The caverns beneath the Ashen Marches were not on any map. Their existence was passed only in whispers, etched into forgotten stones and buried beneath centuries of soot and silence.
Kael and his companions descended through the rift split open by his duel with the Sovereign Flame. What waited below was not fire… but memory.
The walls glowed faintly—veins of crystal running through stone, pulsing in rhythm with Kael's mark. As they moved deeper, voices echoed faintly, murmuring in tongues older than the Kingdoms.
"Are those… prayers?" Lyra asked, eyes scanning the shimmering glyphs etched along the path.
"No," Isryn said grimly. "They're warnings."
At the base of the descent, they found it: a sanctum carved into a circular chamber, littered with shattered relics and decaying banners. At its center sat the Oracle of Ash—a woman of flame and crystal, her body half-consumed by the very fire she once commanded.
She did not speak at first. Only watched them approach with hollow eyes that burned with foresight.
Then her voice came, cracked and filled with prophecy.
"You bear the spark. The second brand of ruin. The Crimson Sovereign returns… and the cycle begins anew."
Kael narrowed his gaze. "I'm not here to repeat a cycle. I came for truth."
The Oracle's head tilted, and her withered hand reached toward him. The moment her fingertips brushed his forehead, the world fractured.
A storm of visions slammed into Kael's mind:
Armies burning under black suns.
Sovereigns crowned with thorns of light and screaming flame.
A crimson throne—empty and waiting.
Himself—older, colder, crowned in silence… killing Lyra.
Kael staggered back, gasping.
"What did you show him?" Darric growled, stepping forward with his blade drawn.
"The end," the Oracle whispered. "His end."
Kael wiped blood from his nose, steadying himself. "I don't accept it."
"Then fight it," she said. "But know this, child of ruin—prophecy is not a chain. It is a choice. One must bind it or be bound by it."
She offered a shard of obsidian, pulsing with crimson light.
"The Oracle's Chain," she said. "The last tether to the First Sovereign's heart. Break it… and you may free yourself. Or lose everything."
Kael took it.
The shard seared into his hand, burning the veins of his palm with symbols unseen.
Around them, the sanctum began to collapse, fire pouring from the walls.
"We need to move—now!" Darric shouted.
They escaped as the Oracle was consumed in the flames, whispering one last truth before the cavern fell:
"The Vault stirs. Your name… is not your own."
Back on the surface, Kael stood beneath the shattered sky, shard still pulsing in his hand, Lyra and Isryn at his side.
The world had stopped pretending to be what it was.
Now it was showing its teeth.