A Mission Ordained
The sky above the Sanctum of the Veil bled with dying light amber streaks fading into an unnatural indigo, like bruises across the heavens.
They stood beneath the fractured arch of the celestial altar, the last four of the Ashbinders.
Ceremonial robes fluttered in the high wind, threads of flame and starlight sewn into their hems. Each bore the Ashbinder sigil on their chest an ouroboros of smoke and fire encircling a broken eye.
Kaelen Virel, once called First Flamebearer, moved with the weight of unspoken prophecy. His dark hair was braided in warrior's fashion, though strands had come loose to cling to his storm-chiseled face. Eyes like scorched coals scanned the edges of the sanctum, never resting for long.
"No sentries on the eastern ledge," Kaelen murmured. "Too quiet."
Selene Myrr, slender and pale as moonlight, drifted beside him with steps that barely kissed the stone. Her silver veil floated despite the windless air, eyes half-lidded in trance.
"The Veil pulses. It's thinning. If we wait too long, it tears."
Her voice was barely audible, as if spoken across two worlds at once.
Tomas Vale, armor half-scorched from past battles, leaned against a weathered column. A broken blade rested on his back Woundsteel, forged from the regrets of his own soul.
"So we close it. Like always," Tomas said, flexing his fingers. "In and out. One last burn."
Iria Dareth knelt at the sanctum's altar, her hands painted with ancient glyphs in ash and crimson ink. Her eyes glowed faintly as she whispered into the hollow stone, binding the oaths of this rite into reality.
"It's not like always," she said. "This altar is older than the first war. The gods themselves bled here. This is no sealing. This is a sentence."
Kaelen stepped forward and unfurled the scroll of divine command, written in celestial script that shimmered and wriggled as if alive.
"By order of the Divine Court, the Ashbinders are charged with mending the Nexus. No other may wield the seal. No other may approach the rift."
From the shadows of the Sanctum, three others emerged supporting figures, all younger initiates who had followed them from Erythra Keep.
Lirael, Kaelen's former pupil, eyes too sharp for her age, bearing a satchel of binding relics.Brother Cael, a once-blind monk who now saw through divine whispers, his mouth stitched shut by vow.Nym, a mute forge-mage who communicated through flame sigils she burned into the air.
Lirael scoffed, stepping forward.
"And if it's a trap?"
"Then it's our last one," Tomas replied.
Selene paused at the rift a sliver in reality itself, floating above the altar like a vertical wound. Threads of silver, black, and violet bled from it, forming shapes that whispered and dissolved.
She turned slowly to Kaelen.
"It wants to be opened. Not closed."
Kaelen's jaw clenched.
"Then bind it anyway."
"Even if it burns us?" Selene asked softly.
"Especially if it does."
A silence settled. Even the wind had stopped breathing.
Iria stood, drawing a circle of vowfire around them. Her chains iron runes wrapped around her arms rattled as her voice rang out.
"By oath and flame, we act in service to the Realms. Let judgment fall if our purpose falters."
The others echoed the vow.
"By oath and flame."
The circle lit. The Veil pulsed. Somewhere distant, a horn blared once then shattered into silence.
Selene stepped to the rift, her eyes now fully white.
Kaelen exhaled.
"Ashbinders… begin."
The instant Selene touched the rift, reality bent.
A pulse of light violet and searing flared across the sanctum. The altar cracked down its center, bleeding liquid flame. Glyphs etched into the stone hissed and uncoiled, as though rejecting her presence.
Selene's body lifted from the ground, suspended midair by invisible threads of Veil energy. Her arms flung wide, her voice echoing in a thousand tongues.
"It's not sealed… it's sleeping!"
A thunderous sound cracked above them. The rift split wide like a wound torn open too soon and something screamed through from the other side. Not words. Not music. Something raw and full of intent.
Tomas lunged forward.
"Get her down! Kaelen now!"
Kaelen reached toward Selene but the air warped, burning his hand with radiant heat. His fingertips sizzled. And then
The explosion.
The rift erupted like a dying star. Shockwaves tore through the sanctum. The sky itself fractured. Ash and light spilled over the altar like reversed fire.
Nym was the first to fall, thrown against a pillar. Her forge-sigils shattered in the air, turning to harmless sparks.
Brother Cael collapsed, blood pouring from his stitched mouth as divine noise overwhelmed him.
Lirael screamed as a tendril of Veil-energy lashed across her side, searing through cloth and flesh. She dropped to one knee, clutching her stomach.
