The winds over Nahlveth howled with unnatural fury not of nature, but of souls screaming within the walls, caught forever in the bindings of the Crimson Syre's design. Every cobblestone of the city was a tomb. Every shadow, a spy.
Yet beneath the great Crimson Bastion, where torchlight never reached and hope had long been silenced, something stirred.
Not in rebellion.
But in remembrance.
A boy no older than sixteen knelt at the edge of the under-vaults, blood trickling from his palms as he traced symbols into the ash. Behind him, others huddled children, broken warriors, bloodline remnants who had survived Valtheran's purges.
They did not speak his name aloud.
But they knew what he carried.
The blood of Althar.
"Is it true?" whispered a girl with one blind eye and a voice like broken bells. "That the Sovereign walks again?"
The boy did not look up. His fingers glowed as he completed the mark an ancient sigil in the shape of a crown pierced by a serpent.
"Not just walks," he said. "He remembers."
At that moment, the vault trembled.
Not from seismic force.
But from prophecy.
Far above them, the Crimson Syre paused mid-ritual. A ring of high priests chanted behind him, drawing symbols in the air with blood-forged blades. But his gaze narrowed.
He felt it.
A pulse in the deep.
A breath of fate that was not his own.
In the Skies Above Nahlveth
Vireth's Reach hung like a blade over the clouds, carried by ancient leviathan forge engines from a dead civilization. Zeirion stood at the prow of the command platform, robes unfurling behind him like wings of smoke.
Aralya hovered behind him, her moonlight blade tucked to her side, her expression grim.
"He'll sense you the moment you descend," she said.
"I want him to," Zeirion replied, voice flat as obsidian. "He burned everything to forget me. It's time to remind him."
From beneath his cloak, he drew a shard of violet glass. Within it pulsed a flame blue, quiet, and pure.
"It's a seed," Aralya said softly, surprised. "A memory-seed."
He nodded. "Planted in the vaults of Nahlveth before I fell. A failsafe. For the last of the bloodlines."
She stepped closer. "You never told me."
"I forgot," he said. "Until the echoes sang again."
As Zeirion dropped the seed into the clouds below, it vanished like a whisper into the storm.
In the Crimson Bastion
The vaults split.
The walls that had held for centuries burst apart as runes ignited in forgotten languages. Red flame poured through iron veins, and the wails of the Syre's sentinels echoed.
Valtheran Tahl stood atop his high altar, and the veins in his hands blackened.
"He's here."
Outside, thunder cracked.
But there was no lightning.
Only presence.
It was not a ship. Not a weapon. Not a divine army.
It was a man.
Descending through the clouds, wreathed in silence.
His eyes burned with worlds remembered. His blade hummed against his back like a caged storm. And beside him descended the woman whose name even nightmares dared not speak.
Zeirion Althar.
Aralya of the Moonwoven Veil.
As their feet touched the stones of Nahlveth, the city wept.
Bells tolled of their own accord.
Children dreamed of freedom.
And deep beneath, the ash-blooded boy opened his eyes.
"The Sovereign has returned," he whispered.