Night settled over the Whispering Woods like a living thing — breathing, watching, remembering. Even the stars felt distant, dimmed beneath the thick lattice of branches that tangled overhead like the ribs of some sleeping giant. The forest held its silence close, as though it were aware of what Kael had seen within the ancient temple… aware of what had been awakened there. Kael sat alone beside the remnants of their campfire, though no flame burned in the pit. The ashes pulsed faintly — ember-less, smokeless — as though echoing a heartbeat, resonating with the strange energy simmering beneath his skin. Every breath he drew carried a taste of metal and ash, and whenever he closed his eyes, he felt it: that crown of burning iron, hovering above him in visions. The Ashen Crown. The voice that whispered in the temple had named it. Heir of ruin. Heir of fire. Heir of the crown that wakes gods and slaughters them. Kael dragged a shaking hand across his face and forced his breathin

The forest did not recover quickly. Even hours after the Council’s hunters vanished, the Whispering Woods bore the scars of Kael’s power like open wounds. Trees stood blackened and split, their bark crystallized into jagged, glassy ridges where Shadowfire had kissed them. The ground smoldered faintly in places, ash sinking into the soil as though the forest itself were swallowing the damage, trying slowly to heal. Kael walked through it in silence. Each step felt heavier than the last. The fire inside him had not gone quiet. It never truly did anymore. It simmered beneath his skin like a restrained inferno, coiled and alert, responding to every sharp emotion, every memory it found sharp enough to cut. And grief was sharp. He hadn’t spoken since the battle. Lyra walked beside him, close enough that their shoulders nearly brushed. She didn’t push him to talk. She had learned when silence was armor and when it was a wound and this was both. Her presence was steady, grounding, her

The message arrived at dawn.Not by courier.Not by spellflare or flarehawk.By silence.The forest went still first.The Whispering Woods had never been quiet—not truly. Even in rest, the trees murmured, roots shifting beneath the soil like sleeping beasts. That morning, every sound thinned, stretched, and vanished. Birds froze mid-call. Wind stilled. Even Kael’s Shadowfire went unnaturally calm.Lyra felt it before she saw it.A pressure behind her eyes.A tightening around her ribs.“Kael,” she whispered.He was already awake.He stood at the edge of the clearing, shoulders tense, rune faintly glowing beneath his collarbone. His gaze was fixed on the space between two ancient oaks—where the air had begun to fold inward, bending like heat over stone.Light split the world.A gate unfurled soundlessly, precise and elegant, etched with sigils Lyra recognized instantly.Council marks.Darius swore under his breath. “They found us.”“No,” Kael said quietly.The Shadowfire didn’t surge.

Darius noticed the change before Lyra did. It wasn’t dramatic. There was no flare of Shadowfire, no violent rupture in the air, no scream from the Veil. If anything, Kael seemed… quieter. Controlled in a way that felt unnatural. That was what unsettled him. Kael had always been a storm—contained, yes, but never still. Even at rest, there had been an edge to him, a tension like drawn steel. Now that tension was gone. Replaced by something smoother. Too smooth. Darius sat sharpening his blade at the edge of camp, eyes half-lidded, listening. Kael was across the clearing, feeding the fire with deliberate movements. No wasted motion. No flicker of shadow curling unconsciously from his fingers. The runes along his arms glowed faintly, evenly—like they were breathing in time with him. That had never happened before. Lyra sat nearby, watching Kael with a crease between her brows. She kept rubbing at her wrist, as if something itched beneath the skin. Darius scraped the whetstone o

The Council Chamber had never known silence. Even in moments of mourning or judgment, there was always a hum—wards breathing, sigils whispering, the Veil itself resonating faintly through the crystalline spire that housed the highest authority in Aetherion. Tonight, that hum fractured. The moment the failsafe collapsed, every rune embedded in the chamber flared blood-red. Alarms did not ring. They screamed. High Seer Valec rose from his seat so abruptly his chair shattered behind him, crystal exploding across the floor. His blindfold—woven from Veil-silk and sanctified ash—smoldered at the edges. “No,” he whispered. Across the circular chamber, the Twelve reacted in varying degrees of disbelief. Some stood. Some froze. One laughed—high, sharp, hysterical. Impossible was not a word the Council used lightly. The sigil suspended above the chamber—the Vessel Matrix—flickered violently. Lines that had been pristine and precise now warped, fracturing into unfamiliar geometries