Iria held her chains up, voice thunderous in the oath tongue.
"By vow of flame, bind this chaos !"
But the Veil did not answer her.
Instead, something else stepped through.
A figure of fire and smoke, veiled in golden armor not divine, but made to mimic it. Its helm split open, revealing empty light within.
"Who dares disturb the balance?" it intoned.
"We were sent to seal it!" Kaelen shouted, drawing his blade of ember steel. "This wasn't supposed to happen!"
"Lies." The figure raised its hand. "The Nexus is broken. And so shall you be."
The Ascendant Brand erupted across Kaelen's chest an ancient sigil, long forbidden, glowing through his robes like a flame beneath skin.
He collapsed to one knee, clutching at his heart. The brand seared into his soul, whispering names that no mortal should remember.
Selene dropped from the air, unconscious but breathing.
Tomas threw himself in front of her as energy blades rained down from the sky deflecting the first two, catching the third with his hand.
Blood poured from his palm.
"Kaelen!" he roared. "We've been set up!"
Kaelen forced himself upright, face twisting in pain. The golden figure faded back into the Veil, but divine enforcers emerged from behind the altar clad in white and gold, wings like razor glass.
High Warden Malcer, their old comrade, stood among them.
"By decree of the Divine Court," Malcer announced, voice hollow, "Kaelen Virel, Selene Myrr, Iria Dareth, Tomas Vale you are charged with heresy, treason, and the desecration of the Nexus."
Kaelen stepped forward despite the burning brand, his voice low.
"You knew this would happen."
"The gods saw your ambition," Malcer said coldly. "The Ascendant Flame was never meant for mortals. You tried to claim it. And now the Realms will pay."
Selene stirred at Tomas's side, whispering through cracked lips.
"They… feared us… not because we failed. But because we might succeed."
Kaelen's eyes met hers.
And something broke inside him.
The Sanctum shook once more. Cracks spread like veins across the altar. The rift twisted into something unnatural not closed, not open alive.
Iria stood, chains dangling.
"Kaelen. Orders?"
He didn't hesitate.
"We run."
Ash still rained from the sky.
The rift pulsed behind them twisting, flickering like a wounded god's eye. Kaelen's brand seethed on his chest, threads of golden fire webbing out under his skin.
The Ashbinders stood in a broken circle on the shattered sanctum floor. Selene leaned heavily on Tomas, blood dripping from her nose. Iria's chains were dim now, flickering, like they feared being bound to false gods.
Across the altar, ranks of Divine Enforcers formed spearpoints gleaming, armor carved with the sigils of Law and Flame. Their wings folded behind them like prison bars.
And at the center: High Warden Malcer.
He stepped forward with slow, deliberate grace, his mantle trailing flame. He looked older than Kaelen remembered less man, more statue carved by divine decree.
"Kaelen Virel," Malcer said, voice amplified by some unseen force, "You stand accused of desecrating the Nexus. Of consorting with forbidden flame. Of attempting ascension."
"And you call yourself judge?" Kaelen spat blood. "You weren't even at the rift."
Malcer gestured. A floating shard of memory a Veil-vision sigil appeared between them. It replayed the moment Selene touched the rift… followed by the explosion, the chaos. Kaelen's brand igniting.
But it was altered.
Twisted.
In this version, it looked as though Kaelen reached for the First Flame with both hands, drawing its power in greed. Selene was barely present. Tomas and Iria didn't even appear.
Lirael, injured and furious, hissed from the rubble.
"That's not what happened. I saw it. You altered the vision!"
Malcer didn't look at her. He kept his eyes on Kaelen.
"The gods do not lie. The Veil shows only truth."
"No," Selene croaked from behind Tomas. "It shows only what they want remembered."
Kaelen stepped forward. Every movement sent agony through his branded flesh.
"We swore to serve the Realms. We bled for them. You think we want godhood?"
Malcer's expression didn't change.
"It is not for mortals to want."
"We're not mortals!" Tomas barked. "You made us what we are! You fed us oaths and flame and told us to die for your balance!"
Malcer turned his gaze to him.
"And now you will. For balance."
He raised his hand.
Behind him, a Seraphim descended ten wings of radiant shadow, each eye on its body burning with judgment. In its hands: the Unbinding Spear, forged to rip soul from soul.
Kaelen drew his sword.
"So that's it? Execution?"
