Chapter 13
The journey to the Temple began with silence.
Nezutsu, Velgrim, and Kaelith rode wind-touched cliffs along the Weeping Canyons — a passage cursed by time and sealed by forgotten prayers. Violet mist curled around their ankles with every step.
Kaelith glanced at Nezutsu. "You've changed."
"I don't feel different," he admitted. "Just… closer to something I've never met."
"You're starting to resonate," Velgrim murmured. "The Flame remembers itself, even if you don't."
They reached a hidden shrine carved into a floating monolith — a sanctuary of winged statues and broken incantations. Here, Kaelith pressed her hand to the shrine and whispered a forgotten dialect.
The stone shifted.
Revealing a scroll sealed in seven bloodrunes.
"This scroll," she said, "was meant only for the Ash Sovereign."
When Nezutsu touched it, the runes burned away without harming him.
The scroll unraveled.
Within it was not a spell… but a confession written by a long-dead god:
"The Flame is not born. It is broken. Shattered across realities to keep it from ever remembering itself. But if ever the shards reunite — if the Ash Sovereign returns — then even gods shall kneel to what they tried to forget."
Beneath the scroll was a name:
ASERA.
"That name… I know it," Nezutsu whispered.
"You should," said Kaelith, her voice soft. "Asera was your guardian. Your first flame. She died protecting your soul when the Council tried to erase you."
Nezutsu clenched the scroll.
"Then I will remember her. I will remember everything they tried to steal from me."
Far above them, the sky cracked slightly — as though the world itself had heard his vow.
And in the distance, something ancient stirred.