Cities don't die all at once.
They die breathing their own dust, dreaming of what they once were.
The mist rose at dawn.
Kael and the child followed the dry course of a river until they reached the cracked stone walls that marked the end of the desert.
High above, half-erased letters carved in rusted iron read:
"Ythra, the City of Smoke."
The air smelled of coal, burnt oil, and broken promises.
The gates were open, but no guards stood watch.
The silence was so thick it seemed to have a body.
Kael crossed the threshold with the sword still wrapped in its bandages.
The child followed, dragging his feet through the dust.
In the streets, the bodies weren't entirely dead: some still moved, praying without voices; others kept their eyes open as if still waiting for redemption.
In the center of the city, they found the market.
Thousands of objects—jewels, masks, tools—lay arranged on the stalls, as if the merchants had vanished in the middle of their work.
Everything was covered by a fine layer of ash.
The child stopped before a broken mirror.
He stared at himself, curious.
His reflection flickered, as though it didn't quite belong to this world.
"Kael…" he whispered. "What am I?"
The inquisitor watched him, saying nothing.
He knew that telling the truth would be a way of killing him too soon.
"You are… necessary," he finally said.
The child nodded, not understanding.
A metallic sound echoed through the streets.
Footsteps.
Armor.
The echo of something that still held human shape.
Kael's hand went to the hilt.
From the fog emerged three figures clad in black iron. Their eyes glowed like embers, and the symbol of the Pure Fire burned upon their chests.
They were inquisitors.
Flesh and blood.
Real.
One of them spoke:
"Kael Dren. By the authority of the Order, you stand in judgment."
His voice was cold, almost ceremonial.
Kael lifted his gaze.
"I judged myself long ago."
"Heretics cannot grant themselves absolution," said the tallest. "Hand over the child."
"No."
"You know what you carry in your arms. You know what it means."
The silence broke with the sound of steel.
The battle was brief but brutal. Kael moved with an almost impossible precision, as if every strike were the result of centuries of training—and of guilt.
The three inquisitors fell one after another, leaving behind a stench of molten metal and cursed prayer.
The child watched it all without blinking.
His face was serene, but in his eyes flickered the shadow of the fire.
When it was over, Kael leaned against a column and closed his eyes.
The air was thick.
Then he felt it—
a presence.
Light.
Like a scent that shouldn't exist.
He opened his eyes.
At the far end of the plaza stood a woman.
Tall, dressed in gray, with a silver veil covering her face.
She didn't move.
Didn't breathe.
She only watched.
Kael took a step toward her, but the child stopped him.
"Don't touch her," he said, in a voice that didn't sound like his own.
The woman spoke.
Her voice was a whisper that seemed to drift from a dream:
"Kael Dren, the fire still burns in your hands."
"Who are you?"
"I am she who sees what the gods conceal."
"Why do you follow me?"
"I do not follow," she said. "I wait."
The wind rose, lifting her veil.
Beneath it, Kael glimpsed half a face—beautiful and sorrowful, yet split by a luminous crack that ran across her skin as if it were made of glass.
"That child…" she continued. "He is not yours, but his fate is bound to yours."
"What do you know of him?"
"Everything. And nothing. His soul is still being written."
"And mine?" Kael asked.
She smiled.
"Yours was written long ago… and then erased."
Kael took another step.
But as he did, the woman began to fade, dissolving into smoke.
"Wait…" he whispered.
The wind carried her away.
Only the echo of her voice remained:
"Fire purifies, but love condemns."
That night, Kael and the child took refuge in a ruined tower.
He couldn't sleep.
The woman's face remained burned into his mind.
He didn't know if she was a vision, a trap… or a warning.
The child spoke in his sleep:
"She doesn't belong to this world."
Kael shuddered.
"And you? Do you?"
The child smiled in his dreams.
"Not yet."
Outside, the city burned without fire.
And on the horizon, a new dawn was forming—
gray, dirty,
but alive.