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In a storm-buried tomb beneath the shattered ruins of Ulen'Vaar, the sword called Oathfire began to glow again.
No hand had touched it in centuries. No voice had called it since the Fall of the Twelve Kings.
But tonight, it pulsed.
Not in rage. Not in vengeance.
But in longing.
It remembered the touch of two souls — one of flame, one of oath — who had once torn kingdoms apart just to protect each other.
And it waited.
---
Siyara slept under the boughs of a dying tree, the bark scorched black and carved with markings that only dreams could understand.
She twitched in her sleep.
In her vision, she stood in a grand hall of obsidian columns and firelit skies. Thousands bowed before her. Gold adorned her neck. Her eyes were rimmed in tears… and war paint.
She turned.
At her side stood a man — the prince with midnight hair and storm-colored eyes.
He knelt before her.
> "I swore it," he said, voice trembling, "I would follow you even if the heavens burned."
She reached for his cheek—
And then the dream shattered.
---
Siyara gasped awake.
Her heart raced.
She looked down at her palm — the Mark of Seyana was glowing, and beside it now, a faint shape of a sword.
> "What does it mean?" she whispered.
> "It means," Maari said softly from the shadows, "you're beginning to remember who you were."
---
Meanwhile, Rhaelor stood at the mouth of a forgotten cave.
The map he stole from the royal crypts had led him here — a ruin etched with flame symbols, half-buried beneath ash dunes and shattered bones.
Inside, the temperature dropped — even though the walls glowed faintly with heat.
And then he saw it.
The sword.
It floated in the air. Waiting.
Oathfire.
Rhaelor reached out.
And the moment his fingers brushed the hilt—
The sword screamed.
Not in sound — but in memory.
Visions slammed into him: a palace in flames, a girl with burning eyes, a battlefield where he had plunged the sword into her heart—
> "No!" he shouted, falling back.
The sword dropped.
But his wrist now bore a new mark — a circle of flame bound by thorns.
And behind him, the cave began to collapse.
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From the heavens above, a watcher in silver robes whispered to the wind:
> "So the past awakens… and the price must be paid once more."
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End of Chapter 11: The Blade That Remembers
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