remember," Serelith said, as Kael screamed and the truth set his soul ablaze.
The fire did not consume—it revealed.
Kael lay on the scorched stone floor, breath ragged, eyes wide. The vision still burned behind his gaze: the Ash King, the dagger, the crown falling from his head as Kael struck the final blow.
"I killed my own father," he whispered.
Serelith, still seated upon her ember throne, gave a solemn nod. "You did. And in doing so, you severed the world from its last balance."
Dovren stood in silence, watching his friend with new wariness. "You said he was a tyrant."
Kael's fists clenched. "That's what I was told… But he wasn't. Not in the end. He begged me to listen."
The air pulsed, and Ashreign—Kael's blade—began to tremble. Light poured from it, illuminating the chamber. Glyphs hidden in the stone erupted in flame, curling in an ancient script none could read… except the blade's bearer.
Kael stood slowly, voice low. "He told me Ashreign held the world's seals. That its power was a gate, not a weapon."
Serelith rose. "And by using it for vengeance, you broke its first law."
A rumble split the chamber. The floor cracked.
Dovren drew his own weapon. "What's happening?"
"The seal of Morthalon," Serelith replied. "The realm of the dead. You fractured it when you awoke Ashreign. The oath you broke was written in soulfire. It cannot be undone."
Kael's eyes burned. "Then tell me what I must do."
Serelith stepped forward, placing her hand on his chest. "You must reclaim the lost Seals. Restore what was shattered. And you must face him."
"Who?"
"The King beyond Death," she whispered. "Your father… risen in wrath."
Kael's heart stilled.
Ashreign pulsed.
Dovren swallowed hard. "Well then," he said. "Guess we're not done saving the world."
From the flames behind them, a door of light began to form. The first of many.
Kael gripped his blade, jaw set.
"Then we go forward. Into the lands where no living man should tread."
The door of light wailed as it opened, not with sound, but with memory.
Kael stepped through first. The instant his boot met the shimmering threshold, the scent of ash and rot filled his lungs. He stumbled, choking, the light vanishing behind him as the others followed. The realm of Morthalon did not welcome the living.
They stood on a jagged path suspended in endless twilight. Above, the sky churned with dead stars; below, rivers of black mist writhed with the shadows of the fallen. Bone trees clawed the horizon, their branches reaching for a sun that no longer existed.
"This… is wrong," Dovren muttered, drawing his sword. It vibrated softly, as if fearful.
"It's death without rest," Serelith said, her voice hard. "This realm was never meant to touch the living."
Kael took a slow step forward. With each movement, echoes followed—whispers that weren't words, but emotions. Regret. Rage. Sorrow.
"This place remembers the dead," he murmured.
As they advanced, forms began to rise from the mist. Not wraiths—reflections. A boy with Kael's eyes. A girl with Serelith's smile. A soldier who once fought beside Dovren. All of them stared with hollow gazes, mouths stitched shut with strands of fate.
"They're the souls left behind when oaths are broken," Serelith whispered. "Fragments cast adrift."
Kael's gaze fixed on one figure—the reflection of a man in armor made of crow feathers. The Ash King. His father.
But this version smiled cruelly, lifting a burning spear.
"You stole my death, boy."
Dovren stepped beside Kael. "It's not real."
"No," Kael growled, drawing Ashreign. "But it wants to be."
The vision screamed and charged.
Ashreign met the spear with a thunderclap that shattered the silence of Morthalon.
And somewhere in the deep, something woke up.
Serelith staggered, her hand to her head. "A Seal is near. One of the lost bindings… it's still intact!"
Kael slashed through the illusion and spun. "Then we find it. Before the King does."
As the echoes faded and the path continued into the unknown, the trio moved on—aware now that something far greater than vengeance stirred beneath the soil of death.
The path narrowed to a bridge of crumbling obsidian, arching over a pit that hissed with spectral winds. Every step Kael took made the sword at his back hum with warning, as though Ashreign could feel the nearness of something ancient—something meant to stay buried.
Serelith halted abruptly.
"There," she said, pointing to a spiral tower suspended upside-down in the void, its base anchored to nothing, its spire buried in the air. "That's where the Seal is kept."
Kael narrowed his eyes. The tower pulsed faintly, as though breathing. A feeling gripped his spine—a pressure, not physical, but woven from memory. Grief. Betrayal. Fire.
Dovren scowled. "It looks like a prison turned inside out."
"It is," Serelith confirmed grimly. "The First Seal was never a lock—it was a curse. Binding the soul of one who broke fate's chain."
As they neared the entrance, a swarm of shadow-serpents slithered from the mist, their eyes glowing like coals.
Kael raised Ashreign. "We're not walking in. We fight."
Dovren charged first, blade crackling with divine spark. He cut through the first wave, rolling beneath a snapping jaw to strike upward, cleaving it in half. Serelith summoned shards of frozen starlight from her staff, spearing two more.
Kael spun, letting Ashreign burn through a cluster with a sweep that painted the void in ash.
But then the tower spoke.
"You come to wake the First? Then bleed for the privilege."
The voice wasn't sound—it was thought, forced into their skulls like molten iron.
The serpents regrouped and fused together, forming a massive beast—a guardian, skeletal and plated in obsidian scales, eyes weeping embers.
Kael stood his ground as it reared back, letting out a silence-shattering roar.
"Hold the line!" he shouted. "We fall here, and the Seal remains lost."
