The night after the battle was unnaturally still.
Veyrath Keep, once a sanctuary for the Lightbound Order, now lay half-sunken in ruin. Smoke trailed from shattered towers. The moans of dying spirits had faded with the fall of the Obsidian Knight, but a sense of lingering grief clung to the stones.
Kael stood atop the northern battlement, his cloak torn, armor scorched, but his grip on Ashrend as steady as ever.
In his palm rested the third Veilstone Fragment, glowing faintly — darker than the previous two, more volatile.
"Three shards…" he muttered. "And the power is only starting to stir."
From behind him, Lyra approached, her boots soft on the cracked stone.
"You didn't rest," she said. "Again."
Kael didn't turn. "Could you? After what we saw?"
She sighed, standing beside him. "No. But I still try."
They both gazed out over the blackened hills, where the remnants of the Black Host had vanished to ash. The stars above had finally returned, casting pale silver light across the wounded land.
"What do you feel now?" she asked softly.
Kael looked down at the Veilstone shard, then slowly clenched it in his gauntlet.
"Like I'm not done bleeding yet."
Elsewhere in the ruins…
Garros patched up his arm near a dying campfire. Across from him sat Nyra, hunched over a shattered spear she'd salvaged from the courtyard.
"These knights," Garros muttered, "they weren't just cursed warriors. They were bound. Enslaved to the Veilstones."
Nyra's crimson eyes narrowed. "And yet Kael destroyed one. Not just with strength—but purpose."
"You believe in him now?" Garros asked, raising a brow.
She nodded once. "I've seen what the Sovereign took from this world. I see what Kael gives back."
In the chapel ruins…
Kael stood alone before a broken statue of the Flamefather, its face shattered, its arms reaching to the heavens as if pleading.
He knelt in silence, blade laid across his knees.
"I don't pray," he said aloud. "Not since the night they burned Rivenhart."
"But if there's anything left of the divine… then watch me."
He lowered his head.
"Watch me take back what was stolen."
"Watch me burn the Sovereign's name into ash."
He stood slowly, sheathing Ashrend with a faint hum of power.
The red glow of the Veilstone pulsed once behind his breastplate.
The next morning…
Kael and his companions stood in the courtyard of Veyrath, the wind lifting the banners that still clung to broken towers.
"We move east," Kael said. "Across the Shardplains."
Garros grunted. "Not much left out there. Not since the Sovereign's purge."
"Exactly," Kael replied. "That's where they hide the next shard."
Nyra stepped forward, one hand on her curved daggers. "If the rumors are true… the fourth fragment is buried beneath the ruins of Myrrak, in the Tomb of Whispers."
"Another stronghold?" Lyra asked.
"Worse," Kael said, turning. "A prison built for gods."
The wind howled again.
Ashrend shimmered at his hip, eager for blood.
Far across the continent…
Within the heart of the Ashen Tribunal, the Sovereign's most trusted enforcers gathered.
Kael's name had reached their ears.
And their silence was cold.
A woman in iron-gray robes opened her palm. A dark mirror floated above it, revealing the flame-haired warrior who now bore three Veilstones.
"He grows stronger," she whispered.
"Then we crush him now," snarled one of the tribunal — a man with skin of silver and molten eyes.
The woman only smiled.
"No… we test him."
"Let us see if the boy born of Rivenhart… can survive what waits in Myrrak."
Meanwhile, Kael rode forward on horseback, across the desolate fields.
His companions followed behind, each with weapon ready, resolve hardened by flame and blood.
He spoke only once on that road:
"We don't stop. Not until the Sovereign bleeds."