The smoke pressed against Kael's skin like unseen chains, thick with the stench of ancient ash and suffering. The labyrinth pulsed around him walls made of molten obsidian, veins of crimson light crawling across the surface like a beating heart. Each step he took was met with a hiss of fire, a whisper of voices from the past… or perhaps from something older.
Lira limped beside him, arm clutched tight to her side, blood seeping through a makeshift bandage.
"You don't have to keep going," she muttered. "This place, it doesn't test strength. It breaks it."
Kael's jaw clenched. "Then let it try."
He wasn't walking through fire for himself. Not anymore. Not since Aria's face haunted every flicker of flame, not since the Crown had burned a mark into his palm that only pulsed when she was in pain. Even here, beneath the ruins of an empire lost to time, Kael could feel her. Faint. Fragile. But real.
They reached the next gate.
A great obsidian monolith towered over them, etched with glowing runes that shimmered with blood and flame. At its base, a single figure stood waiting cloaked in red armor, his face hidden behind a scorched wolf-mask.
Lira whispered, "That's him. The Warden of the Burning Line."
The figure stepped forward, spear in hand. "Kael of No House. Bastard of the North. Abandoned One. Your fire is unworthy."
Kael's eyes narrowed. "Let's see if it burns you anyway."
The Warden raised his hand. Flame exploded around them.
Kael didn't flinch.
The heat peeled skin. The screams echoed in his skull. But Kael stepped forward, magic crackling at his fingertips, not the cold magic of the North anymore, but something twisted… reborn. Shadows wrapped around his limbs, fangs of flame rising with each motion.
The Warden lunged, and Kael met him mid-air.
Their clash ignited a shockwave that splintered the walls of the Labyrinth. Lira was thrown back, shielded only by the talisman Kael had given her.
It was no longer a test of magic.
It was a test of belief.
Kael roared for Aria, for the truth of his bloodline, for every name they'd taken from him.
He didn't dodge.
He didn't retreat.
He consumed.
When the dust settled, the Warden lay broken, his mask cracked in half. Beneath it was not a man, but a spirit bound by oath, released only by defeat.
"I see now…" the Warden wheezed. "You… are not abandoned. You are chosen."
A great flame erupted from the Warden's chest, spiraling upward, embedding itself into Kael's own burning mark.
His entire body seared. Then it stilled.
The third seal… broken.
Behind him, Lira whispered, awe-struck. "What are you becoming, Kael?"
He turned toward her, his eyes glowing like twin embers.
"Something they won't forget."