The dreams came again.
But this time, they were not memories—they were summons.
Kael stood alone in an unfamiliar land where the stars bled light and the ground trembled with each breath he took. He wasn't in the realm of men anymore. The sky cracked like shattered glass above him, revealing something vast and ancient on the other side: an eye, coiled in flame, watching him without blinking.
"You are not the first, Kael," a voice whispered from all directions. "But you may be the last."
Kael turned—and in front of him stood a figure clad in red, crowned in horns, with eyes that mirrored his own. The same mark burned on his chest.
"Who are you?" Kael asked.
The figure smiled.
"I am who you become... if you let the flame consume you."
Then the world ignited.
Awake in Ash
Kael jolted upright in his bedroll at Murnhold, gasping for air, sweat glistening on his skin even though the wind was cold.
The fire inside him was no longer just warmth—it was movement. A presence, restless beneath his flesh. It called itself forward. It demanded to be used.
"The flame remembers," he whispered.
Iris stirred nearby, her expression shifting from concern to fear as she noticed the new spread of golden lines on Kael's neck and jaw.
"It's growing," she said.
"I need to know more," Kael muttered. "There has to be something deeper… something that explains what I am."
Vaerin, the warlock, appeared at the doorway with his staff, leaning on it like it held the weight of eternity.
"There is," he said. "But knowing it will cost you."
"What?" Kael asked. "Gold? Blood?"
"Memory," Vaerin replied. "Your own. And someone else's."
The Rite of Fireborne Memory
Beneath the crumbling tower was a hidden chamber lined with obsidian stones. At the center, a brazier burned without fuel, its flames whispering names in tongues long dead.
"Step into it," Vaerin said.
Kael didn't hesitate.
The flames swallowed him whole.
He was falling—not physically, but through time.
He saw a younger version of himself, but not quite him. This version wore armor of living flame, led legions of monstrous beings, and held a blade shaped like the spine of a god.
He saw this version stand before the gods of old and scream, "I will not kneel."
Then he saw war—entire skies turning red, oceans boiling, kingdoms turning to ash. At the heart of it all: him.
The fireborn tyrant.
Then it changed.
He saw betrayal. A blade through the back. A lover's eyes filled with tears. A pact broken. And a final curse whispered in dying breath:
"May your blood wander for eternity… until one is born who remembers."
Kael woke screaming, his arms smoking, eyes glowing like dying suns.
The Lineage of Flame
"You saw it," Vaerin said. "Didn't you?"
Kael nodded slowly. "I'm not just a cursed bastard… I'm the descendant of a godkiller."
"Not just a descendant," Vaerin said. "You are his echo. His reincarnation. You are what remains of the one they tried to erase."
Kael could hardly breathe.
Iris stepped closer, her face pale. "Kael… what do we do now?"
Kael looked down at his hands. They trembled, not from fear—but from power barely restrained.
"We find the truth," he said. "All of it. Every lie the world was built on. And then we decide if it deserves to stand."