The wind turned sharp as they crossed into Ithar.
No birds.No beasts.Only silence thick enough to choke on.Even the shadows here moved wrong—twisting like they were trying to crawl back into the earth.
Kael stood at the edge of a ravine carved into the spine of the world. It stretched as far as the eye could see, lined with jagged obsidian and veins of glowing runes. A pit not made by man, nor time.
"This is it," Vaerin said behind him. "The place where the gods were buried. Or slaughtered."
Kael nodded slowly.This wasn't just where the cult came to worship.
This was where it started.
The Bones of Divinity
The descent took hours. Each step down the crag felt like a challenge—gravity pulling harder than it should, air thick with static and forgotten prayers.
They found the first body half-buried in crystal.
A god. Or what was left of one.
Massive.Serene.Broken ribs like cathedral arches.Eyes stitched shut with gold.
Iris reached out toward its face, trembling.
"It looks… human."
"They always did," Vaerin muttered. "That was the lie."
Kael studied the corpse. It pulsed faintly—still alive in some way. And beneath it, he saw it:
A glyph, burned into the ground in a language older than the Old Tongue.He couldn't read it—but his blood responded to it.
"This is the same mark they carved into me," he whispered.
The Keeper of Graves
Deeper into the ravine, the stones turned blacker than night.
Then came the voice.
Not loud. Not a whisper.
Just… present.
"He comes at last. The Flame That Was Denied."
A figure emerged from the gloom, tall as two men, skin gray and carved with ash. He wore no armor. He needed none. His eyes burned blue. But behind them was a sorrow deeper than the grave.
"Who are you?" Kael asked, sword drawn.
"I am what remains," the man said. "The last of the Hollow Flame. I buried the gods. I whispered to the first cultist. I lit the fire that still eats your name."
Kael tensed. Iris stepped forward.
"What do you want?"
"To tell the truth before it's too late."
He gestured, and the ground beneath them split—not violently, but like pages opening in a book.
The History Beneath History
What they saw was not vision.It was memory.
Not theirs—but the land's.
Flashes of an age before time:
Gods walking among men, offering peace and protection.
A betrayal—a god slaying another in secret.
The world splitting, and fire rising from the wound.
Mortals who drank from that flame, thinking it would give them power.
And at the center of it all—a woman.
Kael's mother.
Her hands dripping with divine fire. Her eyes weeping blood.
"No…" he gasped.
"She was the first to reject them," the keeper said. "She broke the pact. Not to destroy the gods—but to make them answer for what they did."
"What did they do?"
"They abandoned us."
The Rebellion of Fire
Kael's mother had not been a cultist.
She had been a rebel. A warrior who had seen the truth—that the gods no longer protected humanity, only fed from it.
The flame was a gift stolen from them. She had tried to return it.
But power twisted. And those who followed her—twisted more.
Kael fell to his knees.
"She wasn't evil."
"She was first," said the Keeper. "And that is the most dangerous thing to be."
The flame in Kael's chest burned brighter.
He wasn't cursed.
He was chosen.
Not by the gods.
But by the one who tried to tear them down.
The Blood Debt
"Then why chase me?" Kael asked, rising. "Why mark me?"
"Because her blood still burns," the Keeper said. "And the gods fear a fire they can't control."
He stepped forward and pressed something into Kael's hand.
A shard of bone.
Carved with Kael's name.
"This is your proof. And your weapon."
"What is it?"
"The tooth of a dying god."
Kael felt it hum.
Alive.
The Path Ahead
They left the grave in silence, the weight of truth settling deep in their bones.
Outside, the world had changed again. Storm clouds spun like vortexes in the sky. The cult's sigil burned in the east.
"They know," Iris said quietly. "They felt the memory unlock."
"Let them come," Kael said, his voice like flint. "I'm done running from my blood."
He turned to Vaerin.
"We raise the others. We find the old allies. We don't wait for the storm."
"We become it," Vaerin finished with a grim smile.
And so they marched—toward the heart of a war that had started long before any of them were born.
And would end with Kael's name written in flame.