The city of Rhiannon moved like a sleeping beast—its stone veins pulsed with slow, steady life, and even in the night, golden lanterns swung from archways with quiet dignity. Beneath its wide avenues and ancient towers, a hidden heartbeat echoed: a pulse of power, of politics, of danger.
Kael walked silently between Arinya and Doran, his cloak drawn up against the midnight breeze. He didn't need to see to feel the tension in the air. Every echo off the brick, every step too far behind, every brush of a stranger's sleeve—it all sang louder to him now than it ever had before. His senses had sharpened, almost unnaturally so.
But tonight, something felt off. Different.
They were headed toward the lower quarter—a sloped part of the city built into the cliffs themselves. The market had long since closed, but the whispers of smugglers, relic hawkers, and wanderers filled the air. This was where truth went to hide.
"Stay close," Arinya murmured, her voice soft yet urgent.
Kael gave a nod, listening more than seeing. He imagined the glow of her eyes in the dark. She always looked determined when she spoke like that. He hadn't told her, but in the flickering light of lanterns and fire, his eyes sometimes caught glimpses—mere silhouettes. A shadow of her frame. The curve of her braid. And once… her smile.
It was fleeting. Cruel, even. But it meant something was changing.
Doran took point, a dagger drawn but low at his side. "The contact lives in an old smithy," he said. "Claims to have information about 'the Ashbound one.' Whatever that means."
"Everything has a title lately," Kael muttered.
"You're getting famous," Arinya said under her breath, just low enough that Kael could hear the grin in her voice.
They arrived at the smithy shortly after—an old forge repurposed into a relic dealer's haven. The front was boarded, the back lit dimly by a brazier set in the ground. A small man in a patched cloak sat on an overturned anvil, chewing on something that crunched louder than it should have.
He spat to the side when they approached. "You're late."
"We weren't scheduled," Arinya replied, arms folded.
The man snorted. "If I hadn't seen that relic on your friend's back, I'd have taken you for pickpockets." His eyes drifted toward Kael. "So you're the blind one. Interesting."
Kael stepped forward. "Say what you came to say."
The man raised an eyebrow, then gestured toward a chest behind him. "What I have… is old. From the Cataclysm age. Carved in stone and bound in blackwood. It references a warrior who held a staff forged from the heart of a dying star. They called him the Ashbound Guardian. Supposedly, he could summon memory from flame, strike down ghosts, bend wind."
Kael felt a strange pressure against his ribs. The relic. It pulsed faintly.
"What happened to him?" Arinya asked.
"No one knows. The staff was said to be soul-bound. And lost." The man paused. "But lately, tremors have been stirring along the Emberpath. That's southeast of here. The old stones burn at night. Some say a weapon is waking up."
Doran frowned. "You expect us to believe a legend came back to life?"
The man shrugged. "Doesn't matter if I believe it. The faction agents do. I saw a scout from the Crimson Circle buying maps just last week. They're hunting something—or someone."
Kael exhaled slowly. A staff bound to memory? That couldn't be coincidence. And if his relic—this cursed thing leeching from his soul—was part of the same age, then maybe…
Maybe his blindness wasn't a punishment.
Maybe it was a gate.
As they left the smithy, Arinya stayed close beside Kael. For once, she didn't speak. The silence stretched too long, so Kael broke it.
"You think the staff is real?"
She hesitated. "I think... everything in this world was once myth. Until someone proved it with blood."
He gave a faint smile.
Then came the laughter.
It was distant, echoing from one of the shadowed rooftops above them. Not joyous laughter—mocking. Hollow.
Doran immediately pulled Kael and Arinya beneath an archway as a figure landed where they had just stood. Cloaked in smoke and shadow, it wielded twin sickle-blades and moved with uncanny grace.
"Well, well," the stranger said in a sing-song tone. "The Ashbound one walks in the open. How... bold."
Kael tensed. "You want a fight?"
"No, no," the figure said, circling. "I want your memory. The relic wants to wake up, doesn't it?"
He lunged.
Arinya moved faster, her blade flashing in the firelight. Steel met steel with a hiss of sparks. Doran flanked, throwing a dagger toward the assailant's flank—only for it to vanish into smoke as if swallowed.
Kael reached inward.
He felt the pulse of the relic… and then, something more.
A memory not his own.
A battlefield. Fire. A staff spinning in hand. Enemies crumbling beneath radiant strikes. And then—darkness.
He stumbled as the vision slammed into his senses, but as he fell, his fingers caught something.
Ash.
Burning, unreal ash.
Kael drove it upward like a spear—and it struck the attacker across the chest, searing through cloak and skin alike. The figure shrieked and vanished in a plume of soot, retreating to the rooftops with unnatural speed.
Silence.
Only the brazier behind them still crackled.
Doran's blade lowered. "What the hell was that?"
Kael caught his breath. "A message. From something that remembers more than I do."
Arinya was still tense beside him. "We need to leave Rhiannon soon. If they know who you are… it's only a matter of time."
Kael didn't respond.
The fire had answered him tonight. But it also whispered of greater trials.
The staff was calling.
And Kael would find it—even if it meant facing the ghosts of a life he didn't remember, and a fate he never asked for.