Rhena's Warning
The air around Kael was still.
Too still.
Rhena didn't move any closer. Her boots stopped inches from the edge of the crater's core, where the soil still pulsed like molten glass.
"You shouldn't be here," she said.
Kael's voice was lower than she remembered. Rougher. Like it had cracked and burned and healed wrong.
"I needed to see if I still existed."
"And?"
He looked at her—not just at her, but through her.
"I do."
Rhena crossed her arms. "Then come home."
Kael turned away.
"No."
The Whispering Blades
The Darksword was not silent anymore.
It hummed.
Kael had reforged it, yes—but it hadn't just returned. It had changed. And in that change, something new had entered it.
Memories it shouldn't have. Voices it had never known.
Souls.
He heard them at night. In the silence. In the ash. Not like whispers—but like thoughts not his own.
One of them kept repeating:
"Blood answers blood. The sword remembers."
Kael gritted his teeth.
He hadn't told Rhena. He wouldn't.
She had enough fire of her own.
The Black Herald
Far across the Scorchveil Ridge, the stars began to vanish.
One by one.
As if swallowed.
Then came the Herald.
A rider cloaked in wind and glass. A creature of broken time and molten eyes. Where it passed, the earth withered. Rivers ran backward. Villages forgot their own names.
It didn't ride to the capital.
It unraveled its way there.
And when it reached the outer gate, the guards dropped dead.
No wounds.
Just... stopped breathing.
As if something had stolen the concept of life.
Then the gate opened on its own.
And the Herald stepped inside.
Council in Ruin
"They will blame you," Rhena said.
Kael shrugged. "They already do."
"They will fear you."
"Then they should have crowned someone else."
"They did," she said. Her voice was like steel dipped in grief. "Me."
He paused.
Finally turned to look at her.
"You didn't want it."
"I didn't want this."
Kael closed his eyes. The wind was rising again—strange and sharp, with the scent of copper in the air.
"What did you want, Rhena?"
She didn't answer.
Because the truth was—
She had no idea anymore.
The First Fireling
From the ashes of the Deadspire came a child.
Barefoot. Eyes glowing faint orange. Skin pale as salt.
He didn't cry.
He walked.
And wherever he stepped, the ground smoldered.
The farmers who found him tried to help. Tried to speak.
He stared at them, blankly. Then pointed at the sun.
"The sword remembers," he said.
Then his hands burst into flame—and he vanished.
By the end of the day, five more like him had appeared in the north.
And in the east?
A tree caught fire.
And laughed.
The Oracle Breaks
There were only three living Oracles left in the Known Lands.
Now there were two.
The last vision had shattered the third's mind like glass.
She'd seen a city burning—not by war, not by gods—but by Kael. But it wasn't him anymore. Not fully.
It was something in him.
The Darksword's storm.
She saw fire with no warmth. Light with no mercy. And a voice like Kael's, screaming something he didn't understand:
"I didn't ask for this!"
The Oracle wrote the word VINDICATION in her own blood before her heart gave out.
The others were silent for days.
Kael's Storm
It started at midnight.
Clouds spiraled over the crater, even though the sky was clear.
Wind rose—not from the north, or west, or south—but from beneath the earth.
And lightning struck with black light.
Kael stood at the center.
He wasn't summoning it.
He was fighting it.
The Darksword thrummed in his grip, eager to strike something—anything. It glowed with every thought he refused to speak aloud.
Rhena tried to enter the storm wall.
It threw her back thirty feet.
She hit a boulder hard, winded, but got up.
Because Kael was screaming.
And it wasn't a scream of rage.
It was fear.
The Oath of the Fireborn
Aureon had returned.
He stood at the edge of the Vale, cloak shredded, mouth dry from travel.
He watched the storm. Felt it in his bones.
"This is no longer prophecy," he muttered. "It's legacy."
At his feet, the Flameborn gathered.
Not in war formation.
But in prayer.
Each held a torch. Each knelt.
Their faces were solemn. Proud. Terrified.
Then Aureon raised his blade—not Kael's, not the Darksword, but his own flame-tempered steel.
"Kael Fireborne," he declared, "we follow not your name, but your struggle. Let it become ours."
Thousands echoed him.
The torches burned brighter.
Rhena's Second Flame
The mark on Rhena's collarbone burst into light again.
She screamed.
Not because it hurt.
Because it called.
It wanted her to step into the storm.
To take Kael's hand.
To bear the blade.
Not as his sister.
But as his equal.
She stumbled forward.
The storm parted around her like curtains of heat and wind.
Kael fell to his knees, struggling to control the sword.
She grabbed it with him.
Their hands overlapped.
And the storm...
Obeyed.
The Choice
"Let it break me," Kael whispered.
Rhena didn't flinch.
"No."
"I can't hold it."
"You're not supposed to."
"Then who—?"
"We are," she said.
The Darksword pulsed.
Two souls.
One storm.
And the blade changed shape again—splitting into two curved swords, fire-forged, soul-tied.
Brother and sister.
Dark and light.
Not wielders.
But anchors.
They rose together.
The crater shook.
The sky cleared.
And across the continent, every fire flickered once—
—as if bowing.