Two nights after the battle, the skies themselves turned against them.
A column of black fire erupted on the distant horizon, twisting upward like a wound torn through the heavens. The earth shuddered beneath their feet, and even from miles away, the companions felt the oppressive weight of the aura it unleashed.
Lyra froze at the treeline, her bow half-raised. "That's no Veilspawn. That's something worse."
Isryn's face paled. She whispered words that clung to the air like frost. "The Ashen Crown has been invoked… the signal of a Sovereign's return."
Kael's head lifted sharply, crimson eyes narrowing at the spiraling inferno. The Mark burned against his chest, resonating, as if recognizing the challenge. Ashrend hummed faintly across his back, the edge trembling like a beast eager to taste blood.
Darric gritted his teeth, knuckles white around his sword hilt. "So much for breathing room." He turned toward Kael. "What's the call? We chase this storm head-on, or circle wide and regroup?"
Kael stepped forward, his expression cut from stone. "If that's a Sovereign, then this isn't just a storm. It's a blade aimed at everything we've bled for. We can't circle wide." His gaze hardened. "We move. Now."
The companions didn't question him. They fell in line.
The march was swift, each step dragging them deeper into the radiance of power that threatened to crush the air from their lungs. Villages along the way lay deserted, doors hanging open, hearths still smoldering as though abandoned in a single heartbeat. Tracks in the dirt showed hurried flight—but also claw marks, gouges too deep for any mortal beast.
Lyra's keen eyes caught movement in the shadows: small Veil-forged creatures, twisted scouts of the greater host. She loosed arrows silently, never missing, each corpse dissolving to ash before it touched the ground.
Isryn muttered protections as they walked, the symbols weaving faint light across their skin, holding back the suffocating aura. "This… isn't just a Sovereign stirring. There's ritual here. Something binding. Something waking."
Kael felt it too. The Sovereign courts were no longer content to watch. They were moving pieces across the board—and the board was the world itself.
By the third night, they reached the valley of fire.
What they saw silenced even Darric's battle-hardened tongue.
At the valley's heart stood a colossal throne of obsidian and bone, half-buried in molten stone. Upon it sat not a man, but a figure clad in jagged armor, its face hidden beneath a mask split by glowing cracks. Chains of flame coiled around its form, binding it to the throne—yet already Kael felt the restraints weakening.
"The Sovereign of Cinders," Isryn whispered, horror etched into every syllable. "He was supposed to be sealed. Forever."
The figure stirred. One hand rose, snapping a chain that had held for centuries. Sparks ignited the valley floor, rivers of molten flame spilling outward. Its voice rumbled like an earthquake, echoing through every bone in their bodies.
"Crimson Mark… You dare walk into my awakening."
Kael stepped forward, Ashrend sliding free in a hiss of steel. The red glow of the Mark surged across his body, his aura sharpening like a blade.
"You'll fall back into the ash you crawled from," Kael said, his voice low, steady, and merciless.
The Sovereign of Cinders stood, shattering three more chains, and the valley itself caught fire.
The companions drew close around Kael. Lyra's bow blazed with runic fire, Darric's sword gleamed with defiance, Isryn's spells wrapped them in light.