The blade pulsed in Kael's hand, as if it had a heartbeat of its own—one not unlike his. It didn't hum or glow, not in the way stories said magic weapons should. Instead, it whispered. Words without sound. Memories without source. A voice older than thought itself, now bonded to the bearer of the Codex.
Tongueblade, Thorne had called it.
Kael didn't need a name to understand what it was. The blade was truth made form. Not the truth spoken or written—but the kind that stripped skin from soul and left only what could not be lied about.
And now, it was his.
The chamber in the Graven Hollow seemed to lean in around him. The pillars carved with names shimmered subtly in his periphery, some names flaring faintly as he passed, others going dim as if in mourning.
Elen followed behind him in silence, her eyes never leaving the strange, shifting surface of the blade.
"What are you feeling?" she asked finally.
Kael stopped before the altar.
"Like the silence knows my name," he said.
She exhaled, a shallow sound. "That's not comforting."
He turned to her. "It wasn't meant to be."
From behind them, Thorne moved closer. His expression was grave.
"The Tongueblade," he said, "doesn't speak unless it deems the bearer worthy. That it revealed itself means more than just power, Kael. You've been marked—by the Hollow, by the Codex, and by Vaelarith. That's a weight few can carry."
Kael looked down at the hilt. It had no pommel, no embellishment. Only etched, molten words that shifted as if alive. Burn the false. That's what it read now. It had read Remember the first lie moments before.
He tightened his grip.
"I didn't ask for the weight," he said.
Thorne nodded. "But you carry it. That's what matters."
They didn't rest in the Hollow.
Even with the Graven pillars pulsing in soft resonance, Kael could feel something lurking in the deep. Not a creature. Not even a presence. But a weight.
The Codex vibrated with unease, and when Kael dared open it beneath the altar's light, the pages flipped to a symbol he hadn't seen before.
It was a name with no letters. A sigil made of jagged lines and flame-like arcs.
Elen saw it over his shoulder and shuddered. "What does it mean?"
Kael stared into the page.
"I don't know," he whispered. "But it knows me."
Thorne approached the sigil with slow steps. "I've seen this before. In the records kept by the Writbound. Only in fragments. They called it the Mark of the Deepfire."
"Is it a person?" Elen asked.
Thorne shook his head. "A curse. A promise. A power that predates even the Thornbearers. They said it burns not only memory, but meaning itself."
Kael closed the Codex. The pages seemed to sigh as they shut.
"We should leave," he said.
But even as they began their climb out of the Hollow, Kael could feel the mark from the book—burning into his thoughts.
Like it was waiting to be awakened.
Outside, the world had shifted.
The sun was dimmer, as if it too had been touched by the Hollow's grief. The sky had a violet hue near the horizon, and the trees no longer rustled in greeting. They watched.
Kael's hand never strayed far from the blade.
As they moved, he noticed subtle changes. Elen walked with a stiffness, her gaze darting behind them too often. Thorne muttered more, mostly to himself, as if keeping his own thoughts from unraveling.
Only the Codex remained steady—floating quietly near Kael, its ember-veined cover always warm, always alive.
They made camp by a split hillock whose sides had been torn apart by a quake long ago. The rocks bore ancient carvings, long faded and overgrown with moss. Thorne paced along the perimeter, murmuring small incantations of warding, while Elen sat cleaning her knives without her usual grace.
Kael sat apart, staring at the Tongueblade.
The symbols on its surface had changed again.
Now it read: Truth is fire. You choose what burns.
The Codex spun once, slowly.
He reached for it.
This time, the book did not resist. It opened to a diagram—not of magic, nor language, but a map.
And at the center of the map, a city carved into obsidian cliffs.
Above it, a dragon.
No… not a dragon.
Vaelarith.
The flames that once whispered in his dreams now roared faintly in the distance of his soul. The bond was not yet complete. But it was close.
And the Codex was guiding him to the next step.
"Thorne," Kael said, not looking up. "Have you ever heard of a place called Ruinspire?"
Thorne paused mid-chant.
Elen froze.
"…Ruinspire's not a place you visit," Thorne said. "It's where Thornbearers go to forget. Where failed oaths are buried. Where the names of traitors are locked away."
Kael stared at the map.
"That's where we're going."
Elen didn't protest.
She just tightened the straps on her pack.
Night fell sharp.
The sky above them churned with silvered clouds, and the trees cast twisted shadows across the earth. Kael couldn't sleep. Not from fear. But from fire.
Vaelarith's whispers had grown stronger since the Hollow. He didn't hear words. He felt intent.
A challenge. A hunger. A waiting.
He walked beyond camp, blade in hand, the Codex circling above him like a flame-charmed moon.
And then—he saw her.
A figure standing beneath a dead tree.
Not Elen. Not Thorne.
Not… human.
She wore nothing but a veil of black mist, her body flickering at the edges like half-remembered sorrow. Her eyes were molten sigils. Her voice was not sound—but recognition.
"You bear the Codex."
Kael nodded.
"You touched the Tongueblade."
He nodded again.
"You call yourself Kael."
"…Yes."
She tilted her head.
"Then what will you be, when your name burns away?"
Kael stepped closer, blade pulsing.
"What are you?"
She smiled.
"I am what follows the flame."
And with that, she dissolved.
Kael stood alone, heart racing. The air still shimmered where she'd stood. The Codex's pages had turned mid-air, now open to a phrase he didn't remember reading before.
Not all who burn are lost. But all who are lost must burn to be found.
He stared into the dark for a long time.
And somewhere distant, in the echo of dreams, a roar answered.
The morning broke like splintered bone.
