The stone gates of the Hollow Crucible groaned open with a sound like mountains dying.
Kael stepped into the sacred chamber, its walls alive with flickering runes etched by Sovereign flame centuries before. Heat radiated from the blackened pillars, ancient embers still pulsing with dormant rage. His boots echoed across the obsidian floor, the air thick with smoke and prophecy.
Behind him, Lyra's silhouette flickered in the haze. Darric stood to his left, axe drawn but silent. And Isryn… she watched Kael with that same unreadable calm, her presence unnerving in a way that even the Veilspawn couldn't match.
Before them lay a platform scorched with firebrands. Upon it rested a sword — not sheathed, not guarded — simply waiting.
Ashreaver.
Not a blade, but a memory forged in steel. Sovereign-made. Fire-fed.
Lyra whispered, "This place reeks of old power."
Kael said nothing.
The voice came not from the room but from within the Mark on his chest.
"Only one may carry flame unbroken."
Kael stepped forward. The moment his foot touched the dais, the runes exploded with crimson light. Fire leapt from the ground, coiling like serpents. The temperature surged. A phantom wind screamed through the chamber as a figure appeared before the blade — molten-eyed, armored in scorched bone and gold.
A Warden of the Crucible. A remnant of the First Sovereign's trial.
"You are unproven," it intoned. "You are fragmented. Blood alone does not grant you right."
Kael didn't hesitate. "Then test me."
With a roar, the Warden charged.
Kael met it head-on.
Ashrend clashed against a halberd of blazing magma. Sparks rained like falling stars as Kael twisted under a sweep, his blade slicing across the Warden's flank. But the construct didn't falter. Its wounds flared shut with fire.
Darric surged forward to join the fray, but the flames lashed out, forming a wall between them.
"This is his trial," Isryn said. "And his alone."
Kael gritted his teeth, eyes glowing red.
The Warden's attacks came faster now — not just with brute force but with ancient Sovereign techniques, forgotten forms of blade and fire. Every clash burned against Kael's skin, seared his breath from his lungs.
Then, the Mark on his chest pulsed.
A whisper echoed from somewhere older than memory.
"Flame is not fury. Flame is purpose."
Kael's aura erupted. Red lightning coiled around his arms, but now — flames danced with it, twisting into elegant shapes. He moved like a shadow of the Sovereigns — graceful, brutal, inevitable.
He ducked low and slashed upward.
"Blazing Arc — Sever the Line!"
Ashrend burned through the Warden's halberd, then through its chest. The construct reeled back, limbs breaking into cinders.
Kael advanced.
"Crimson Spark: Twin Flame Rend!"
He slashed once — a burst of red and gold. Then again — a flash of white heat. The Warden screamed as its form shattered, consumed by Kael's awakened fusion of aura and fire.
Silence fell.
The blade—Ashreaver—rose from the dais of its own accord. Its flames bent toward Kael, drawn to the Mark like a kindred soul returning home.
He grasped it.
Fire did not burn him.
It knew him.
As the flames calmed, Lyra stepped forward.
"You moved like one of them," she said. "Like the ones in the old Sovereign paintings."
Kael didn't look at her. "I think I've held this blade before."
Darric raised an eyebrow. "In a past life?"
"No," Kael said softly. "In another war."
Isryn's eyes narrowed. "And that sword… it remembers."
Ashreaver pulsed faintly in response.
Far above — in the Ashen Spire
The Oracle of Flame awoke.
Her veil of smoke lifted, eyes glowing like suns long buried. She turned toward the horizon where Kael stood in the Crucible far below.
"The boy walks toward his doom," she whispered.
"Or toward the crown."