The blade whispered to him.
As Kael held Ashbreaker, its voice was not words—but sensation. Heat. Memory. Resolve.
It whispered of kings and monsters. Of fire that did not purify, but chose.
"Only the broken can wield me," it murmured in his mind.
"Only those who burn with purpose."
Kael clenched the hilt tighter. His veins still glowed faintly from the ignition of the Third Flame. The tomb behind him crumbled slowly, the ancient runes no longer able to hold it together.
"We need to move," Veyra said, eyes scanning the cave's entrance. "The Veil has noticed."
Ezren nodded. "We don't have much time. Lucen will feel the blade. He'll come."
He was already coming.
Night fell hard as they fled the tomb and crossed the Ashen Vale.
The stars above had turned red.
It wasn't fire—it was the Bleeding, a sky omen said to herald the return of the Forgotten Kings. Only once in ten thousand years had it been recorded.
And this time, it bled for Kael.
They made camp deep in the crevasse of Eldfang Hollow, hiding beneath stone overhangs while the winds howled like beasts.
Seraphine sat close to Kael, who hadn't spoken since taking the blade. She placed her hand on his. "Are you still you?"
He turned to her slowly. "No. And yes."
She smiled faintly. "Then I'll love both."
Kael's hand tightened around hers.
But before he could speak, they came.
The wind died.
Then came the silence—the kind that pressed against the chest like iron. The kind that only meant death was listening.
From the darkness, The Eclipsed emerged.
Assassins cloaked in smoke and bone, their eyes blindfolded with ash-stained silk. Silent. Swift. Bound by death oaths to Lucen.
There were six of them.
And the air around them froze.
"Down!" Veyra shouted, just as a dagger laced with voidsteel buried itself in the stone beside Kael's head.
Ezren was already in motion, sword glowing with protective runes.
The fight was chaos wrapped in silence.
Seraphine loosed arrows of sunfire—three hit true, but the Eclipsed didn't bleed red. Their veins pulsed with ink-black flame, a mockery of Kael's own.
One assassin vanished into shadow and reappeared behind Kael—only to be met with Ashbreaker, its blade cutting through shadow like dawn.
Screams echoed—not from mouths, but from souls.
Kael moved like the flame itself.
Ashbreaker sang in arcs of molten light. Where it cut, the world bent.
Two Eclipsed fell—dissolving into ash and bone. But one remained—a woman draped in a veil of teeth, her daggers humming with cursed hymns.
She spoke only one word as she struck:
"Prophet."
Her blade grazed Kael's cheek—and suddenly, he saw visions.
The Veil. Torn.
Cities burning.
Lucen, wearing a crown of flame and thorns, his hand on a chained, screaming star.
A voice rang out across time and fate:
"When the Flame of Three is lit, and the Lock is broken,
The World will Unravel.
One will rise to burn it all.
And one… to stop him."
The image of two boys—Kael and Lucen—standing on opposite ends of a broken bridge.
Below them: a sleeping god.
Kael's blade flared—and the Eclipsed woman disintegrated in a scream of dust.
He dropped to his knees, panting.
Ezren caught him. "Kael!"
Kael's eyes were wild. "It's not just about the Veil. It's what's behind it."
Seraphine knelt beside him. "What did you see?"
He looked at them, eyes glowing with all three flames.
"Lucen doesn't want to rule. He wants to wake it."
Ezren went still. "Wake what?"
Kael rose slowly, jaw set.
"The god that was locked behind the Veil when the worlds were first torn apart. The one even the First Flame feared."
Veyra's expression darkened. "The Hollowed Flame. The Fire That Consumes."
A silence fell.
Then Kael spoke again, low and certain.
"The prophecy… it's not about me unlocking the Veil. It's about me stopping him. I'm the heir of the Lock—
but I'm also the last wall before the world burns."
Far away, Lucen stood atop a dark tower in Velkaris, his blade hovering above a chained seer's throat.
She gasped, her eyes milky with visions.
"The boy knows," she whispered.
Lucen leaned close. "Then the time has come."
He plunged the blade into her heart.
The city bells tolled with no wind.
And the skies turned a deeper red.
Back in the Hollow, Kael looked to the stars.
They no longer shimmered with light.
They watched.
And Ashbreaker burnell brighter than ever.
The Flame of Three was awakened.
The war of gods and kings had begun.