The violet flames didn’t burn. They shimmered, weightless, like starlight caught in a storm. Rashford stepped onto the stone platform. Lysa stood at its center hands bare, blades sheathed, face unguarded.The last time he saw her alive, she was twelve. Now she was a storm in human form. And yet, in her eyes… was recognition. A flicker of something real. “Rash,” she said softly. He froze.No one had called him that since Oakwood. She stepped closer, slowly. No tricks. No blades. “You came.”“I had to,” he said.A dozen feet between them. That was all. “You died,” he said, voice barely steady.“I should have,” she replied. “I wanted to.”He flinched. She looked away. “But they wouldn’t let me.”“The Empire?”“The forge.”He blinked. “You awakened back then?”She nodded. “When they burned the village… I woke screaming. They found me among the ash.”Her hand lifted slightly. The mark on her wrist pulsed. Violet Soulbrand.“You were Soulbound too,” he whispered.“No,” she said quietly. “I

The earth shook, Chunks of stone crashed down the mountainside as an obsidian tower tore through the ground like a blade through skin. Flames licked the air, not red but blue, cold soulfire, ancient and patient.Rashford stood frozen, the broken Equilibrium Blade limp in his hand. The forge inside him throbbed like a second heart.This was not Lysa’s doing. This was older. Deeper, The woman who had summoned it, the Chainkeeper stood calm amid the quake, her crimson cloak unmoving, as if the storm bowed around her.Aelira stirred behind him, groaning. Thren was already shielding her with a low wall of stone magic, eyes locked on the rising tower. Rashford spoke without turning. “This is a Soulbind relic?”The Chainkeeper’s voice was low and resonant. “This is your family’s debt made manifest. The forge chose your bloodline to wield its flame. But the throne demands more than power it demands balance.”Rashford winced, glancing down at the cracked blade in his hand. “I had it. For one m

Three days.That’s how long Rashford had before the Vault opened, Three days to gather allies, stabilize his power, and somehow reach the Bloodlandsthe forsaken wastelands where the Vault of Wounds had been sealed in chains older than history itself.The moment he left the tower, the world felt different.The Final Flame was silent in his hand, but it burned against his back like a second spine. His Soulbrand no longer pulsed with pain,It pulsed with expectation.Aelira was already awake when he returned. Her wound had mended with uncanny speed, thanks to Thren’s care and Rashford’s earlier soulflare. She stared at the horizon like it owed her answers.“You look older,” she said.“Do I?”“You walked into that tower angry. You came out… different.”He shrugged. “Carrying an ancient soulflame blade tends to shift priorities.”She turned to him. “Did you see her again?”He nodded. “Not as she is. As she was. Before Oakwood.”“That’s not the Lysa we’ll face.”“I know.”“But you still want t

Silence. That was the first thing Rashford noticed. Not absence of sound, but devouring silence the kind that pressed into the bones and drowned thought. He blinked, and the world he knew was gone, No sky, No earth, Just ash.He stood on a field of it, endless and flat. The Vault had swallowed him whole. And across the horizon, ghostfires flickered like dying stars, At the center of it all, a throne. And on it, the Mad King.“You finally arrived,” the King said. “Late. But I forgive you.”Rashford’s voice scraped from his throat. “Where’s Lysa?”“Here. Everywhere. She is the key that broke the lock. And you…”He rose. “…are the door.”Outside the Vault – Reality. Aelira screamed his name, but Rashford didn’t hear. His body stood stiff, eyes blank, flame curling from his fingertips. The Final Flame floated above his palm, spinning slowly. Kaelion grabbed her shoulder. “He’s inside it now. Fully soulbound.” “We have to pull him out!”Kaelion shook his head grimly. “If we touch him whil

Morning After She Left.Rashford stared at the coin, It didn’t glow, Didn’t hum, Just waited.Kaelion sharpened his sword nearby, “She’s real?” Aelira asked quietly. Kaelion nodded. “Too real. The Seer’s only appeared three times in recorded history. Each time, a dynasty fell.”Aelira looked toward the tent. “Then what does that make Rashford?”Kaelion said nothing, But the fire popped. And the coin shimmered, Just once.Elsewhere In the Chains of the Forgotten. The hooded figure stood at the edge of a prison made from sky.A second voice echoed behind him.“She’s seen the boy.”“I know.”“Will you stop him?”“No,” the figure said.“I’ll kill him if you won’t.”The hooded man finally turned. His face was empty. “You’ll try.”And behind him…Seven thrones burned, Rashford didn’t sleep that night, The coin sat in his palm, inert and cold but wrong. Like it wasn’t meant to exist outside the Hollow. Like it breathed in reverse.Each time he blinked, he heard the Mad King’s voice in the silence