CHAPTER V
The Ruins of Kaer'Thalan
The wind that swept across the high northern plateau carried with it the taste of old fire.
Alaric felt it on his tongue long before he saw the ruins.
They had emerged from the Deep Ways through a narrow fissure in the mountain's side, a crack in the world that opened onto a vast, desolate expanse of blackened stone and wind-scoured snow. The sky above was a pale, merciless blue, and the sun hung like a cold coin, offering light but no warmth. Far in the distance, the jagged spines of the Ironspine Mountains pierced the heavens, their peaks lost in slow-moving cloud.
Between them and those mountains lay Kaer'Thalan.
Or what remained of it.
Once, the city had been the first and greatest of the Seal-Cities, raised in the Age of Ash when the world still reeled from the Dragon Wars. Its towers had been carved from white star-stone, its walls inlaid with runes of binding and warding, its streets laid out in precise sigils meant to mirror the great circles of power etched into the earth itself. Here, the First Conclave had anchored the northernmost chain of seals that bound Vorthraxx the Eternal beneath the Ironspines.
Now, it was a grave.
A vast crater of obsidian and fused rock yawned where the heart of the city had once stood, its edges jagged and uneven, as though a giant's fist of flame had slammed down from the sky and melted the world. Around it lay the skeletal remains of towers, half-collapsed walls, and bridges that led nowhere, their stone blackened and cracked by heat so intense it had turned marble to glass.
"This was no ordinary destruction," Lysa murmured, her voice barely carrying over the wind. "This was dragonfire… and something more. A ritual. A breaking of wards from within."
Alaric said nothing. He stood at the rim of the crater, staring down into the dark, glossy depths. The air rising from it was warm, despite the cold, and it shimmered faintly, as though the world there were still remembering flame.
His star-forged dagger pulsed in his hand, its runes glowing a soft, uneasy blue.
They descended carefully along a sloping path of fractured stone, picking their way down into what had once been Kaer'Thalan's central plaza. As they moved, the wind died away, replaced by a heavy, unnatural stillness. Even their footsteps seemed muffled, as though the air itself were thick with memory.
At the center of the crater stood a single structure still mostly intact.
A tower.
It rose from the fused stone like a broken tooth, its once-smooth surface now scored by deep cracks that glowed faintly red, as though heat still smoldered within. Its top had been sheared away, leaving a jagged crown of stone open to the sky. Around its base, the remains of a vast circular platform could be seen, etched with runes that were now dim, fractured, and incomplete.
"The Seal-Tower," Lysa whispered. "The heart of Kaer'Thalan's binding circle."
As they approached, a low hum filled the air, so deep it was more vibration than sound. The runes beneath their feet flickered weakly, like dying embers.
Alaric felt a strange pull in his chest, a warmth that spread outward, as though something within him were answering a call.
The entrance to the tower yawned before them, its great doors long since melted and twisted into unrecognizable shapes. Inside, the air was thick with dust and the faint, acrid scent of ancient smoke.
They stepped into darkness.
Light bloomed at once, not from any torch or crystal, but from the walls themselves. Veins of star-stone ran through the tower's interior, and as Alaric crossed the threshold, they flared to life, casting the chamber in a pale, ghostly glow.
In the center of the hall stood a pedestal of black stone.
Upon it rested the First Seal.
Or what remained of it.
It was a massive crystal, once clear and flawless, now shattered. Deep cracks ran through it, and from those fractures seeped a slow, pulsing light of molten gold and crimson, as though a fragment of a sun were trapped within. Chains of light, woven from ancient magic, still wrapped around it, but many were broken, their ends dissolving into sparks that faded before they touched the floor.
"The Stone of Kaer'Thalan," Lysa breathed. "One of the anchors of the world."
Alaric felt his knees weaken. The presence of the shattered seal pressed upon him like a weight, not of physical mass, but of age, of power, of a will that had been restrained for centuries and was now straining against its bonds.
As he drew closer, the warmth in his chest intensified. The air around the crystal rippled, and the light within it flared.
Then the world fell away.
He was no longer in the ruined tower.
