The forest was hushed beneath morning's first breath, wrapped in a gray mist that clung to the earth like memory. Dew dripped from the canopy, falling in slow droplets that kissed the mossy ground, and the fire Kael had tended through the night smoldered low, throwing only faint heat.
Seris lay curled in his cloak, her hair scattered like ink across her cheek, the rise and fall of her breath a soft rhythm against the silence.
Kael sat nearby, sharpening a broken blade he'd scavenged from the ruins, its edge was chipped, but still useful, watching her between strokes of the whetstone, eyes lingering on the softness she rarely allowed herself. The mask of command had slipped away sometime in the night. He couldn't help but admire her beauty and her peaceful sleeping face in the midst of chaos and ruins.
He leaned in, kissing her cheeks while tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, admiringly. What remained was not weakness. His heart full of happiness to have found her, and she remembers, the only one he long for and live for. He swore in his heart to make those who made her suffer and separated them pay for it a thousandfold.
When she stirred, Kael didn't speak, only meeting her gaze when she opened her eyes.
"Still alive," Seris murmured, her voice husky with sleep.
"Barely," he replied, offering her a dry strip of smoked meat. "But you snore like a dying boar."
She snorted, sitting up and pulling the cloak tighter. "Liar. I've heard you snore. Like a mountain collapsing."
They shared a tired smile. And for a fleeting moment, the weight of the world lifted.
Seris chewed quietly, her eyes on the dying fire. "What do we do now, Kael? After last night… after what we saw?"
He didn't answer immediately. The Vale still hummed with unseen voices. The fire had stirred something ancient, ghosts of the fallen who now lived within them, bound by blood and memory.
"We can't go back," he said finally. "But we can go forward."
She looked at him, brow furrowed. "Toward what? Vengeance?"
"Maybe, or something more."
He reached into the satchel at his side and pulled out the folded cloth that held the silver circlet she had reclaimed. He handed it to her, reverently.
"You're the heir, Seris, to something more than a broken throne. You saw them kneeling together, your kin and mine, Maybe the Hall of Accord wasn't just a relic. Maybe it was a promise we're meant to keep. We shall gain back all that is lost, and restore our kingdom, and make them pay for what they did to you."
Kael felt a pang of pain and heartache just thinking of what, Seris, his love, might have gone through, "I will make them pay" he more to himself.
Seris held the circlet in her hands, fingers trailing the ancient filigree. Her lips parted, but no words came.
"I don't know how," she whispered at last. "We don't have soldiers, no banners, no names worth fear anymore."
"We have each other," Kael said, his voice was quiet, and steady." And we have their memory."
She set the circlet aside gently and leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees, face hidden behind her hands. "I don't know if I'm strong enough."
Kael moved beside her. His hand hovered for a moment before it settled on her back, light, grounding. "You don't have to be, I'm here for you." he said hugging her tightly as if to absorb her pain.
"She turned to him, tears tracing down her cheeks, unhidden and unashamed. 'Why?' she asked, voice cracking. 'Why do you still believe in me, after everything?'"
Kael's answer was soft. "Because even when I hated you… I never stopped wanting you to live."
Not with words, with her forehead pressed to his, with her breath against his skin.
"I dreamed of you," she said. "Before we ever met. And I hated myself for it."
"So did I," he murmured. "But maybe that's the truth buried beneath it all. That even across lifetimes… we were never meant to fight."
Her fingers found his, their hands clasped.
By midday, the mist had lifted, revealing a sliver of blue sky overhead. They walked in silence through the twisting paths of the Vale, guided by instinct more than memory.
Kael carried a spear made from a fallen branch and scavenged blade. Seris had strapped the circlet beneath her cloak, hidden from sight but close to her heart.
As they climbed a ridge overlooking the northern edge of the Vale, Kael paused. "Do you feel it?"
Seris nodded.
A wrongness in the air, subtle, like the tension before a storm.
"We're being watched," she whispered.
Kael's eyes scanned the trees but nothing stirred, only stillness.
They descended slowly, weapons drawn. But the path remained empty. Until they reached the clearing.
At its center stood a stone spire, crumbled and moss-covered, etched with runes older than the language of men. Around it, the ground had been disturbed, freshly dug earth, scattered feathers, and bones broken by force.
"Kael," Seris breathed. "This wasn't here yesterday."
Kael knelt, touching the edge of a footprint, clawed and deep. "Something hunts here."
A soft rustle came from the trees, then a whisper, in the air itself.
"They wake…"
Seris grabbed his arm. "We have to move."
But the moment she turned, the clearing shifted.
Shadows spilled from the base of the spire.Smoke shaped like grief, like wrath.
Kael shoved her back just as it lunged.
The spear met the thing midair, passed through it and the shadow screamed.
Seris drew the dagger from her boot, slashing through the mist. It recoiled, then swelled.
And then:
A flare of light burst from Seris's chest, the circlet beneath her cloak glowing with fierce, silver fire, causing the shadow shrieked, retreating like ash on the wind.
Then silence returned.
Kael pulled her close, worried "You, what did you do?"
"I don't know," Seris gasped. "It burned through me, like it knew."
"Are you okay?" He asked while searching for any sing of injury in her, he couldn't bear the thought of her getting injured again.
"Relax, I'm okay, if anything more than okay, it seems like the circlet has some kind of protection." She said, teasingly "Still overprotective, huh?" She couldn't help but let out a smile. She loved it when he protects her like this.
He looked at the circlet, now dull again.
"They left us more than memory," he said. "They left power and pieces of themselves."
Seris gripped his hand. "Then we use it."
Kael nodded, his voice low and fierce. "To find the others, raise what's left and burn what stands in our way."
And the Vale, quiet no longer, whispered in answer.
"Then rise… children of ash."