The wind howled across the blackened ridge of the Ashen Marches.
Kael stood at the summit of the collapsed Hollow Furnace, cloak scorched, eyes glowing faintly from the flame he had taken in. Around him, the land trembled, as if awakening to his presence. The others gathered nearby, weary but watchful.
Something in the world had shifted.
"Feel that?" Darric asked, glancing toward the sky. "The wind's gone strange."
"It's not the wind," Isryn murmured, her voice taut. "It's the Veil. It's reacting to him."
Kael didn't speak. His gaze remained fixed on the horizon.
A ripple shimmered in the distance—like heat mirage bending the air—but darker, more fluid. And from within it came a sound. A whisper.
Not a word. A summoning.
Lyra clutched her bow tighter. "We're being called."
"Or tested," Kael said. "Again."
Without waiting, he descended the slope.
They followed him down into the gorges below the Ashen Marches—where old bones lay buried and the Sovereigns of the Fire Clans once battled under ash-blotted skies. The further they walked, the stranger the land became. The trees were petrified and scorched to black stone. Pools of obsidian reflected no light. And deeper still, they reached the remnants of an ancient battlefield: swords rusted into the earth, banners turned to dust, and among them, a single throne of basalt.
Upon it sat no king.
But in front of it stood a figure cloaked in white flame, face hidden beneath a helm forged of star-metal and scorched bone.
"The Sovereign Flame…" Isryn whispered. "But it cannot be."
The figure stepped forward and pointed its blade at Kael.
"No words," it said. Its voice cracked like embers. "Only fire."
The duel began.
The flame-cloaked warrior moved with impossible grace—blinks of light and strikes that blurred the line between flame and steel. Kael met him, Ashreaver igniting as Crimson Ascendance surged through his veins.
"Ashreaver Style: Ember Sky Split!"
The ground exploded beneath him as he lunged. Their swords clashed, red against white, and the world rang like a struck bell.
They moved through the ruins in blinding arcs—Kael ducking under a slash, countering with an upward spiral cut. The Sovereign twisted, deflecting and riposting with a blast of white fire that scorched the sky itself.
Kael was driven back.
"You're not just fire," the figure said between strikes. "You are choice. You are will."
Kael's aura pulsed brighter.
"Then you know what comes next," he replied.
"Crimson Ascendance: Heaven's Fang!"
His blade elongated into pure flame and struck down with titanic force.
The figure met it with its own attack—"Cinder King's Judgment!"
The impact sent shockwaves through the land, splitting the battlefield in two. Ash and light blanketed the gorge.
When it cleared, both combatants stood motionless.
Then the figure fell to one knee.
"You are not ready," it said softly, "but you are… real."
With that, the Sovereign Flame dispersed into motes of white light. In its place, resting on the basalt throne, was a scroll wrapped in dragonhide, and a single gauntlet made of the same strange metal as the helm.
Kael picked them up in silence.
On the scroll, one phrase:
The True Sovereign does not conquer flame. He becomes it.
Kael turned to his companions. The fire within him now answered to his will—not raging, but waiting.
The Sovereign's wake had not crushed him.
It had tempered him.