He stood upon a vast plain of scorched earth beneath a sky of fire and smoke. The air thundered with the beating of colossal wings, and the ground trembled beneath the passage of titanic forms.
Dragons.
Not the half-forgotten creatures of story and tapestry, but living storms of scale and flame. Red, gold, blue, black, and white, they wheeled through the sky, their roars shaking the world. Below them, armies of men, elves, dwarves, and mages stood in desperate ranks, banners snapping in a wind heated by dragonfire.
At the center of it all loomed one figure greater than the rest.
Vorthraxx the Eternal.
His scales were the color of molten obsidian veined with gold, his wings vast enough to darken cities, his eyes twin furnaces of ancient, merciless intelligence. Around him coiled chains of light, forged of starfire and rune, held by towering figures—kings in shining armor, archmages wreathed in power, and, astonishingly, a single dragon of pure, radiant light.
Luminaryx, the Light Dragon, last of his kind.
The vision shifted.
Alaric saw the binding. The ritual circle, vast beyond comprehension, etched into the land itself. He saw the Seal-Towers rising, one by one, their foundations sinking deep into the bones of the world. He saw blood spilled—royal blood, mage blood, dragon blood—woven into the magic that forged the chains.
And he saw a woman standing at the edge of the circle.
She was human, clad in the armor of the Dragonforges, her hair dark, her eyes burning with reflected flame. In her hands she held a blade of star-forged steel, and upon her brow rested a circlet shaped like a crown of thorns wrought in fire.
An Emberline.
A voice echoed through the vision, vast and resonant, like the grinding of mountains.
Blood of flame and will of stone… you bind what should never have been born.
Vorthraxx's gaze fell upon the woman, and for a heartbeat, something like grim respect flickered in his eyes.
This is not the end, the Dragon King said. Only a sleep. And when I wake, the world will remember fire.
The vision shattered.
Alaric gasped and staggered back, his heart hammering. Lysa caught his arm, steadying him.
"You saw it," she said softly. "The past. The binding."
He nodded, unable to speak.
The cracked crystal before them flared again, and this time a voice emerged from it—not the thunderous majesty of Vorthraxx, but something sharper, more immediate, like the crackle of living flame.
"So… the blood of the forges yet walks the world."
A shape formed in the air above the seal, coalescing into the translucent image of a dragon's head, its scales a deep, burning red, its eyes like twin coals.
"Pyraxis," Lysa whispered. "The Flame-General."
The spectral dragon regarded them with ancient, calculating eyes.
"The chains weaken," Pyraxis said. "The first anchor is broken. The Fire-Road opens, as it was foretold. And you, child of ember and thorn, stand upon it."
Alaric felt the heat of the apparition wash over him, yet it did not burn. Instead, it felt… familiar.
"What do you want?" he asked, forcing the words past his fear.
"To see whether the world will choose dominion or destruction," Pyraxis replied. "When the Eternal wakes, all shall burn. But there are those among dragonkind who remember the old balance. Those who would see flame tempered by will, not unleashed in endless conquest."
The dragon's gaze flicked to the shattered seal.
"Kaer'Thalan was the first wound. It will not be the last. The Crown of Ash stirs, and with it, the right of command. Whether that crown will rest upon the brow of a tyrant or a guardian… that choice has not yet been made."
The image began to fade, its form dissolving into sparks of light.
"Seek the Heart of Winter," Pyraxis's voice echoed. "Seek the blades of starfire. And when the sky darkens with wings, remember: even dragons may be bound by oaths… and by blood."
The light vanished.
Silence returned to the tower, broken only by the faint hum of the dying runes.
Lysa let out a slow breath. "The First Seal is broken, but not entirely gone. Its remnants still hold… barely."
Alaric looked at the shattered crystal, at the chains of light unraveling, at the faint glow pulsing like a wounded heart.
"This is only the beginning," he said.
"Yes," Lysa agreed. "And the world is not ready for what comes next."
Outside, the wind rose again, carrying with it a distant, thunderous sound—so low and vast it could have been the shifting of mountains.
Or the beating of wings.