The wind carried only ash.
What had once been a city sprawled across the valley below them—walls crumbled to dust, towers broken like rotten teeth jutting from the earth. Smoke still drifted from places where fire had burned long after the people were gone.
Lian stood on the ridge, cloak snapping in the wind, eyes tracing the ruins.
The Oracle's voice was quiet at his side.
"This was Cindralis," she said. "One of the last kingdoms to stand against the Beast Tide."
Her gaze swept the emptiness below. "They failed."
Lian said nothing.
But he could feel it—the echoes of battle still clinging to the air like ghosts. Fallen banners rotted among blackened bones. Half-sunken war machines leaned in the dirt, split open by claws the size of ships.
The Core King surveyed the ruins with his usual cold detachment.
"This is what happens when kingdoms think walls will stop what falls from the stars," he said.
As they descended toward the city gates, Lian saw the scorch marks on the stone. Whole chunks of wall had been melted, not broken. Like something had poured fire hot enough to erase matter itself.
He remembered Dreadmaw's molten blood.
This had been worse.
Much worse.
The streets of Cindralis were silent.
No birds. No rats. Not even the stench of decay anymore.
It had been too long since life walked here.
But the deeper they went, the stronger Lian felt it—a pull, faint but growing, tugging at the Forbidden Cores in his chest.
The Oracle noticed too.
Another Core was here.
Or something like it.
They reached the city square at dusk.
Statues lay toppled, faceless kings staring sightless at cracked stone. A dry fountain sat at the center, choked with ash.
That was when Lian heard it.
Footsteps.
A figure emerged from the far side of the square.
Cloaked. Armed. Moving with the kind of ease that came from knowing he was stronger than anyone here.
When he stopped beneath the shadow of the broken fountain, the wind pulled back his hood.
He was young. Maybe Lian's age when the palace burned centuries ago. Black hair streaked with silver, eyes glowing faintly like embers left in the dark.
The Oracle stiffened.
"A Core Hunter," she whispered.
The man's gaze found Lian like a blade sliding free of its sheath.
"So it's true," he said softly. "The one carrying the Tyrant's Heart walks again."
His voice carried through the empty square like falling ash.
Lian's hand went to his sword.
"Who are you?"
The man smiled faintly.
"Kael," he said. "Core Hunter of the Fifth Throne."
He tilted his head, eyes flicking toward the faint glow beneath Lian's skin where the Forbidden Cores pulsed like molten stars.
"And those," he added, "don't belong to you."
The Core King stepped forward, blade half-drawn.
"You've been following us," he said flatly.
Kael didn't deny it.
"Two Forbidden Cores," he murmured. "And the boy hasn't burned alive yet. Impressive. But you won't make it to the third."
His gaze sharpened.
"Because I'll take them here."
Lian felt the Tyrant's Heart stir like a predator waking.
Kill him, it whispered. He seeks the throne you are owed.
Kael drew his weapon.
It wasn't a blade of steel.
It was a shard of crystal the size of his arm, glowing faintly from within, edges humming like something alive.
A Core Weapon.
Forged from the same fragments falling from the stars.
The Oracle's voice was tight.
"Be careful. Core Hunters bind fragments to themselves. They can call on that power without dying the way you will if you lose control."
Kael moved first.
One blink he was across the square.
The next his crystal blade slammed against Lian's sword hard enough to send cracks spiderwebbing through the fountain behind him.
The impact rattled Lian's arms to the bone.
Kael fought like the storms Lian remembered from the old empire—fast, merciless, his weapon cutting arcs of light through the ash-thick air.
Every clash sent sparks shrieking across the stone.
And beneath it all, Lian felt it—the Hunter's Core Weapon drank power from somewhere deep inside the earth itself, each strike fueled by something colder than magic.
The Tyrant's Heart roared for release.
Power flooded Lian's veins, molten and wild.
His speed doubled.
Strength tripled.
The next clash shattered the stone beneath their feet as he drove Kael back three steps.
The Hunter grinned through the smoke.
"Good," he said softly. "If the Tyrant's Heart kills you before I do, it saves me the trouble."
Lian didn't answer.
Couldn't.
The second Forbidden Core inside him screamed now, its hunger bleeding into his limbs until every swing came harder, faster, each strike driving Kael toward the square's edge.
But the power burned.
It always burned.
His vision blurred white at the edges.
The Oracle's wards flared around them, sparks of gold light to keep the battle from leveling what was left of the city.
Even the Core King watched now, blade still sheathed. Measuring. Waiting.
The final clash split the fountain apart in a rain of shattered stone.
Kael leapt back, landing on the cracked statue of some forgotten king.
He touched the blood on his cheek, eyes never leaving Lian.
And then he smiled again.
"Not yet," he said. "The third Core waits in the Ashen Plains. When you take it… I'll come for you again."
He vanished into the ruins before Lian could speak, leaving only the echo of his words and the ash swirling in his wake.
The Oracle turned to Lian, voice sharp.
"You can't fight him and the Cores both," she said. "One will kill you. The other will turn you into something worse."
The Core King finally spoke, his gaze on the south where Kael had gone.
"The Ashen Plains will burn," he said. "And we will see who survives the flames."