The Citadel bells rang at dawn.
Not the usual rhythm of training or council—not even the evacuation tone. This chime was ancient, forgotten by all but the Veilguard and the most senior of the Flamecourt. Three slow tolls. A pause. Then two more.
The sound for Veil Breach.
Kael was already awake, sweat slicking his skin as he stared at the ceiling of his quarters. He hadn't truly slept. Not since the first rift. Not since the voice returned in his dreams.
We are not so different, you and I.
The voice was not Vaelen's.
It was older.
Colder.
...
By midday, the Nullborn incursions had spread to three outer settlements—Glowreach, Ember Hollow, and Southveil. Each reported power failures, silence echoes, and entire patrols vanishing without trace.
The Citadel scrambled.
The Flamecourt was divided.
"This is an invasion," cried Master Terev, his violet soulflame crackling in protest. "We must activate the Worldbrand Protocol—level the infected zones."
"We'd be killing innocents," countered Warden Rael. "And for what? To delay the inevitable?"
"They are already dead," another snarled.
The Elder of Embers raised his hand, silencing the chamber.
"And what of Kael Thorne?"
All heads turned as Kael entered, flanked by Iria and Saelin.
Kael didn't flinch.
"I'm here," he said. "Not as a symbol. As a weapon."
"You've grown arrogant," Terev spat.
"No," Kael said. "I've grown ready."
He stepped forward, hand extended.
White flame licked from his fingers—cool, steady. But then it shifted, showing fragments of memory: his mother's voice, the day he entered the academy, Iria's laughter—
—and then something foreign.
A battlefield. Not from this world.
And a symbol etched in bone: 𝘗𝘏𝘖𝘚.
The council stirred uneasily.
"What was that?" whispered one of the scholars.
Kael closed his hand.
"I don't know. But it's in me."
...
Later, in the Ashen Archives beneath the Citadel, Saelin showed Kael an ancient, sealed scroll. The text was burned into it by soulfire so potent it could only be read by flame-marked bearers.
"This is from before the First Flame War," Saelin said. "Written by the Oracle of Silence."
Kael unrolled it.
Symbols pulsed faintly. As he read, they formed words:
"When the fire forgets its name, and the silence remembers, the Ashen Star shall awaken not to cleanse, but to choose. In that choice lies not peace… but rebirth."
Kael felt the Mark on his chest pulse.
"Rebirth?" he said aloud.
Saelin nodded gravely.
"I believe the Ashen Star is not just a weapon. It's a catalyst. One that bridges memory and will."
Kael stepped back.
"You think I'm supposed to restart something."
"Or end it."
Kael clenched his fists.
"I don't want to become a god."
"Then don't," Saelin said. "Become something else."
...
Three days later, Kael led a strike team to Southveil.
What they found was not a city.
It was a graveyard of mirrors—scorched impressions of buildings made of glasslike residue. No bodies. No flame traces. Just silence.
The Nullborn were evolving.
Kael extended his awareness.
The Mark responded, and for the first time, he saw the Veil not as an abstract concept—but a lattice. A woven net of time and soul, stretched across a wound.
And through the wound, something stared back.
Not yet, little flame. But soon.
Kael collapsed, gasping.
Iria caught him, her blue soulflame steady around them both.
"What did you see?"
"Something old," Kael whispered. "Watching. Waiting."
They retreated, but Kael left a marker behind—his own flame, embedded in the soil, as a warning.
A beacon.
Or a challenge.
...
That night, Iria found Kael on the Citadel's eastern wall, staring into the distance where the rifts pulsed like diseased stars.
"You're unraveling," she said gently.
"I feel like I'm being pulled in every direction," Kael admitted. "The Mark wants to protect. The memories want to destroy. And me—? I don't know what I want anymore."
Iria leaned against the wall beside him.
"Then choose. Not as the Ashen Bearer. As Kael."
He looked at her, truly looked.
"I want to fight," he said. "Not because I'm chosen. But because this world is worth fighting for."
Iria smiled.
"And that's why you'll win."
Kael looked down at her hand beside his.
This time, he took it.
And didn't let go.
...
The next morning, Rael briefed them on an operation known as Operation Hollow Sun.
It was risky.
A Veil-shard had been discovered deep beneath the Citadel itself—forgotten, perhaps buried during the construction of the central flame core. If they could stabilize it, they might glimpse the origin of the Nullborn.
But the energy was unstable.
"I'll go," Kael said.
"No," Rael said. "You're too valuable."
"That's exactly why I have to go."
She hesitated.
Then nodded once.
"But take her with you," she added, nodding at Iria. "Your flame might burn hot, Kael. But hers keeps you human."
They descended the following hour.
Deep into the underchambers, where the flame engines hissed and old sigils burned blue with age.
At the lowest level, they found it:
A pool of stillness.
Not dark.
Not light.
Just the absence of everything.
The Nullborn rift.
Kael stepped forward.
The Mark on his chest ignited—not in defense, but in recognition.
And then, time stopped.
...
Kael stood in a void.
A figure approached.
He was tall, wrapped in pale chains, and his eyes were mirrors. Within them burned a ruined city, a laughing sun, a child crying in ash.
"Kael Thorne," he said. "You bear the final flame."
Kael clenched his fists.
"You're not real."
"I am the echo of what was," the figure said. "And a promise of what will be. I am the first bearer. I chose silence."
Kael's heart raced.
"What is Chrona?"
The figure tilted his head.
"It is the moment before fire was born. The memory of a world untouched. It wants not death—but erasure."
"And me?"
"You are the opposite. You remember."
Kael stepped forward.
"Then I will fight it."
The figure smiled.
"Then the veil will bleed."
...
Kael collapsed to the floor of the underchamber, Iria's arms catching him once more.
The rift was gone.
Sealed.
But in its place was a mark scorched into the stone—a new sigil, unfamiliar to even the oldest records.
Kael stood slowly.
The Mark on his chest had changed.
It now pulsed in three colors: white, black, and a faint thread of crimson.
The beginning of a third flame.
Not memory.
Not silence.
But choice.