The skies above Blackspire no longer wept rain.
They wept ash.
Storms rolled through the mountains, but lightning never touched the earth. It danced above the tower like a crown, held in place by ancient flame-binders buried deep beneath the stone.
The Ash King stood on his obsidian balcony, watching the clouds churn. The darkness had thickened, and the land responded in kind. Trees blackened, rivers boiled, and the sun barely pierced the smoke.
He exhaled slowly.
> "He's coming."
At his side, a massive construct stirred—three stories tall, wrought from bone-charred steel and fed with bottled flame-souls. Its chest cavity pulsed like a dying star.
> "Ready the Anathema," the Ash King commanded. "They march at dusk."
Below the tower, in the catacombs sealed since the First War, the vaults opened with a thunderous crack.
One by one, they woke.
The Anathema.
Seven in total. Once Awakened, now chained to the darkest forges ever built. Their faces were gone, replaced with scorched masks. Their bodies cracked with flame and rot. Each one bound to a different twisted relic of the flame—things even the Seers had deemed cursed.
They did not speak.
They only obeyed.
And they marched.
Far south, Kairo felt it.
Not with his eyes, or his ears—but through the tether that now bound him to the flame itself.
He saw visions again—only flickers.
The mountain splitting.
The tower screaming.
And a throne of fire turning black.
Rael approached, his armor newly reforged in the Cradle's forge-temple. "You felt it too?"
Kairo nodded. "The Ash King isn't waiting. He's building something. A weapon."
Sera looked up from the battle map. "What kind of weapon?"
"Not a thing," Kairo said quietly. "A who."
The Ember March moved north.
By the time they reached the edge of the Broken Vale, the land had warped. Birds no longer sang. Flame didn't flicker. The world watched them.
Their numbers had grown.
Flamebearers from all corners of the realm had joined—bands from Vael, firecallers from Drenmoor, even skyflame riders from the floating cities.
All united under a single banner.
Kairo's.
But even so, unease spread.
Every night, Awakened reported the same dream: a black gate in the sky… and something behind it, whispering.
Rael stood watch at the perimeter, eyes fixed on the horizon.
> "He's calling to us. Trying to pull us in."
Kairo shook his head. "Let him try."
> "We burn back."
They struck the outposts first—shattering the Ash King's scouting towers, severing supply chains, and freeing enslaved firekin along the way.
The Ember March became more than an army.
It became a movement.
But every victory was harder than the last.
The Reavers fought more fiercely now. Their fire had changed—less chaotic, more focused. Kairo saw signs of a central command shaping them, refining them.
And then came the first Anathema.
It struck at dusk.
Without warning, it dropped into their midst—armor like molten obsidian, wielding a hammer the size of a forge.
Half the camp scattered before it even moved.
Rael and Sera hit it first—twin strikes of gold and blue flame, slicing deep.
It didn't even flinch.
Virella screamed a warning, but Kairo was already in the air, flame wings flaring wide. He struck from above, both blades drawn, channeling the First Pyre into a single, searing arc.
The Anathema staggered.
But only once.
Its hammer came down—and cracked the ground beneath them like glass.
The fight raged for nearly an hour.
In the end, it took all of them.
Rael shattered its mask with a strike fueled by pure grief. Sera ignited its internal siphon with a precision blast. And Kairo—his body burning, his mind flickering at the edge of collapse—drove the final flame into its heart.
The Anathema exploded in a pillar of light.
When the smoke cleared, silence fell.
They had won.
But barely.
Later that night, Kairo sat alone by the dying fire. The weight of the future pressed like stone against his spine.
His mother's voice returned, faint.
> "To unmake the King, you must understand his end was once your beginning."
He clenched his fists.
> "I am not him."
The flame around him pulsed.
And for the first time in days…
…it pulsed back.