The forest beyond Maerin's glade had changed.
Kye felt it as soon as he stepped across the threshold. The air was heavier, denser, humming faintly with tension. Trees leaned slightly inward, their branches brushing one another like whispering hands. The path west was clearer now, as if something—or **someone**—had parted the foliage ahead of time.
Maerin stood behind him at the edge of the glade, silent.
Kye adjusted the strap on his pack and turned to face her one last time.
"You're sure this is the right direction?"
"I'm sure," Maerin said, staff planted beside her. "But that doesn't mean it's safe."
Kye chuckled softly, though the humor didn't reach his eyes. "When has it ever been?"
Maerin's eyes softened. "The next time we speak, it will be in shadow or fire. Possibly both."
"You could come with me."
She shook her head. "No. My place is here. There are bindings on this land, and I'm one of them."
Kye hesitated.
Then stepped forward and extended a hand.
To his surprise, she didn't hesitate. She gripped it firmly, her hand rough and warm like weathered bark.
"I was wrong about you, Kye," she said. "You're not Kael's shadow."
"What am I?"
Maerin's lips parted as if to answer—but she only smiled, turned away, and vanished into the forest mist.
---
Kye walked for hours, the forest gradually shifting from eerie silence to the subtle rustle of life. Birds returned to the branches. Insects hummed beneath the underbrush. He passed abandoned watch posts — half-collapsed towers overgrown with vines. A rusted helm rested beside one with a sunburst symbol cracked down the middle.
He kept walking.
Until he reached the **Fork of Ember Paths** — a legendary intersection where three ancient roads once met, each leading to one of the Empire's founding cities.
It was also where Kael had once fought off a rebellion — alone — and left behind what scholars called "The Ember Scar."
Kye expected ruins.
Instead, he found a **man**.
Waiting at the center of the scar, seated atop a black stone.
Unmoving.
Unarmed.
Hooded in ash-gray robes, face partially covered with a veil of gold lace.
Kye slowed, hand drifting toward the hilt of his blade.
"You've come far," the man said, his voice smooth, aged, and tired. "But not far enough."
"Who are you?" Kye asked.
The man stood slowly.
He was tall. Lean. Every movement was deliberate, like a pendulum swing.
"I am the one who disobeyed Kael."
Kye blinked. "You served him?"
"Once. Until he gave me a burden I could not bear."
The man reached into his cloak and drew a long, wrapped bundle.
He held it out—not like an offering, but like a burden he was eager to be free from.
Kye didn't move.
"What is it?"
The man whispered.
> "The sword Kael never drew in his final battle."
Kye stepped closer.
The bundle was wrapped in layers of scorched silk, tied with faded crimson cord. Runes stitched in gold glimmered faintly along the edge. The cloth itself pulsed with subtle magic — sealing, binding, containing.
He reached out.
The moment his fingers brushed the silk, **everything stopped**.
The wind.
The sounds.
Even the man before him seemed to freeze.
And then—
> **\[Paradox System Alert: Legacy Object Detected]**
> *Initiating Flame Memory Reconstruction…*
> *…*
> *Object recognized: BLADE – "VIREON'S BREATH"*
> *Forged by: Kael Vireon*
> *Bound to: The Paradox Line*
Kye gasped as a vision rushed over him.
---
**He stood on a mountaintop, under blood-red skies.**
Kael stood before him — younger, eyes burning with resolve and madness in equal measure.
In his hand was the sword — **Vireon's Breath.**
A weapon so still it seemed to hold its own heartbeat.
Kael spoke, his voice like thunder split in half.
> "This sword is not meant to kill."
> "It is meant to *remind.*"
Kye opened his mouth to speak, but the vision faded.
---
Back in the present, he gripped the bundle tighter.
The man nodded.
"You were meant to have it the day Kael died. But he never told the others. Only me."
"Why didn't you bring it sooner?" Kye asked, suspicion creeping in.
The man's expression twisted slightly.
"I wasn't ready to face what I'd lost. And because I feared… *you might be him reborn.*"
Kye looked at the wrapped blade.
He didn't unwrap it.
Not yet.
"Do you still fear that?"
The man took a step back.
"No," he said quietly. "Now I fear you're something worse."
---
They sat across from each other for a time.
The man told stories.
How Kael forged the blade not for war, but for sealing. It had never taken a life. But it had closed rifts, shattered cursed temples, and once *split an oath* clean from a man's soul.
Kye listened, silent, thoughtful.
Then he asked the question that had lingered since the moment he saw the sword:
"Why did Kael forge a blade that doesn't kill?"
The man hesitated.
Then answered:
"Because Kael believed the real battle wouldn't be with armies. It would be with *truth*. And no blade could win that."
---
That night, Kye made camp just outside the Fork of Ember Paths.
He didn't light a fire.
Didn't need to.
The wrapped blade radiated a warmth that kept the cold away.
He stared at it for hours.
Then finally — gently — he **unwrapped it**.
Beneath the layers of silk lay a longsword.
Simple. Elegant. Deadly in silence.
Its blade was a silvery obsidian, with a faint spiral groove running along the flat. The hilt was wrapped in grey leather, and where the pommel should be, there was only a **mirror shard** — reflecting Kye's face, but distorted.
He felt the Witchfire inside him **flare**—not with violence, but with recognition.
The blade **knew him.**
He touched the flat of the sword, and a name surfaced from within:
> *Vireon's Breath.*
He whispered the name.
And the blade thrummed.
---
Far across the empire, in a hidden keep beneath a monastery, **the Ash Circle stirred**.
Seven figures stood around a circular table carved from meteorite, each cloaked in shadow.
"He has the blade," one said.
"So the Trial begins," said another.
"We strike now?"
"No," said the eldest voice. "We let him take the first step. And then… we make sure it's his **last.**"