The Eastern Skies of Vhal'Tor had not known fire in an age. Once a realm of crystal winds and floating sanctuaries, its people lived in eternal daylight, untouched by storms, guarded by the floating Citadel of Radiant Accord. They believed themselves immune to fate. Chosen.
But that illusion shattered the moment the sky burned twice.
The first burn was prophecy.
The second was Zeirion.
His arrival was not heralded by horn or hymn, but by a fracture in the clouds—a clean cut across the heavens, as though reality itself recoiled. His form descended
not like a conqueror, but like judgment. Aralya descended beside him, her robes flowing like woven moonlight, her gaze colder than the citadel's highest peaks.
Below, the Accord's High Sentries scrambled in silence, their command rings glowing as they activated skyward defenses forged by solar arcanists long dead. Dozens of divine spears spiraled into position, their tips humming with antimatter light.
"Identify yourselves!" rang out across the chasmic distance between them.
Aralya said nothing.
Zeirion raised a single hand.
The entire fleet of sky spears powered down at once, their lights flickering like candle flames crushed beneath a storm.
Within the Citadel's highest chamber, the Twelve Radiant Choir—the ruling pantheon of the Accord—gathered, their expressions fractured with fear.
"He's not supposed to be alive," whispered Vaelis, Lord of Dawn. "He died. The Eclipsion Blade was entombed."
"He lives," answered another. "And the blade has sung again."
They sent a herald. A boy no older than twelve, gifted in memory-speech and illusioncraft. His knees buckled before Zeirion, the sheer pressure of proximity wracking his bones with truth he could not endure.
Aralya knelt to steady the boy. "Speak. Without fear."
The boy opened his mouth—but Zeirion already knew the message.
"They fear what I will take," he said.
"They do not understand what you seek to protect," Aralya replied.
Zeirion's gaze fell upon the Citadel high above, pulsing with panic behind its gleaming glass sanctity. "They built peace atop bones and called it grace. They speak of harmony, but they silenced dissent. I will not let this age become the last."
A moment later, they stood in the heart of the Citadel. No door had opened. No path had been walked. They were simply… there.
The Radiant Choir rose in panic, their glamour shifting like a thousand mirrors cracking. Vaelis stepped forward, draped in
robes of singing flame.
"You have no authority here," he declared.
Zeirion didn't answer.
He moved one finger—and all the illusions fell. The gods beneath the masks were not divine. They were aged, frightened, hollowed by centuries of soft power and untouchable privilege.
"I will not unmake your world," Zeirion said.
"But I will expose it."
With that, a wave of remembrance washed over the Citadel. Forgotten crimes, erased cities, sealed atrocities—all reawakened. The people of Vhal'Tor screamed, not in pain, but in knowing. A flood of history they had been denied now returned, and the truth bled like wildfire through every heart.
The Choir collapsed. Some wept. Some vanished. One screamed until he became ash.
Zeirion turned to leave.
Aralya walked beside him, eyes misted with memory.
"Will they recover?" she asked softly.
"No," Zeirion said. "But they will remember."
As the Citadel cracked, not from destruction, but from awareness, the sky shimmered. Not from fire.
But from light.
The Second Fire was not annihilation.
It was truth.