The Hollowlands had changed.
Where once the wind was quiet, now it carried howls.
Some were ancient beasts stirred by Caelum's flame. Others were soldiers Sanctum scouts in enchanted armor, combing the region for the boy who broke the pact laws.
Caelum kept to the high ridgelines beneath the ruins of Old Lirn'vaal, avoiding open roads. With Ashra veiled in her spectral form and Thorne silently shadowing him from the trees, he moved like mist his soul burning, but his steps careful.
They were being hunted.
And not just by anyone.
By her.
She arrived at twilight.
Caelum was crouched beside a cliff, feeding on flame-cured rootfruit when the sky shifted subtly too subtly. The birds stopped. The leaves didn't stir.
Then came the click of boots on stone.
"Still eating like a feral?" a familiar voice said.
He turned sharply.
She stood between two trees, wearing a half-cloak of blue and silver armor. Hair like liquid obsidian. Eyes the color of stormlit steel. Her voice was wrapped in velvet arrogance.
Lady Lyana Serest.
Highblood Wielder. Daughter of Sanctum nobility.
And the girl who had once watched him fail the Binding Ceremony… laughing behind her jeweled fan.
Caelum stood slowly, fists clenched. "You followed me all this way to gloat?"
Lyana smirked, stepping closer. "Don't flatter yourself. I'm not here to gloat. I'm here to offer you a choice."
Behind him, Thorne let out a low growl from the shadows. Lyana's gaze flicked toward the movement but didn't flinch.
"You're braver than your soldiers," Caelum said. "The last ones ran with their armor steaming."
"They weren't me."
Ashra stirred in his mind, her voice tight and suspicious:
"She wears the scent of falsehood. Be wary."
Caelum didn't reply to Ashra aloud. He kept his gaze locked on Lyana. "What's your 'choice' then?"
She reached into her satchel and produced a scroll bound in dark sapphire wax. The seal bore the mark of the High Sanctum ,an open hand over a chained sun.
"A pardon," she said simply. "If you surrender your bonds, denounce your beast pact, and submit to the Ritual of Tempering, you'll be accepted into the Sanctum's Fold as a formal Wielder."
Caelum laughed short, bitter. "You think I'd hand them over? Ashra? Thorne? After you all left me to rot?"
"You don't understand what you're carrying," she snapped, stepping forward now. "The Ancestral Beasts weren't just sealed they were forbidden. The gods themselves voted to erase their names. You think you're strong? You're walking around with fire meant to burn down nations."
Caelum's eyes hardened. "Maybe they need burning."
Her face twitched. "We could've worked together."
That's when he saw it.
The way her hand stayed too close to her waist. The way her body was angled slightly away. The subtle shimmer of a spell anchor beneath her boot.
"Who else is with you?" he asked quietly.
Lyana's smile broke.
Too late.
A blast of chainlight magic struck the cliff behind him. Dozens of Sanctum enforcers materialized from enchanted cloaks, each bearing anti-beast weapons and beast-binding talismans.
"Bind him!" Lyana roared.
But before they could close in
Ashra erupted from his shadow, wings fanned wide, screeching with fury. Thorne charged from the underbrush like a living storm, tearing through the first rank with his fanged tail.
Lyana lunged toward Caelum, her blade of blue flame flashing.
Steel met flame.
Caelum rolled aside, summoned fire from his sigil, and let it pour through his palm. True Flame not conjured, but born.
They clashed two different worlds. Hers, polished and trained. His, raw and defiant.
"You lied," he spat.
"I tried to save you!" she hissed, clashing her blade against his shoulder.
"By delivering me to the people who tried to erase what I am?"
Her face twisted. "You don't understand. If you keep awakening beasts like them… the gods will notice."
Caelum narrowed his eyes. "Good."
The battle raged behind them Ashra weaving golden flame through the sky, Thorne roaring as he shredded enchanted cages. But Caelum focused only on Lyana.
His fire sang louder now, not in rage but clarity.
He didn't need to defeat her.
He just needed her to understand she could never control him.
He parried her strike with his bare hand fire coiling over his fingers like a serpent. The flames didn't burn her blade. They burned through it, severing the enchanted steel in half.
She stumbled back, horrified.
Caelum didn't advance.
He only said, "Next time, bring truth instead of chains."
Then, he turned and vanished into the flame-scorched woods, Ashra and Thorne flanking him like shadows of vengeance.
They didn't rest until the forest changed from silverwoods into blackpines.
Under the shattered moon, Caelum collapsed beside a hollow log, his arm bleeding from a deep gash. Thorne curled nearby, already dozing. Ashra remained above, perched on a crag like a winged sentinel.
Ashra's voice came to him as a whisper.
"She feared something greater than you."
"I know."
"She wasn't lying about the gods."
He looked up, sweat mingling with blood. "Then let them come."
Ashra remained silent for a moment.
Then, gently:
"You trusted her once."
He nodded.
"And now?"
"I don't know."
There was a pause.
"Good. Hold onto that."
Far behind them, at the ruins of the battle, Lyana knelt, her blade shattered, watching the retreating flames.
Around her, Sanctum soldiers lay unconscious or bound by vines of scorched magic.
She clutched a single glowing feather left behind by Ashra. It radiated warmth.
She closed her hand around it, whispered to herself:
"You weren't supposed to be the one."
End of Chapter 4