Chapter 49 – When the Fire Sleeps
The night after the Hollow King's fall refused to be still.
The city of Vyrebrand lay gutted beneath a sky bruised black and orange. Towers that had once stood proud now leaned like broken teeth, their stone faces streaked with ash. The embers of the battle still whispered in every corner, curling into the wind like dying prayers.
Kael awoke on a slab of cracked marble, the remnants of a temple's altar. The scent of burned incense mixed with blood and wet soot, clinging to him as if the city itself had decided he belonged to it now. His muscles felt like they had been hammered, beaten into the shape of something heavier, harder.
The Hollow Pyre's brand burned faintly on his forearm — not the searing agony from before, but a slow pulse, like the heartbeat of something alive and waiting. He stared at it, remembering how the flames had swallowed him and spat him back out.
A voice broke the silence.
"You're awake."
Elaria sat at the ruined doorway, her blade laid across her knees. The dawn behind her was a dim smear, the sun trying to burn through smoke but finding no strength.
"You were supposed to die," she said, not unkindly, but as if stating a simple truth that had somehow been broken.
Kael's voice was a rasp. "I tried. The fire wouldn't let me."
Her eyes lingered on him, unreadable. "The Hollow King's gone. The Hollow March is scattered. But it's not over."
Kael pushed himself up, wincing. "The Oathshard."
Elaria nodded, her fingers curling against the hilt of her sword. "While you fought him, someone moved it. Whoever holds the Oathshard can call every broken army still loyal to the crown. Every deserter. Every mercenary who swore by its name. It's more than a relic—it's a summons."
"Who took it?"
"That's the problem," she said, glancing toward the city. "No one knows. But I've heard whispers already—voices in the smoke, saying it's headed north. Past the Ashwake."
Kael looked toward the black horizon. The north was where the war had started, where the first flames had been struck. If the Oathshard was returning there, it meant someone was trying to rewrite the war entirely.
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Chapter 50 – Blood in the Soot
By midday, the smoke had thickened again. The streets were a graveyard of charred timbers and half-buried bodies, the air tasting of iron and ash. Every step Kael took sank into grey mud that had once been snow before it mixed with soot and blood.
The people of Vyrebrand did not greet him as a saviour. Those who remained kept their heads down, scavenging silently. Victory meant nothing to them if it had left them with nothing to eat, nowhere to sleep.
At the edge of the marketplace ruins, Kael and Elaria found a small firepit ringed by survivors. A thin man with smoke-black hands looked up at them. His eyes flicked to Kael's brand, then away again, as if afraid of what it meant.
"You're looking for it," the man said hoarsely.
Kael stopped. "What?"
"The shard," the man murmured, rubbing soot between his fingers. "They carried it through here at dawn. Three riders. Their cloaks were black, but the dust on them was red — Redmark dust. They weren't from here."
Elaria stepped closer. "Where were they going?"
The man hesitated, glancing at the others by the fire. Finally, he lifted his hand and pointed north. "Into the Ashwake. They didn't stop to rest. No one does. That place eats people whole."
Kael felt the pull in his chest — the same pull he'd felt in the Hollow Pyre. A direction, a path laid out like a fuse waiting to be lit.
Elaria looked at him. "If we go, we go prepared. The Ashwake isn't just fire and ash. It remembers everyone who's walked into it. It makes you see things you shouldn't."
Kael's hand tightened on his sword hilt. "Then we'll make it remember us too."
Behind them, the survivors said nothing, but Kael could feel their stares. Not hope. Not fear. Just the quiet weight of people watching two more souls walk toward something they didn't expect to return from.
And above it all, the soot fell heavier, like the sky itself was bleeding.