Chapter 9 – Ash and Embers
Aurther awoke to the sound of falling stone.
He sat up with a jolt, heart racing, hand already reaching for the half-rusted dagger he kept tucked under his cloak. His breath steamed in the frigid air, and his back ached from the jagged stone beneath his sleeping roll. Above, dawn crept weakly through a ceiling of crumbling arches.
They had made camp beneath what was once a great skybridge—now just fragments of ancient masonry wrapped in vines and frost.
Lysaria stirred beside him, already blinking into the grey morning haze. Her hand moved to the hilt of her curved blade, not in alarm, but in practiced habit.
"You heard it too?" Aurther whispered.
She nodded. "Ruins settle. But that wasn't stone shifting. That was something walking."
They didn't pack quickly, but they packed quietly.
By the time the sun had fully breached the mountain rim, they stood on a rise overlooking the ruins.
The city had no name—at least none Lysaria could recall. Its towers were shattered bones piercing the sky, blackened by fire long forgotten. Moss grew in patches along broken courtyards, and wide cracks cut through the stone like scars from old gods. It didn't look looted.
It looked abandoned—as though something had driven all life from it and claimed its silence.
Aurther could feel the shard against his chest vibrating faintly. Not a warning. Not danger.
Just… awareness.
"This place feels wrong," he muttered.
"All ruins do," Lysaria replied. "Especially ones no one remembers."
They passed through a hollow market square. Stone stalls still stood, draped in the decaying remains of banners. A single rusted bell hung from a crooked beam, swaying in a breeze that didn't exist.
"Why are we here again?" Aurther asked.
"We need water," she said. "And shelter for the next stretch. There's a spring beneath the city's heart. If we're lucky, it still flows."
"And if we're not?"
"Then we're dead anyway."
They descended deeper into the ruins, through alleys where roots had clawed through tile and bone. Then, as they passed under a shattered archway, they found it—an old temple or hall of governance. Its spires had collapsed inward, but the outer pillars still stood.
And between them: movement.
A figure.
Wrapped in black and crimson robes, tall and still, standing in the broken nave.
Lysaria stopped cold.
Aurther felt the air shift—thickening, growing heavy. Like breath caught in the lungs of the world.
The figure turned.
Eyes glowed from beneath a hood.
"You should not be here," the figure said.
Aurther reached for his dagger. "We're just passing through."
"No one passes through Ashmere," the figure replied. "This city is dead. And the dead do not welcome company."
Lysaria stepped forward. "We're not looking for a fight."
"But you've already brought one," the figure hissed. "I can smell it on him."
Their gaze turned to Aurther.
"You carry the rot. The same rot that tore this world in half."
Lysaria's blade was out in an instant.
"You don't know what you're talking about."
The figure raised a hand.
The ground trembled.
And the battle began.
Stone shattered as the figure lashed out with a wave of crackling red aether. Aurther dove aside just in time as a pillar exploded behind him. Dust choked the air.
Lysaria didn't dodge.
She moved forward.
Graceful, lethal—every step deliberate.
She raised both hands, palms glowing with a strange silver-green light. As the next blast came, she traced a sigil midair—a perfect spiral with three slashes through it.
The magic bent.
The attack rebounded—slamming into the wall with enough force to split the stone.
Aurther gawked. "You—how did you—"
"Don't just stand there!" she barked, "Find cover!"
He scrambled as another shockwave surged toward him, but Lysaria caught it midair—her arms crossing, fingers weaving into a binding pattern of light.
She whispered a word in Elvish—one Aurther didn't know—and the ground beneath the enemy exploded in vines laced with molten runes. They wrapped around the figure's legs, sizzling and constricting.
But the figure laughed.
"You think you understand power, elf?"
He raised both arms and burned the vines to ash with a pulse of crimson flame.
Then, in one fluid motion, he hurled a bolt of condensed aether at Lysaria.
She didn't block.
She split it—one hand tracing a crescent rune that bent the spell around her, sending it crashing harmlessly into a wall.
Aurther's heart pounded.
She wasn't just good.
She was a master.
Lysaria spun, her cloak flaring behind her, twin blades out now. She muttered another incantation—this time lower, fiercer—and the tips of her swords glowed with glacial blue light.
When she moved, she left afterimages.
She clashed with the robed figure in a flurry of magic and steel. Sparks flew. A wall crumbled. The sound of their spells colliding echoed like thunder trapped in a tomb.
Aurther tried to approach, but the pressure—the pure magic being thrown around—made the air hard to breathe.
The figure lashed out again with raw red energy, but Lysaria ducked, countered, and with a shout drove a blade into his side.
He staggered, growled.
Then vanished in a ripple of shadow.
The silence that followed was unbearable.
Lysaria stood in the dust, blood dripping from her shoulder.
Aurther ran to her side. "You're hurt—"
"I'm fine," she said quickly, voice shaking more from adrenaline than pain.
"What was he?"
She shook her head. "I don't know. But he was powerful."
"Did you kill him?"
"No," she whispered. "I only wounded him."
They found the spring beneath the temple, still flowing—barely. Enough to refill their flasks.
They didn't speak much while they drank.
But as they left the ruined city, Aurther turned back one last time.
And for just a moment, he thought he saw the robed figure watching from a broken tower.
But when he blinked—nothing.
[End of chapter 9]