The air hung still.
The ash-demons froze mid-lunge, their molten limbs turning brittle and cracking like shattered obsidian. The glow in their eyes dimmed, and they crumbled into dust, one by one, until only silence remained.
Alera clutched her belly, heart thundering in her chest. The heat from her flames hissed against the frost spreading across the stone floor.
And standing at the epicenter of it all barefoot, emotionless, eerily calm was the boy.
White-haired. Skin like marble. Robes made of ice-laced silk that rippled though there was no wind. Eyes like polished moonlight.
Kieran sheathed his blade, tense and breathless. Cayle, bleeding and dazed, leaned against a broken pillar. And Alera, queen of ash and flame, stood frozen in awe... and fear.
The boy tilted his head slowly, as if analyzing them.
"You are late," he said. His voice wasn't childish—it echoed, layered, unnatural. Like several voices speaking in unison through one fragile frame.
Alera found her words. "Who are you?"
The boy blinked. "I am Kael, son of prophecy. The flame that never burns. The frost that never melts."
Cayle muttered under his breath, "Lovely. We've got a poetic ice goblin now."
The boy's eyes flicked to him. "You bleed sarcasm, but I could stop that for you... permanently."
Cayle shut up.
Alera stepped forward. "You're the other heir."
"I am a heir," Kael corrected. "But not yours."
Kieran stepped between them. "What do you want?"
Kael's gaze lingered on Alera's stomach. "To meet my brother."
No one spoke.
Even the ruin around them seemed to hold its breath.
"I've dreamed of him," Kael said. "For years. Since before I could walk. I saw him in visions wrapped in blood and stars."
Alera's hand tightened protectively over her belly.
Kael continued, voice drifting like falling snow. "They tried to erase me. Hide me. But prophecy doesn't forget."
"And what do you plan to do now?" Kieran asked, stepping closer.
Kael looked up at him. "Protect him."
Alera's breath caught. "Protect...?"
Kael nodded. "From the ones who want to make him a god."
The room shifted.
Suddenly, Alera saw him not just as a strange magical child but as someone who had survived alone. Someone shaped by visions, secrets, and purpose.
But purpose could cut both ways.
"Why?" she asked.
Kael met her eyes. "Because if he ascends... I die."
They took shelter in the Hollow Hall's deepest chamber an untouched vault beneath the vault. It smelled of ancient scrolls, old spells, and time itself.
Kael wandered its halls with silent steps, fingers brushing along the edges of the runes like someone revisiting a childhood home.
Alera sat by the edge of a small fire, watching him.
Kieran paced.
Cayle wrapped his wounds and muttered curses about magical brats and suicidal queens.
"Explain," Alera finally said.
Kael turned. "The prophecy was never about one child. It was about balance. Light and dark. Fire and frost. Two heirs. One throne."
Kieran muttered, "The Ember Throne..."
Kael nodded. "The seat of the gods. The thing they built this war around."
"They think my son will awaken it," Alera said.
Kael nodded. "Because he can. And if he does, the throne will choose him. And I... vanish."
"Why?" she asked.
"Because only one heir may be real."
The silence that followed was bone-deep.
Alera stared into the fire.
She hadn't asked to carry destiny in her womb. She hadn't asked to raise a child the world would either worship or fear. And now another child cold, strange, and heartbreakingly lonely stood before her, begging to exist.
"I don't want the throne," Kael said. "I just want to live."
Alera looked at him.
So young.
So haunted.
"Then we find a way to break the prophecy," she said.
Kieran snapped his gaze toward her. "Alera"
She turned on him. "I'm done letting fate decide who dies and who rules. We end this."
But to break prophecy, they needed someone who had written it.
And there was only one person in the kingdom who could do that:
Valdrik.
The monk who had hidden Kael. The one who'd gone mad. The one said to be locked beneath the City of Saints.
And if the rumors were true... he was no longer human.
The journey there took two days.
They traveled by shadow paths narrow rifts between dimensions created by dead gods. Dangerous, but quick. Kael knew the paths. He walked them without fear.
Alera followed closely, never letting him drift far. She watched how he avoided sunlight. How his skin shimmered like frost under starlight. He wasn't evil. But he wasn't normal, either.
The last night, they made camp beneath a shattered bridge.
Kieran sat across from her in the dark.
"Do you trust him?" he asked.
"I don't trust anyone," she said. "Not even you."
He winced. "Fair."
"But I believe he's telling the truth."
Kieran was quiet a long moment. Then he said, "I saw the way you looked at him. Like he was yours."
Alera's eyes met his. "Maybe because no child should have to beg to exist."
The fire crackled.
Then Kieran whispered, "And ours?"
She didn't answer.
But the look she gave him said enough.
They reached the City of Saints at dawn.
It was no longer a city. Just bones and whispers.
At its heart lay the Crypt of Saints where mages, monks, and monsters were buried in the same breath.
Kael led them through the gates, past the statues of forgotten gods, down into the catacombs that reeked of old magic and even older guilt.
And there, at the bottom of it all, bound in chains made of sorrow and sealed with blood spells, was Valdrik.
Once human.
Now... not.
Reader's Note:
Can Valdrik be trusted to help them… or is he the final piece of prophecy's trap?
Leave a comment if you're enjoying the tension!
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Author's Note:
The story is shifting fast. Two heirs. One prophecy. And a monk who may be the key to rewriting fate or the reason they all fall.
Love where this is heading? Say so in the comments. Chapter 6 is on its way.