The night was quiet except for the crackling of fire. Ashar walked alone across a field of smoldering ruins, his cloak torn, his steps heavy. He had not started this fire—he never needed to. It was inside him, a curse he could never extinguish. Wherever he went, flames followed, as though the world itself rejected him.
Unlike his siblings, who reveled in their gifts, Ashar hated his. His fire could sear flesh, melt stone, and burn the very air from a man's lungs. But it did not bring him joy. It brought only screams. He remembered them still—the first village he had touched as a child of the eclipse, where the people had not even fought him. They had only run, and still the fire had consumed them.
They called him the Exiled Flame. His brothers and sisters mocked him for his guilt. "Weakness," Draziel spat. "Shame," sneered Seraphine. "A tool wasted," hissed Kaelith. Even Veyra pitied him, for she saw in him not triumph, but tragedy.
Ashar preferred exile. Away from their fortress, away from their laughter. He wandered among the mountains, sometimes hiding his nature, sometimes letting mortals chase him with pitchforks and arrows. He never struck back with true fury. He could not. Deep in his heart, he longed for something the others had forgotten: peace.
It was on such a night of wandering that he stumbled into an ambush.
Torches flared around him as men stepped from the trees, bows raised, spears gleaming. They wore ragged armor, their faces scarred, their eyes full of hatred. Yet in their fear burned a strange defiance.
"Monster!" one spat. "You walk in fire, but tonight you die."
Ashar did not move. His amber eyes flickered like dying coals. He could have incinerated them with a single breath, but he only said, "If you believe you can kill me, then try. I will not stop you."
The men hesitated. Their leader, a scarred soldier with a torn banner wrapped around his arm, stepped forward. "Why? Why won't you fight?"
"Because I am tired of blood," Ashar said. "Yours or mine—it makes no difference."
The soldier lowered his weapon, confusion in his eyes. "You… you're not like the others."
The words stung, though Ashar did not show it. He looked away. "No. I am worse."
The soldier studied him for a long moment. Then, as if weighing some invisible scale, he said, "There is a place. A valley that the sun never leaves. They say a sword lies buried there, burning brighter than fire itself. We seek it."
Ashar's head turned sharply. The Dawnbreaker. He had heard the whispers, but dismissed them as mortal fantasy. Now, standing before him, were men who believed enough to risk their lives.
"Why tell me this?" Ashar asked.
The soldier's jaw tightened. "Because I see something in your eyes. Not hunger. Not cruelty. Only torment. If the sword is real… perhaps you're the one meant to wield it."
Ashar almost laughed. Him? The cursed flame? The exile? Yet something stirred inside him—something that had slept for centuries.
Hope.
He gave a single nod. "Take me there."
And so, the outcast vampire joined the mortals, not as their enemy, but as their companion. None of them knew what the journey would cost. None of them knew the other six were already hunting.
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