The city of **Cindervale** rose like a wound stitched into the earth.
From a distance, it looked like a fortress carved from molten glass — towers spearing the sky, each tipped with flame-shaped crowns. The outer walls pulsed with heat runes, their barriers designed to burn intruders alive. At the center, high above, loomed the **Imperial Citadel**, where the Ember Corps was headquartered, and where the First Flame itself was said to sleep.
Kye watched the city from a ridge, his cloak damp from morning mist.
He had avoided the roads, the guards, and the watchers from the high cliffs. Now, he stood at the final threshold between **truth** and **war**.
The blade—**Vireon's Breath**—was strapped along his back, tightly wrapped in scorched silk, disguised as a travel staff. The Witchfire within him hummed in quiet warning.
He was returning to a home that might already be preparing to kill him.
---
Kye didn't walk through the front gate.
He walked into the city like a ghost.
Disguised as a traveling chronicler—hood drawn low, his face shadowed by magical veilcloth Maerin had given him—he slipped into Cindervale's lower districts unnoticed. He wore no uniform. No badge. He carried fake scrolls and a crafted emblem bearing the sigil of the **Librarium**, a minor faction often ignored by the Ember Corps' inner circles.
The guards barely looked at him.
But as he passed through the gates, he felt the **difference**.
Cindervale had always been alive—loud, fiery, sharp with ambition. But now… something was wrong.
People moved faster.
Shops closed earlier.
Guards walked in pairs and whispered more than they barked.
And most notably—
**Ash smoke lingered in the air**, even though no chimneys burned.
Kye's fingers twitched beneath his cloak.
The Ash Circle was already here.
---
By noon, he reached the Scholar's Tower—an archive of training records, family histories, and old battle reports.
He gave a false name.
They didn't ask questions.
He was shown to a private corner, told to work quietly, and left alone.
As soon as the door clicked shut, he activated the silencing spell Maerin had etched into the page margins of his journal. The ward buzzed briefly, then wrapped the room in a bubble of privacy.
Kye pulled out a worn roster from three years ago.
The day Kael died.
He scanned the names.
Then another page.
Then another.
He wasn't looking for records.
He was looking for **someone who shouldn't be there**.
That's when he found it.
> **Name:** Eldran Voss
> **Rank:** Special Operations – Corps Ghost Division
> **Deployment:** Classified
> **Note:** Transferred three weeks *after* Kael's death… but listed in Kael's final unit.
Kye frowned.
He flipped through the pages again.
Eldran's name wasn't in the battlefield logs.
But it appeared in multiple post-war assessments.
Kye underlined the name.
And just as he leaned back—
The door **creaked**.
He froze.
The silencing spell remained active.
So whoever opened the door wasn't a clerk.
A blade gleamed.
Kye ducked—
A **throwing needle** embedded itself in the wall behind him.
He spun—
The figure in the doorway wore a **mask of black glass**, face featureless except for a single red dot over the left eye.
Ash Circle.
Kye didn't hesitate.
His fingers flared with Witchfire, and he **punched the air**.
A burst of flame **launched the desk forward**, slamming the assassin into the hall.
The man didn't cry out.
Didn't even grunt.
Just rolled backward and vanished into the shadows.
Kye leapt over the burning wreckage, crashing through the smoke—
But the hallway was **empty**.
Only a single **feather** remained.
Burnt.
Twisted.
And marked with the same cracked-crown sigil he'd seen in Maerin's visions.
---
Kye didn't return to the Ember barracks that night.
Instead, he made contact with his **only ally left in the capital**—someone he'd hoped he'd never have to trust again:
> **Lieutenant Renna Vale.**
She found him in a half-burned temple on the city's edge, dressed in a civilian cloak with her Corps badge hidden beneath her shirt.
Renna hadn't changed much.
Still sharp-jawed, with the same braid down her back and boots that echoed louder than her voice.
She walked into the ruins like she'd been expected.
"You're lucky I recognized your handwriting," she said.
"I'm lucky you didn't turn me in," Kye answered.
She raised an eyebrow. "Don't give me credit yet."
They sat in silence for a moment.
Then Kye slid a slip of parchment across the floor—**Eldran Voss** scrawled on it.
Renna read it.
Her expression didn't change.
But her shoulders tensed.
"He's real?"
"He was in Kael's unit. Post-war. Shouldn't have been."
She folded the paper. "I've heard whispers. Missions that didn't exist. Soldiers listed as 'burned' in reports with no bodies. I thought they were just rumors."
Kye looked at her.
"They're not."
Renna leaned forward. "What do you need?"
Kye didn't answer right away.
He reached behind him.
Unwrapped the first layer of silk.
Renna's eyes widened.
"You brought *it* here?"
"I didn't have a choice," he said. "The Ash Circle is in the Corps. Maybe in the **High Flame Council** itself. I need to know who's clean."
"And if they're not?"
Kye stared at her.
"I'll burn them out."
---
Back inside the Citadel's eastern wing, **someone watched** the flames flicker in a basin of red-glass.
The mirror showed Kye speaking with Renna.
It even caught a glimpse of the sword.
A low voice whispered from behind the mirror:
"Prepare the Ashborn. Seal the second gate."
Another voice asked, "What of the boy?"
The watcher chuckled darkly.
"Let him dig. The deeper he goes…"
> "The closer he comes to the truth that will **break** him."