Cindermoor was a graveyard of fire and ash.
The mountains surrounding the pass glowed faintly beneath their charred crust, smoke venting from deep fissures like dying breaths from an ancient beast. What trees remained were petrified black spires, twisted by years of volcanic storms. The sky above was streaked with crimson clouds and shifting shadows.
Kael led the way, the soles of his boots crunching over brittle obsidian. Every step echoed like a whisper in a tomb. Behind him followed Lyra, Darric, and Isryn—wary, weapons at the ready, their silhouettes painted red in the dying light.
"This land is cursed," Darric muttered, shielding his eyes against the heat. "Even the wind tastes like ash."
"It's more than cursed," Isryn replied. "This was once a battlefield. A Sovereign stronghold. The fire here remembers."
Kael said nothing. But his eyes flicked over a distant ridge—stone melted into glass, bones half-buried in sulfur. The aura here was thick with history. Hate. And something deeper… watching.
A low rumble passed beneath their feet.
Lyra tensed. "Something stirs."
They moved faster, navigating the molten cracks and sulfur vents with practiced steps.
Suddenly—screams.
From the ridge above, a dozen figures burst into view—bandits, their skin marked with black tattoos and scorched veils, their eyes hollow with hunger and madness.
"Veil cultists," Lyra hissed, drawing her bow.
Kael stepped forward without hesitation, Ashrend already in hand.
The lead cultist cackled, raising a rusted blade. "The flame remembers your sin, boy of Rivenhart!"
Kael's gaze was steel.
"No sin," he said. "Only judgment."
He charged.
Ashrend burned with red fire as Kael met them in the open—his first slash tore through the leader's blade, cutting him in half at the waist.
"Crimson Ruin."
He pivoted, slicing through a second cultist with a brutal upward cleave that sent blood into the air like a fountain.
Lyra's arrows rained death from above, while Darric slammed into their flank with his shield, scattering bodies like chaff. Isryn's magic flared—binding chains of runelight dragging enemies to their knees before her blade silenced them.
Kael struck again, blade blazing.
A cultist lunged with a poisoned dagger—Kael parried and decapitated him in one move.
"Severing Flame."
The name of the strike echoed across the valley, the power behind it splitting the stone beneath the corpse's feet.
More emerged—twenty, maybe more. A small warband.
Kael's companions closed ranks around him, their backs nearly touching. Surrounded.
Then—
A roar.
Not human.
From the fissures in the ground, a massive creature pulled itself forth—twenty feet tall, made of magma-veined obsidian, its face a mask of molten grief.
A Flamewrought Golem.
Kael's eyes narrowed. "Darric, with me. Lyra, cover our flanks."
"On it!" Darric shouted, charging beside Kael.
The Golem swung an arm of searing stone—Kael ducked, sparks showering over him. He retaliated with a charged strike—
"Crimson Breaker!"
Ashrend slammed into the creature's knee. A blast of red lightning shattered the limb.
Darric followed up, plunging his warblade into its chest with a cry.
The Golem staggered back—but didn't fall. It reared to strike again.
Kael clenched his jaw. "Now."
He surged upward in a flash of red light.
"Blazing Descent!"
He plunged Ashrend straight through the Golem's skull—splitting it from crown to jaw.
The creature collapsed with a quake.
Silence returned.
Smoke curled from Kael's shoulders as he pulled his blade free. Around him, the battlefield was a ruin of broken cultists and scorched ground. Lyra walked up, brushing ash from her shoulder.
"You're bleeding," she said, eyeing a cut on Kael's cheek.
"It's nothing."
Darric exhaled. "That's the fifth time today you've said that."
Isryn tilted her head. "The Veil's pressure grows stronger the closer we come to Hollow Spire. He feels it too."
Kael looked beyond the burning ridges—toward a jagged peak in the distance that jutted like a fang from the world's mouth.
The Hollow Spire.
They were close.
"Rest while you can," Kael said. "Tomorrow, we reach the ruins. And whatever waits inside."
They moved toward a high ledge overlooking the Cindermoor. The wind howled behind them, but Kael didn't flinch. He watched the dying sun fade behind ash-clouds, the weight of what was coming heavy in his chest.
Beneath his tunic, the Crimson Mark pulsed once.