Chapter 16 – The Waking of Ash and Bone
~1,600 words
The journey away from the Skarhold was not a descent—it was a slow, grinding exhale of something ancient. The forest had changed. What had once whispered in rustling tongues now watched in reverent stillness. Even the air felt different, laced with smoke that didn't sting, but stirred.
Kael could still feel the echo of Vaelarith.
Not just as a memory. As a presence. Quiet, coiled, waiting.
And the Codex—it no longer slept.
It hovered when Kael walked, spun when he dreamed, and sometimes pulsed softly in time with the shard that burned just beneath his skin.
They made camp beneath a ridge of dead trees whose roots had twisted upward, forming a cradle of shadow and shelter. Elen lit no fire; she didn't trust what might see the smoke. Thorne stood at the edge of their circle, watching the woods as though waiting for them to shift again.
Kael sat on the cold stone, the Codex before him. Its cover was different now. The once-thorny texture had smoothed into something dark and veined, like obsidian that pulsed faintly with veins of ember.
He reached out, hesitated, then touched it.
The book opened to a page he hadn't seen before.
At the top, a single word in glowing ink:
ASHWR0UGHT
Below it, lines shifted, symbols rearranging into a structure not unlike language—but older, as if it had birthed language.
He read, slowly, each line twisting his breath:
"Name-burned. Memory-forged. The Ashwrought does not wield fire. He becomes it. That which Vaelarith brands is not devoured. It is reborn."
Kael closed the book. Not out of fear, but out of necessity. Reading too long made the flame behind his eyes flicker too brightly, and reality blurred at the edges.
Elen approached, her eyes cautious but curious. "You've changed."
He didn't deny it.
"I saw you before," she said, kneeling beside him. "Back in the Vale. You were cold. Determined. But now… now you burn."
Kael looked at his hands. They no longer trembled. They no longer bled as they had when he first touched the Codex. "I think I was always burning," he said. "I just didn't know the fire had a name."
Elen frowned. "And what happens when you forget your own?"
He looked up.
"The Name-Eaters couldn't bear their power," he said quietly. "It consumed them because they didn't choose it. They clung to it. I let mine die."
She said nothing, but she didn't walk away.
Thorne returned before dawn, the frost still clinging to his shoulders.
"They've begun to search for you," he said, without preamble. "The Silent Order. Thornless. Even some of the remnants of the Writbound. Word has spread. They say a Thornbearer walked into the Skarhold and came out with something older than a name."
Kael stood. "Then we walk into the light."
Thorne arched a brow. "And do what?"
Kael's voice was quiet, steady.
"We burn the lies they built."
Their next destination was whispered in his dreams.
It came not from Thorne, not from Elen, not even from the Codex—but from Vaelarith.
In the dark, Kael saw visions of a place where the wind carried no sound, where bones hung like chimes, and where truth was carved not into stone, but into the souls of those buried there.
It was called the Graven Hollow.
And it was said to be where the First Thornbearer wept his name into the world.
Kael didn't question how he knew the way.
He simply walked.
The Hollow was carved into the side of a great black canyon where the earth split like a wound.
Staircases cut by forgotten hands spiraled downward through layers of stone etched with ancient glyphs, the symbols worn smooth by time and tears. Wind did not howl there; it whispered.
As they descended, Kael could feel something pulling at him—not the shard, not the Codex, but something beneath both. Something deeper. A resonance.
Thorne whispered, "No one has entered the Hollow in centuries. The last who tried forgot their names before they reached the bottom."
Kael did not hesitate.
At the base of the spiral, they found a door.
It was not locked.
It was simply waiting.
When Kael pressed his hand to it, the stone flaked away like ash. The Hollow opened, revealing a chamber lit by flickering ghostlight and filled with pillars—each one carved with a name.
Some names shimmered with power. Others were cracked and unreadable. Some pulsed faintly with sorrow.
And at the center, beneath an altar of silver bone and black flame, was a blade.
Not a sword of metal.
A blade made of words.
It pulsed with living language, shifting with meaning that changed every time Kael looked.
Elen exhaled. "What is that?"
Kael stepped forward.
The Codex floated beside him.
And the blade spoke.
Not aloud.
Not in thought.
But in memory.
"To name the truth, one must cut the lie from the root."
He reached out, hand steady.
"To wield the flame, one must burn their reflection."
His fingers brushed the hilt.
And the blade screamed.
Not in rage. In recognition.
Symbols from the Codex flew forward, spiraling into the weapon.
Kael felt pain, yes—but it was pain with purpose.
His eyes glowed white-gold.
The blade calmed.
And so did he.
Behind him, Thorne knelt.
Not in reverence.
In fear.
"You've bonded to the Tongueblade," he said, voice hoarse. "Only one bearer ever did that and lived."
Kael turned, the blade in his hand flickering like thought given form.
"And what happened to them?" Elen asked.
Thorne stared.
"They burned the heavens."