Kaelen stepped over the broken threshold of the Hollow Crown as if crossing into memory.
The fortress loomed before him, half-swallowed by time. Ivy curled through split flagstones. Cracked statues of forgotten kings wept moss from their eyes. What remained of the great hall rose like a carcass of stone ribs — skeletal towers gnawed hollow by centuries of rain and fire. And yet, something ancient stirred beneath it all. A presence in the air, heavy and waiting.
Aelric moved beside him, slower than usual. Cautious. Reverent.
"The last Flameborn king, Edric the Emberforged, fell here," Aelric murmured. "Legends say his body burned for nine days. That his soul walked the halls even after the walls had crumbled."
"Was he one of us?" Kaelen asked. "One of the... marked?"
Aelric gave a slow nod. "He bore the Ember. And he died protecting it."
Kaelen touched the crystal at his chest, still wrapped in linen. It pulsed faintly, warm and quiet, as if listening.
They walked in silence, their footsteps echoing through the ruined corridors. Banners long rotted still clung to the walls in threads. Blackened murals stretched across the ceiling — warriors with swords of light, dragons caught in stormfire, stars falling like spears.
At the heart of the keep lay the throne chamber. Or what remained of it.
The seat itself was gone — shattered into a hundred shards. But the dais still stood, carved from obsidian veined with gold. In the center, a cracked circle marked the floor. Around it, five scorched indentations glowed faintly.
Aelric knelt to touch one. His eyes narrowed. "These aren't just scorch marks. This was a seal."
Kaelen stared. "A seal for what?"
A voice answered from the shadows.
"For what comes after kings forget they were ever human."
They turned.
A woman stepped from behind a collapsed archway, her cloak dark as dusk, her face obscured by a silver mask shaped like a mourning sun. Her boots made no sound on the stone, and her presence rippled like heat off scorched metal.
Aelric stood slowly, hand brushing his sword hilt. "Who the hell are you?"
"I am called Serith," she said. "Last Warden of the Hollow Crown. Keeper of the Flame's memory."
Kaelen frowned. "You were waiting for us?"
"I was waiting for him," she said, looking at Kaelen. "The heir with fire in his blood and ashes in his name."
"How do you know I'm him?"
"The Ember doesn't lie. It burns falsehood to dust."
Kaelen's voice was rough. "Then tell me what it wants. What I'm supposed to be."
Serith stepped closer, her voice low and hard. "The Ember does not want. It remembers. And remembering is dangerous in an age that profits from forgetting."
She extended a gloved hand toward the shattered dais. "This was once the Flamebound Circle — where the Five Vessels gathered to bind the Ember's power into the realm. Each one chosen. Each one blood-sworn."
Aelric raised an eyebrow. "Five? And let me guess — four of them betrayed the fifth."
Serith's tone was unreadable. "Only one did. And the betrayal sundered the world."
Kaelen stepped onto the circle. The Ember flared against his chest — not with pain, but resonance. As if the stones remembered him.
Serith watched. "The Ember's memory is older than kingdoms. Older than gods. It chooses champions not for what they are, but what they may become. It chose you, Kaelen of Thornmere."
Kaelen's hands clenched. "I didn't ask for any of this."
"No one ever does," Serith said gently. "But destiny is not a crown. It is a blade. You can wield it — or be cut by it."
Aelric stepped forward. "And what exactly are we meant to do with this... circle? Wake up some ancient fire god and hope for the best?"
Serith tilted her head. "The circle is broken. But not dead. To mend it, the vessels must be found again. The Ember must be restored in balance — or the world will fall to the Void."
Kaelen's breath caught. "The Void? From the visions?"
"Yes," she said. "The thing without flame. The hunger that waits beneath all endings. It stirs again."
A wind swept through the ruined chamber, sending dust spinning in tight spirals. Kaelen felt the weight of a thousand years settle on his shoulders. The Ember pulsed again — faster now, like a heart in flight.
Aelric muttered, "So let me get this straight. We need to track down four long-lost magical vessels, restore a broken ancient seal, stop a void entity from devouring existence, and somehow not get murdered by Maevor's death squads along the way."
Kaelen looked at him. "Sounds about right."
Aelric groaned. "We're so doomed."
But Kaelen was already stepping down from the dais. He looked at Serith. "Where do we start?"
She pointed northeast, beyond the distant mountains.
"In the shattered city of Aerthalas. Where the wind still sings of lightning and betrayal."
Kaelen nodded slowly. "Then that's where we go."
He turned to Aelric. "You with me?"
The mercenary sighed. "Until we both burn."
Serith watched them go, her silver mask catching the morning light as they vanished into the mist. When the wind died, she whispered to the empty chamber:
"Let the flame rise again."