Serelith placed a hand to the ground, channeling energy. "Buy me time! I can weaken its bond!"
Dovren lunged, taking a glancing hit that sent him skidding, armor sparking.
Kael leapt high, Ashreign igniting in a flash of silver flame, and brought the blade down with a thunderous cry.
The serpent shrieked.
Serelith's spell struck the ground—a glyph of seven rings unfolding. The creature trembled, its body splintering.
Then, with a final howl, it collapsed into smoke.
The tower door creaked open.
Inside, silence reigned—but at the center, suspended in chains of light, hovered a crystal heart, beating slowly.
"The Seal," Serelith whispered.
Kael stepped forward, but the closer he came, the more pain surged through his chest—as though the heart were his.
Then it spoke—only to him.
"You are not ready. Prove yourself… or fall as he did."
Kael's fingers hovered over the heart.
He clenched them into a fist.
"I will."
And as his hand closed around it, the First Seal shattered—and the world of Morthalon shook.
The instant Kael's fingers made contact with the heart, the world around him seemed to fold. The air hummed, a high-pitched shriek that pressed against his skull, making his vision blur. He pulled his hand back with a gasp, but the damage was done. A ripple shot through the atmosphere, leaving cracks in the air itself—fractures that leaked shadows and whispers of forgotten things.
Dovren staggered, clutching his head as though something were pulling at his mind.
"Kael! What have you—?"
Before he could finish, the ground beneath them trembled. The tower cracked open with a deafening roar, revealing a vast abyss beneath. The very earth seemed to split, like a wound opening in the fabric of reality. Dark figures began to rise from the chasm, their forms clad in the rags of lost time, their eyes hollow yet burning with a malevolent fire.
"You… you released it," Serelith gasped, staring at Kael in horror. "The First Seal wasn't just a prison—it was a boundary. A barrier between us and them."
From the depths below, a presence stirred—old, ancient, and terrifying. A silhouette emerged from the chasm, a figure cloaked in shadows, with eyes like black suns.
Kael turned, ready to fight, but the air around him grew colder. His chest felt as if it were being crushed under the weight of a thousand years. His breath came in gasps as the very air seemed to suck the strength from his limbs.
"Who are you?" Kael asked, his voice raw, the words fighting against the oppressive presence.
The figure spoke, and the world seemed to bend with the force of its voice. "I am the cost of your desire. I am the First, the one who walks between the realms of the living and the dead."
Its form rippled like smoke, revealing a face that seemed to be both his own and not. A twisted reflection. A mockery.
"You… You are the one who betrayed me," Kael whispered, a knot forming in his stomach as realization struck.
The figure laughed, a sound that shattered the world itself. "I betrayed you? Or was it you who betrayed me, Kael? You who broke the cycle? You who bound yourself to this world?"
Kael's heart pounded in his chest. He had seen this face before, in dreams, in the deepest recesses of his mind—the face of the man who had once been him.
"No," Kael whispered, shaking his head. "You're... dead."
The figure grinned, a smile that twisted its features. "I am death. I am the cycle that never ends. I am the shadow you cannot escape."
Kael's eyes narrowed. "I will escape. I will end this."
Dovren stepped forward, blood dripping from his shoulder where the serpent's fangs had struck him. "We won't let it take you, Kael. Not again."
The shadow figure moved with blinding speed, its hand reaching for Kael's chest. "You will never be free of me."
But before the figure could strike, Serelith's staff flared to life, a burst of blinding light that pushed back the darkness.
"Get back!" she shouted, her magic intertwining with the air, binding the shadow figure for a moment.
Kael stepped back, his hands trembling, as the weight of what he had just done settled in. He had shattered the Seal, yes—but at what cost? The world itself was beginning to crumble around them. The very fabric of reality seemed to tear, letting in the horrors that had been kept beyond.
"No matter how many times you break, Kael, you cannot escape what you are," the shadow figure taunted, its voice reverberating through the very air.
Kael clenched his fist around Ashreign, feeling the pulse of power that had always been his—his weapon, his legacy. It was more than just a blade; it was part of him, part of his soul.
"I don't need to escape," Kael said, his voice low and filled with resolve. "I need to end this. For everyone."
The shadow's eyes flickered with something—something that might have been fear, or recognition.
"You will learn the price of breaking the Seal," it said, its voice dripping with venom. "You will be my price."
Kael raised Ashreign, and the blade flared to life, casting a bright, silver light across the darkened world. The shadow figure recoiled as if burned, but it wasn't enough. Kael's power, as strong as it was, had no influence over this place.
Serelith's voice echoed across the battlefield. "Kael, listen to me! We need to seal it back. The world is collapsing!"
Kael's breath came in shallow gasps. He turned to Serelith, eyes filled with determination. "I won't seal it. I'll end it."
He leapt forward, Ashreign slicing through the air with an arc of light. The shadow figure tried to dodge, but it wasn't fast enough. The blade struck its chest, and a shockwave of raw power erupted, sending the figure crashing to the ground.
But even as it fell, it grinned.
"You cannot defeat what is already broken."
The ground beneath them began to disintegrate. The abyss was spreading, and with it, a flood of darkness that threatened to consume everything.
Kael's grip on Ashreign tightened. He didn't have much time. He had one chance—one moment to break the cycle, to undo the damage he had caused. But as the world around him fractured, he realized the hardest truth:
Sometimes, the only way to stop a curse was to embrace it.