The wind rolled through the red hills of Emberfall, carrying the scent of pine and hearth smoke down into the Ashveil valley. Kieran sat on the outer wall of Ashveil Hold, legs swinging over the edge, a book balanced on his knee. From this vantage, the world felt still—peaceful in a way that belied the tension curling beneath his skin.
Below, the fortress bustled with morning life. Guards in faded livery sparred in the training yard. Servants moved between towers with baskets of freshly laundered linens. Somewhere in the stables, the old hound Brin barked as he chased shadows.
Kieran was nine, nearly ten, with sharp gray eyes and a mop of unruly black hair that had once been a point of pride for his mother. He turned a page, the glyphs on the parchment pulsing faintly in the sunlight. The tome had been a gift from his father—a beginner's primer on elemental runes. Not the kind of gift most children received, but then, most children weren't heirs to a fallen noble house.
A voice called up from below.
"Kieran! Breakfast, now. And don't be late again!"
He looked down to see a woman in her mid-forties—stern eyes, streaks of gray in her braided auburn hair. Maera, the steward of Ashveil Hold since before he was born. She was one of the few who treated him as both boy and heir, neither coddled nor neglected.
"I'm coming!" he shouted, tucking the book under his arm as he climbed down the stone ladder into the main yard.
Inside the dining hall, warmth radiated from a massive hearth, above which hung a faded tapestry bearing the phoenix sigil of House Ashveil. At the long table sat his father, Lord Caelum Ashveil—once a commander of the king's western army, now a hollow-eyed shadow with an old wound in his leg and a heavier one in his soul.
"Sit, Kieran," Caelum said, his voice quiet but iron-bound.
Kieran obeyed. The food was simple—roasted root vegetables, dense black bread, a few slices of smoked venison. Resources had grown scarce in recent years, as had allies.
"You were on the ramparts again," Caelum said without looking up.
"I was studying."
"You should study in the library. Not on the edge of a wall."
Kieran didn't respond. There was no point in arguing with his father when that tone took hold. The man had not been the same since Kieran's mother, Lady Seraphina, died giving birth to him.
But the silence didn't last.
"I've received word from Arkwyn," Caelum said, setting down his fork. "They are beginning selection for the academy's next class."
Kieran looked up, heart skipping.
"I want you ready within the year. If we can't restore Ashveil by sword or gold, we will restore it through knowledge and power."
Kieran nodded slowly. "Yes, Father."
Across the table, Maera glanced between the two. Her lips tightened, but she said nothing.
Though she remained silent, the weight of history sat between them. Lord Caelum had tried—by sword, by trade, by alliance. After stepping down from his military command, he had poured what remained of the family treasury into failed ventures: silver mines that never produced, land deals that turned to dust, mercantile charters sabotaged by rivals or strangled by tariffs. Once, he had even sponsored an expedition into the Emberreach to rediscover lost ruins—hoping perhaps to unearth magic, relics, or secrets the crown might reward. All of it came to nothing. Each setback carved deeper lines into his face and deeper silence into the halls of Ashveil.
Now, with time and coin dwindling, all hopes rested on Kieran. On a child too young to wield a sword or sign a treaty, but old enough to carry the last flicker of ambition his father still possessed.
Later that day, Kieran wandered the lower halls, tracing his fingers along old family portraits—faces that stared back in judgment or pride, he could never tell. Each carried the same sigil: a phoenix wreathed in flame, rising from ash. An emblem of rebirth.
He paused before a particularly old one—Aurelius Ashveil, who had turned back a foreign invasion with fewer than two hundred men. Beneath the plaque, etched into the stone, read the house motto:
From Ash, Fire.
Just above the period, something caught his eye—a faint mark in the stone, almost like a colon. It was weathered and barely noticeable, but it looked intentional. A hesitation. A suggestion. From Ash, Fire: as if there was more to the phrase, something lost or hidden.
Kieran stared at it, a flicker of unease—or was it curiosity?—curling in his gut. He had seen the motto etched in books, stitched into banners, even recited at court. Never with that mark. Never like this.
He repeated the words under his breath.
From Ash, Fire:
He didn't know why, but it made his skin prickle.
Whatever lay beyond the flame, he would find it.