A low fog clung to the forest floor, twisting in unnatural patterns. Elen moved ahead, blades sheathed but hands always near them. Thorne walked with his staff clenched tighter than usual, his mutterings now less prayers and more compulsions.
Kael trailed slightly behind, guided by the Codex, the Tongueblade, and a fire in his chest that was no longer just his own.
The map had shown the way.
A path long forgotten, where even the roots hesitated to grow.
Toward Ruinspire.
"I remember hearing about it as a child," Elen said as they crossed a stream where the water ran black with mineral ash. "A fortress on the edge of madness. They said it was where old Thornbearers went to die. Or worse—to be remembered."
Thorne chuckled darkly. "There's a reason the Writbound never speak of it. Names have gravity. And Ruinspire is the place where gravity pulls the hardest."
Kael didn't respond.
Because as they drew closer, the Codex began to weep ash.
Not literally—but flakes of blackened parchment flurried from its open pages, dissolving before they touched the ground. The blade hummed now, not with heat—but with resonance.
They were being called.
Not by Vaelarith. Not by the Hollow.
But by something deeper.
Ruinspire wasn't a city.
It was a wound.
Carved into the side of a dead mountain, it stood crooked, as if trying to escape the earth that birthed it. Obsidian towers pierced the sky like jagged ribs. A single gate stood at its base—massive, sealed, and etched with thousands of names.
Some were new.
Most were worn down.
And one of them was Kael's.
He stepped closer, breath catching. There, near the lower right corner of the gate, etched as if freshly bled—Kael, Thornbearer Awakened.
Elen touched the name. "This… wasn't here a day ago."
Thorne muttered a warding phrase. "The Codex rewrites more than knowledge."
Kael reached toward the gate.
Before he could touch it, the stone shivered.
Not cracked. Not opened.
Shivered—like flesh trying to resist.
Then a voice came from the other side. Old. Broken. Familiar.
"Name yourself."
Kael took a breath.
"Kael."
"Name again."
"…Kael of Hollowmarch."
"Name again."
"…Kael, bearer of the Codex. Wielder of the Tongueblade."
Silence.
Then the gate groaned. It didn't open. It parted, the stone melting sideways into a tunnel of black fire.
"Welcome home," said the voice.
Kael stepped through.
Inside, Ruinspire pulsed with breathless memory.
The walls were veined with glowing red roots. Not roots of trees—roots of thought. Faces flickered in the stone, eyes opening and closing as they passed.
Kael felt them watching him.
Measuring him.
Weighing him.
The blade pulsed at his side. The Codex floated before him.
In the distance, atop the fractured stairways and hollowed chambers of this inverted spire, a throne waited.
Or a tomb.
Or both.
As they ascended, whispers clawed at their thoughts. Elen trembled. Thorne's chants grew louder, more desperate.
Kael heard nothing.
Only the flame.
And then they reached the Hall of Echoes.
It was vast—open to the stars above, even though they were far beneath the mountain. Names covered the walls, floating mid-air, written in tongues that should not exist.
A single figure sat at the center.
Hooded.
Armor melted into his skin. Hands like bone covered in ink. A sword longer than Kael's body lay across his lap—cracked down the middle, but still breathing power.
He looked up.
Eyes like Kael's.
But hollowed.
"I remember you," the figure said. "I was you."
Kael stepped forward. "Who are you?"
The figure laughed, low and weary.
"I am what happens when the fire forgets to burn."
Then he raised his hand.
The names around the chamber screamed.
They came alive.
Every name on every wall, every echo of a Thornbearer who had failed or betrayed, rose from the stone.
They took shape—some human, some not. Twisted, malformed things with fragments of memory and shards of oaths. Thornbearers lost to the deep.
The Name-Eaters.
Kael raised the Tongueblade.
It shimmered once—then burst with symbols, circling him in a ring of glowing fire. The Codex pulsed, its pages erupting with light.
Elen screamed. "Kael!"
But he didn't move.
He became.
The name-circle widened.
The Codex fed him truths.
The Tongueblade flared with meaning.
One of the Name-Eaters lunged—an archer with no mouth, eyes stitched shut, a name etched on her spine.
Kael turned.
His blade cut—not the body, but the lie.
She unraveled with a gasp, then vanished into ash.
Another came. Then five. Then ten.
And Kael burned them all.
Not with flame—but with memory.
He didn't swing.
He spoke.
And with each truth spoken, each false name named, the blade consumed them.
Until only one remained.
The hooded one.
Still seated. Still waiting.
"Will you burn me too?" the man asked.
Kael stepped forward.
"What are you?"
"I am Kael. The one who came before. The one who tried to wield the Codex without a soul strong enough to hold it."
Kael narrowed his eyes. "A reflection."
The man smiled. "A warning."
He stood, cracked sword dragging behind him.
"We were not meant to bear the Codex. It consumes. It chooses. You think you hold it, but in time, you'll find it holding you."
Kael raised his own blade.
"We'll see."
They clashed.
Stone screamed.
Fire sang.
Memory and steel collided.
But Kael was not the same.
Vaelarith's flame surged through him.
And the blade—his blade—cut through lies.
With a roar, he struck the final blow.
And the reflection fell.
Not bleeding.
But weeping.
"You… remember," the man said. "Then maybe… you will not be forgotten."
He crumbled.
And the chamber dimmed.
At the center of the hall, where once the throne had stood, now sat a seed.
Black. Cracked. Burning with inner light.
Kael stepped toward it.
The Codex floated closer.
And the Tongueblade whispered:
"Names are chains. Burn them. Become the flame."
Kael reached down.
Touched the seed.
And in that moment—
A dragon screamed in the distance.
Not in rage.
Not in warning.
But in recognition.