The sky was the color of faded parchment, torn and stitched by veins of black light.
Kaelen walked alone.
Beneath his boots, the ground crumbled like scorched paper — ash that glowed faintly, as if remembering fire. His breath misted, though the air was neither cold nor warm. Time felt distant, like a name forgotten in a dream.
He looked down. There were no footprints behind him.
Only silence.
And yet he heard them — the others. Voices dulled by the weight of distance, or memory, or something deeper. He heard Seralyn call his name once, softly. Then Alaric's sharp laugh. Maeve whispering her old ward-songs. Rhess praying, always praying.
But when he turned, no one stood there.
A throne rose in the distance.
Not of skulls — not here — but of light and shadow twisted together, flickering like a mirage. He stepped toward it.
Each footfall echoed with strange delay.
He did not know how long he walked. The world shifted, looping around itself. Great roots pierced the horizon. Ash fell from a black sun. At the corners of his vision, shapes stirred — not quite gods, not quite men.
Kaelen did not question it.
He simply moved forward.
Then — her voice.
Seralyn?
No.
It was older. Wounded. Wrapped in mourning.
"You have seen his face," it said. "And yet you do not know him."
Kaelen froze.
A figure stood ahead — robed in white, veiled in gold flame. He could not see its face, but the scent of wildflowers clung to it, wrong amid the ash.
"Who are you?" he asked, though he wasn't sure he spoke aloud.
"One who remembers."
The figure stepped aside.
Behind it, a mirror stood where the throne had been.
Kaelen approached.
Within the mirror, he saw himself — not as he was, but as a child. Then a man. Then broken. Then standing at the edge of a battlefield with a black sword in his hand.
He blinked.
The sword was not his.
It was Nox Obscura.
He turned from the mirror. The figure was gone.
Only the ash remained — and the whisper of a prophecy half-spoken.
"Two shall stand before the throne of night... and one shall kneel."
The words rang hollow.
Incomplete.
Wrong.
He pressed his hand to his chest. His heart beat slow, distant.
Where are the others?Where am I?
The sky cracked.
And Kaelen woke — gasping — in the dark of a quiet chamber in Vaelgard, surrounded by the sleeping forms of his companions.
The dream clung to him like smoke.
But something in his bones knew:
It had not been a dream.
A/N- So I thought about continuing with this story giving more spotlight to the "Heroes" of this story. Tell me if you like it.