Malcer paused.
"Not execution," he said. "Correction."
Iria's chains whipped to life.
"He bears the Ascendant Brand," she growled. "You fear what it means. What he might become."
"He has already become too much," Malcer replied. "The Flame chose him. That alone is treason."
A flicker of doubt passed across Malcer's face barely visible. But it was there.
Kaelen saw it.
"You knew," Kaelen whispered. "You knew the Nexus was set to fail. You sent us here to burn."
Malcer said nothing.
And that silence was everything.
A tremor shook the sanctum.
The rift behind them howled, pulling wind and ash and memory into itself. The Veil bent. Something ancient stirred behind it.
Kaelen turned to his people.
"Run."
"We stand with you," Iria said.
"I said run."
He turned back toward Malcer and the Seraphim.
"I'll hold them."
The Seraphim moved like living judgment, descending on wings spun from scripture and flame.
Kaelen's sword ignited with defiance Ember steel glowing white-hot in his grip. The Ascendant Brand blazed across his chest, threads of golden fire reaching his throat and spine.
The mark was alive now. It whispered in his blood.
You are not theirs anymore.
Tomas threw Selene over his shoulder and drew Wound steel, the cursed blade screaming as it left its sheath. The steel flickered with phantoms shadows of every life he'd taken.
"Buy us a breath, Kael," Tomas grunted, sprinting toward the broken stair.
Iria raised her hands and called down the Chains of Vow incanting the final words in the ancient tongue. Her eyes rolled white.
"By oath given. By truth shattered. I unbind this lie"
Her chains burst outward, wrapping around Malcer's enforcers. Several were flung backward as their own vows turned against them. One began to scream, his voice dissolving into light.
But then the backlash struck.
Iria was hurled back, her chains slithering like wounded serpents, and her body slammed into a fallen pillar. She gasped blood, and the chains went dark.
"You okay?" Lirael ran to her side.
"Keep going. The truth is broken," Iria whispered. "We're not bound anymore."
Kaelen stood alone at the altar.
The Seraphim loomed above, holding the Unbinding Spear aloft. The Veil twisted behind it, whispering truths not meant for mortals.
"You are not worthy of ascension," it intoned. "You were never meant to wield the Flame."
Kaelen raised his sword.
"And yet it chose me."
The Seraphim descended too fast, too bright.
Kaelen leapt to meet it.
They collided in a blast of fire and holy ruin. The altar split beneath them. Flames danced along the shattered symbols of the divine court. The Unbinding Spear scraped across Kaelen's ribs but did not pierce him.
The Brand rejected it.
With a roar, Kaelen drove his blade into the Seraphim's throat. It screamed not in pain, but in surprise and burst into ash and lightning.
The Sanctum groaned.
The rift surged.
The world bent.
Selene, still half-conscious on Tomas's back, suddenly jolted upright.
Her eyes went pure white.
"I see it… the court… the gods… they've already fallen."
Tomas stopped running.
"What do you mean fallen?"
"The gods... are hollow," she whispered. "Their thrones are empty. Their voices... mimicry. This war isn't to stop us. It's to distract us."
Kaelen stumbled through the flame-slicked stones, finding the others at the broken staircase.
"Where's Cael?" he asked, panting.
"Gone," Nym signed in smoke, drawing the rune for silence.
"Then we leave none of us behind."
He turned and flung his sword into the collapsing altar. It embedded into the divine seal.
"Let them fear what they tried to kill."
A final tremor cracked the Sanctum. The rift snapped once then collapsed, imploding with a scream that was not a sound, but a memory of sound.
They fled into the mountains beneath a blood-slicked sky.
Ash rained over them like prophecy.
Night fell.
The survivors huddled in a ruined outpost carved into the cliffside an abandoned watchhold from the first Veil War.
Selene slept, her veins faintly glowing with Veillight. Tomas stood at the cave mouth, blade still dripping with memory. Iria silently re-wrapped her chains, now dull and pitted.
Kaelen sat apart from them all, shirt removed, staring at the glowing Ascendant Brand across his chest.
Lirael approached, limping slightly.
"It wasn't your fault."
Kaelen didn't answer.
"You saved us. You didn't betray the gods."
He looked at her finally, eyes hollow.
"No. But maybe the gods betrayed us."
Lirael sat beside him.
"So what now?"
Kaelen turned toward the horizon, where the stars refused to shine.
"Now we burn the lie. And light what comes after."