Chapter 13:: The Voice Beyond Flame
The surface wind was colder than Kael remembered.
They emerged from the Deep Holds sometime before dawn. The stone dais lifted them to the summit path, and the familiar sky above Aetherreach greeted them with a strange, indifferent silence. Nothing looked different. But everything had changed.
Kael carried the Key against his chest, its weight now constant, its warmth subtly shifting in response to his thoughts.
"You're sure it was a memory library?" Lira asked, breaking the quiet.
Kael nodded. "I didn't just see their lives. I felt them. The past Gateborn. Their pain. Their fury. Their fear."
"And the woman with my face?"
"She called for a sealing."
They walked in silence down the ridgeline, the Academy visible again in the distance. Still majestic, still ancient, still watching.
But Kael could feel it.
The Academy wasn't just observing. It was listening.
And something inside was waiting for him.
The Council summoned them the moment they returned.
Archmages from all nine circles gathered in the Argentum Hall. None smiled. None offered comfort.
"Kaelen Viren," the High Archmage of Flame began, "you've activated one of the Nine Keys. You've breached restricted boundaries. You've encountered echoes of Gateborn magic we had hoped would never stir again."
Kael didn't flinch. "You sent me below."
"Yes," another said. "But we didn't expect the Key to accept you."
Lira stepped forward. "What does that mean?"
Silence.
Then the Archmage of Stone finally spoke.
"It means Kael is not just marked. He is the Catalyst."
Gasps echoed through the chamber.
Kael felt Lira tense beside him.
"The Catalyst for what?" she asked, voice low.
No one answered.
That night, Kael stood alone in the Tower of Ashes. It was the oldest part of the Academy—sealed since the last war.
His mark glowed bright. The Key pulsed stronger than ever.
And then, a voice echoed through the walls.
Not from a person.
From the flame itself.
"Do you want to understand?"
Kael closed his eyes. "Yes."
The fire bent. Opened.
And a corridor unfolded in the wall—hidden behind layers of soot and spell.
He stepped in.
The corridor led to a chamber shaped like a star, its walls covered in murals of the cosmos. At the center floated a flame—black, silver, and gold.
The First Flame.
It pulsed with memory. It sang without sound.
Kael stepped close. His runes lit.
He saw visions:
— The world before the Accord.
— The birth of the Gates.
— The first Gateborn, binding themselves to cosmic flame.
He saw a war, terrible and bright.
He saw a betrayal.
And then, a voice from within the flame.
"You are the voice of the lost. The one who will reopen what must not be."
Kael staggered back.
The flame followed.
It wrapped around his arm, his chest—never burning, but reshaping.
And when he gasped, he spoke in a voice not his own:
"I remember."
Lira found him hours later, collapsed at the base of the Tower.
His eyes glowed faintly.
His pulse was fire.
She knelt beside him, voice tight. "Kael. What happened?"
He looked up at her. "The First Flame knows me. I… heard it."
She helped him up, trembling. "You heard it?"
He nodded. "It's not asleep. It never was."
Behind them, deep in the tower, the flame pulsed once more.
And the echoes of war returned to the world.
To Be Continued....