CHAPTER XII
The Gate of Cinders
The land of Ashkara did not welcome the dawn as other lands did. When the sun rose, it did not scatter the shadows, but set them aflame. Light caught upon broken glass, upon veins of obsidian and slag, and the world seemed to bleed fire where it should have shone with gold.
They traveled south for two days through ravines of black stone and plains where nothing grew but twisted, ash-gray thorns. The air shimmered with heat by day and fell to bitter cold by night, as though the land itself could not decide whether it still belonged to flame or to frost.
On the third dawn, they reached the place where the world had truly been torn open.
A vast chasm yawned before them, miles wide, its depths glowing with a dim, sullen red. Rivers of molten stone crawled along its floor like living things, and pillars of smoke rose slowly into the sky, coiling like the breath of buried giants. The ground at the edge was cracked into great hexagonal plates, each one etched with faint, ancient runes that pulsed like dying embers.
"The Sundering Rift," Lysa whispered. "Here the clash of Vorthraxx and Cryomor split the skin of the world. Here, the Realm of Cinders still touches our own."
As if in answer, the mark upon Alaric's chest flared, no longer merely warm, but burning, as though a second heart of fire had awakened beneath his ribs.
He stepped forward, drawn by a force older than thought.
At the very brink of the chasm stood an arch of blackened stone, half-buried in ash and glass. It was not carved by mortal hands. Its surface bore the flowing, angular script of dragonkind, each rune filled with a faint inner glow. At its center hung nothing—no door, no gate—only a curtain of heat-distorted air, within which shadows moved like slow, rising flames.
"The Gate of Cinders," Lysa said. "A threshold between what is and what was. Few can see it. Fewer still can open it."
Alaric felt the Covenant stir within him, like a memory struggling to surface.
"What must be done?" he asked.
Lysa looked at him gravely. "The gate will not answer to power alone. It was sealed by oath and blood. By dragonfire, and by the will of those who swore to keep the Crown from unworthy hands. It will open only to one who bears the Mark… and who is willing to offer something in return."
Edrin stepped forward, leaning heavily on his spear. "Every true gate demands a price," he said. "What will it take from you, my son?"
Alaric closed his eyes. Within the heat behind his breastbone, he felt not only fire, but memory—of his mother's voice, of ancient dragons, of vows spoken when the world was young.
"I will give what the Covenant asks," he said quietly. "Even if it is part of myself."
He placed his palm upon the obsidian arch.
Fire surged.
Not outward, but inward. The sigil upon his chest blazed like a newborn sun, and pain lanced through him, sharp and searing, as though invisible claws were tracing lines through his very soul.
A voice spoke—not the thunder of Pyraxis, nor the cold majesty of the Ancients, but something deeper, older, and woven from both flame and time.
Heir of Ember. Warden in the making.
To pass, you must bind yourself more fully to the First Covenant.
What you were, you shall no longer be entirely.
What you are, you shall never cease to become.
The air within the arch ignited into a curtain of living fire.
Will you carry the burden of memory?
Will you bear the grief of dragons and the guilt of kings?
Will you walk a path where every choice may unmake a world?
Alaric's teeth clenched. He thought of his father, wounded yet unbroken. Of Lysa, who had left the safety of towers and tomes to walk into fire and ice. Of a world that might soon burn beneath the wings of awakened gods.
"Yes," he said.
The flame surged through him.
For an instant, he was nowhere.
He saw the forging of the Crown: star-metal melting in dragonfire, cooled in the tears of Luminaryx. He saw the first kings kneel, not in submission, but in covenant. He saw Vorthraxx in his glory, not yet mad with dominion, and the moment when pride became hunger, and hunger became tyranny.
He felt the weight of ages press upon him—and then settle, like a mantle of invisible fire.
The pain receded.
The arch flared, and the air within it tore open like a veil.
Beyond lay another sky.
It was red and black, streaked with slow-moving clouds of ember and ash. The ground beyond was not stone, but glass and cinder, glowing faintly from heat trapped deep within. In the distance, jagged mountains rose like the teeth of some colossal beast, and at their heart, a single peak burned with inner light, a beacon of fire against the darkened heavens.
"The Realm of Cinders," Lysa breathed. "And the path to the Crown."
Alaric lowered his hand from the arch. The mark upon his chest had changed. Its lines were sharper now, more defined, and at its center burned a tiny, steady flame that did not flicker.
"The gate has taken its price," he said softly. "I can feel it. Part of me now belongs to the ancient fire… and part to the ancient law that binds it."
Edrin rested a hand on his shoulder. "Then you are no longer merely my son," he said. "You are becoming what the world needs you to be."
Beyond the gate, the air stirred, and from the distant burning mountain came a low, resonant call, like the echo of a dragon's heartbeat carried across a dead world.
Somewhere in the Realm of Cinders, something vast had become aware that the Warden of the Covenant had crossed the threshold.
And the Crown of Ash, long silent, had begun to call back.