The silence in the stone corridor was unbearable.Kael’s footsteps echoed as he moved deeper into the mountain temple, torchlight dancing along walls etched with forgotten prayers. Behind him, the others lagged—Lira wounded and barely keeping pace, Nyra holding her arm. Their breaths were ragged, their nerves frayed. The spiral mark on Kael’s back burned like fire beneath his cloak, a familiar warning that whatever they approached was older than time and twice as cruel.A heavy door loomed ahead, iron-bound and sealed with ancient wards that pulsed faintly in the dark.Kael stopped.He raised the torch. The symbol carved into the stone was one he had seen once before—deep in the Archive’s forbidden wing, in the section no mortal scribe dared enter.“Are you sure this is it?” Lira whispered. Her voice cracked. Blood stained her side from the blade that grazed her during the escape from the Sunborn’s ambush.“I saw it in the vision,” Kael said. “This is the chamber.”Nyra stepped up bes

Kael’s boots hit the ground hard as he landed at the base of the ridge. Smoke clawed at the edges of the valley, thick and acrid, curling from the charred remnants of the Watchtower. The eastern sky bled red as if the sun itself had been wounded. There was no wind. No birds. Just the low hum of the Wyrm’s breath poisoning the air.Lira limped beside him, blood trickling from a shallow cut on her temple. Her eyes never stopped scanning the ruins. The scent of scorched leather and metal clung to her, and Kael knew the detonation hadn’t just been to silence the Watchtower. It had been a message. The kind you sent to make people forget what hope was.They crossed into the smoking wreckage together. Splintered stone, shattered armor, and bodies sprawled in unnatural positions marked the destruction. Kael’s gaze caught on a fallen banner. The silver star of the Archive was blackened, trampled, and half-buried in ash.“They didn’t leave survivors,” Lira whispered.Kael said nothing. His jaw

The sky above the crumbling tower split open with a soundless scream. Kael barely had time to shield his eyes before the black lightning descended, not in streaks but in woven threads, like a web of raw agony threading itself into the world. The spiral mark on his chest ignited with fire. He stumbled back, and Lira caught him by the arm before he fell.“It’s happening again,” he gritted out.“No,” she said firmly, her hand trembling against his. “This is worse.”The ruins around them trembled. The tower they had entered, once buried beneath the sands of the Shattered Reaches, had revealed more than stone and forgotten traps. It had revealed memory. Not just Kael’s, but something ancient. Something divine. The god that had once bled here had never truly died.Kael stepped toward the broken dais. Symbols pulsed on its surface. Veins of golden light spread from it like roots, crawling across the floor toward him. At the center of the dais sat a single shard of obsidian, glinting with a d

The moment Kael stepped through the veil of ash and flame, the world changed.Gone was the endless stretch of blackened land behind him. Gone were the screams. The echo of Lira’s voice faded like mist in the wind. What replaced it was silence—terrible and deep. A silence that gnawed at the bones.He stood at the threshold of an ancient cavern, its walls breathing with veins of molten light. The air pulsed like a dying heart. The ground beneath him felt wrong, too soft, too warm. Every step sank slightly, as if the stone was alive.Kael moved slowly. His blade, slick with the blood of the last guardian, pulsed faintly in his hand. It had not spoken since the breach. Not a whisper, not a hum. Even the spiral mark on his chest remained cold. That worried him more than anything.A faint whisper drifted ahead.Not words.Breathing.Low, guttural, inhuman.He approached the sound, boots sinking into stone that felt more like skin. The cavern narrowed, bending into impossible angles, twistin

The air in the shattered courtyard had grown too still.Kael stood with his blade drawn, Lira’s blood drying against his chest. Her breathing was faint in his arms, too faint for comfort. The storm above had quieted as if even the skies waited to see what would come next.Nyra knelt by the edge of the cracked dais, pressing her hand against the ground, whispering in a voice only the earth understood. Magic coiled from her fingertips like silver smoke, vanishing into the fractures.The silence was broken by slow footsteps.A man emerged from the broken gate—robed in crimson, hands bare, eyes silver as frost. His presence sucked the warmth from the air. Kael’s grip tightened around his sword as the man walked across the rubble, not once looking at the corpses he stepped over.“You are late,” Kael said coldly.“I was waiting,” the man replied. “For you to bleed. For her to fall. And for that wretched blade to awaken.”Kael’s jaw locked. “You’re the one they called the Hollow Flame.”“I w