---
Kael sat alone by the dying embers of a morning fire, his fingers curled around the edge of a blade that wasn't drawn.
The name Ren Verradin echoed in his mind like a bell tolling from a long-buried tower.
The fire cracked.
> "I know that look," said Riven, stepping out from the tent flap. "The one where your past has caught up with you and is asking for blood."
Kael didn't turn. "It's worse than blood."
Lyra appeared a moment later, arms crossed, wind stirring her silver hair. "We heard what happened."
> "You did?"
Lyra's tone softened. "You cried out in your sleep. A name. Not Kael. Not Aserion."
Kael sighed.
> "Ren Verradin."
---
Riven sat beside him, a rare seriousness in his tone. "The Ashen line. That's a name out of nightmares."
> "Then it fits," Kael muttered.
He recounted everything—The Witness. The hidden quest. The name stolen by the system. The empire he supposedly belonged to.
When he finished, silence fell over the camp like snow.
---
Lyra broke it first. "So… what do you want to do?"
Kael didn't answer right away.
Instead, he looked at them both.
Riven—the half-demon mercenary who once tried to kill him and now shared jokes like an older brother.
Lyra—the soulborn girl who had taken a risk by trusting the villain's shadow.
> "I don't want the throne," Kael said.
> "But I need to know… who I was. Before they made me this."
Riven tapped his temple. "The Ashen Sigil isn't just blood. It's knowledge. Legacy. If someone's claiming it, they might have fragments of your memory. Or worse—access to forbidden Ashen relics."
Kael stood. "Then we move. I need answers."
---
> [Shadow System: Hidden Quest Activated]
> Objective 1: Trace the emergence of the Ashen Sigil.
Location: Ruins of Del'mor, Western Fringe.
Estimated Time Until Rival Inheritance: 6 days.
---
Riven whistled. "Del'mor? That's close to the borderlands."
> "Too close," Lyra said. "The Sealed Sect controls the territory."
Kael narrowed his eyes. "And they answer to Aserion."
Lyra met his gaze. "It might be a trap."
> "Then let them try," Kael said, drawing his blade. "I've walked through their chains once. I'll burn them if I must."
---
The three of them stood in a circle now—Kael, Riven, and Lyra. Not just rebels. Not just fugitives.
But the beginning of something else.
> A force the world had forgotten.
> Or maybe… never truly known.
---
Far away, at a black fortress perched above the cliffs of Del'mor, a figure knelt before a throne made of obsidian bone.
He wore the Ashen Sigil across his chest.
But his face… bore no features.
Only a mirror mask.
> "Ren Verradin… the rightful heir lives."
> "I will bury him beneath the weight of his own name."
Behind him, thirteen cloaked figures chanted in a tongue long forbidden.
The Ashen Empire was awakening.
And war would follow.
---