THE SHADOW CROWN
The sky bled shadows.
From the ruined battlements of Velmira, Kael watched the swarm rise—an ocean of wings and bones blackened by sorcery. Each creature flew without breath, without will, guided only by the soul-brand that tethered them to their unseen master.
The Deadbound had awoken.
"We can't fight all of them," Elira murmured, gripping his hand tightly. "Not yet."
Kael nodded grimly. "Then we fight smarter. We find the source."
He turned to the others—Deren, the ancient monk who had followed them; three Flamebound remnants who had answered the echo-call; and Elira, burning like a dawn that refused to die.
"Dreadspire," he said. "That's where the call came from."
The word sent a chill through the air.
Dreadspire was not merely a city—it was a curse. A fallen capital swallowed by the earth during the War of Embers. No one had walked its halls in centuries.
Until now.
The Journey
The road to Dreadspire carved through the Blackened Expanse—an ancient wasteland riddled with craters and buried bones. Storms without clouds howled across it. Trees stood petrified in mid-scream.
Elira's powers flickered erratically as they neared.
"I feel… something," she whispered one night, staring into the fire. "Like I'm being pulled backward. Like something beneath us is remembering me."
Kael didn't sleep that night.
When they crossed into the Dreadspire Vale, time felt distorted. Their shadows moved before they did. Whispers rose from cracks in the ground. Even Kael's sword grew heavier—as if the very air resisted flame.
Deren spoke little, only muttering ancient prayers under his breath.
But Kael heard one phrase clearly.
"The King That Burned But Did Not Die."
The Gates of Dreadspire
The entrance to the fallen city yawned like a mouth in the cliffs. Black stone arches twisted inward. A single massive crown of obsidian lay cracked in the center of the courtyard—a reminder of the last Flameking to fall here.
Elira reached out and touched the broken crown.
It pulsed.
In her mind, she saw it—Theryn, kneeling before a grave of fire, his body broken, but his eyes bright with madness.
He had not died.
He had evolved.
The Soulforged General
Inside the city, the darkness was alive.
Their torches flickered blue. The very walls breathed. In the heart of the ancient council chamber, a figure awaited—towering, armored, his bones reinforced with soulsteel, and his face hidden behind a mask of mirrored glass.
Kael stepped forward. "Name yourself."
The figure's voice was a chorus of the dead. "I am Vorrak, First of the Soulforged. Flamebreaker. Lord Theryn's Herald."
His gauntlets glowed with runes carved in flesh. At his feet lay the corpses of warriors, still twitching, whispering prayers in languages long extinct.
Elira narrowed her eyes. "He's bound them."
Deren confirmed it. "He's not just raising the dead—he's trapping souls. Forcing them into armor. Into servitude."
Kael's grip tightened on the Vyr'ethal. "That's not power. That's theft."
Vorrak raised a hand. "Then take it back."
The Battle
Vorrak struck first.
The chamber exploded into chaos—spectral chains lashed out from the walls, dragging at Kael's limbs. Shadows swirled like living tar, forming blades, spears, hissing serpents.
Kael moved with a fury that scorched stone. Every strike of his blade sang with the fire of his soul. Elira, glowing with emberlight, raised shields of pure will, countered curses with healing flame, and turned shadows to ash with a thought.
But Vorrak would not fall.
Each time he was struck down, he rebuilt himself using the souls he had enslaved.
Kael was faltering.
Until Elira stepped into the center of the chamber and whispered:
"Return."
Her sigil blazed—and from Vorrak's chest, one by one, golden lights poured out.
Freed souls.
They screamed as they escaped—and with every release, Vorrak shrieked in agony. His strength bled away.
Kael took his chance.
With a roar, he leapt—drove the Vyr'ethal through Vorrak's heart—and whispered a prayer to the Flame.
The Soulforged General exploded in a blaze of light.
Only silence remained.
The Crown of Shadows
In the stillness after the battle, Kael found it.
Beneath the general's throne, deep in a vault of obsidian, was the Crown of Ash—an artifact humming with dark power, carved from the bones of ancient kings and pulsing with Theryn's magic.
Elira stared at it. "This… this is how he controls them."
Deren's face turned pale. "It's a Shadow Crown. A relic of the Deep Flame. If he finishes it… he'll bind the living, not just the dead."
Kael looked to Elira. "Then we destroy it."
But as she raised her hand, the Crown spoke.
A voice echoed in her mind.
"He is coming."
She dropped to her knees, gasping, clutching her head. The crown flared with light—and a shape formed above it.
Not fully there.
But real enough.
Theryn.
Pale skin. Black armor. A crown of horns and flame. Eyes like burning voids.
"You've come far, little embers," he said, voice like cracked glass. "But fire fades. And I… I have become the dark."
Then he was gone.
The Reckoning Begins
Kael helped Elira to her feet.
"We need to leave," she gasped. "Now. He knows."
They didn't destroy the Crown. Not yet. Deren suggested it could be reversed—reclaimed and reforged by pure flame. If Elira could cleanse it, they could use it to free the Deadbound.
But time was running out.
Theryn now knew they were alive.
Worse—he remembered who they were.
As they escaped the city, the sky began to burn.
A second swarm rose over the horizon—twice the size of the first.
The war had begun.
Kael looked back one last time as Dreadspire vanished into the distance.
"This time," he said softly, "we're ready."