The rain had stopped hours ago, but the city still smelled of it—iron, smoke, and wet stone. In the high wards, torchlight shimmered faintly across puddles, casting golden veins through the darkness. Somewhere distant, a bell tolled once, hollow and cold.Most of Lundar slept uneasily that night. Some prayed. Others sharpened their blades in silence. All waited for dawn that might not come.But Blaze didn’t wait for dawn.He walked alone through the lower corridors of the keep, his steps echoing faintly against walls blackened by fire. His aura flickered around him in a dim glow, faint enough not to draw attention, bright enough to chase away the dark.The mark beneath his skin pulsed again—slow, deep, like a heartbeat that wasn’t his own. It tugged him downward. Toward the tunnels. Toward something ancient that whispered his name in a voice that didn’t belong to anyone living.He’d told no one where he was going. Grim would’ve called it reckless. Valor would’ve insisted on sending gu

The silence after the collapse was worse than the roar.It stretched on, heavy, aching, endless. Only the distant crumble of stone broke it, echoing like a dying heartbeat through the fractured vaults of Lundar.Blaze sat against the cold wall, his breath ragged. Dust and ash clung to his skin, sweat streaking through the soot. Every muscle screamed. Every pulse of his heart throbbed against the Stigma’s mark, flickering between molten gold and dying red.He could still hear Hydra’s last words—Forgive me, Regal… the fire was never meant to be yours.They repeated in his mind, again and again, like a curse that refused to fade.Grim crouched nearby, binding a gash along his arm, his face set in grim silence. Valor paced back and forth, armor dented, eyes burning with restless fury. Keith lay unconscious on a cot of scavenged cloth, his breathing shallow, his fingers twitching with the faint pulse of residual magic.The air reeked of scorched stone and iron. The heat still radiated from