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Home / Fantasy / THE MARTIAL HEALER / Chapter Eighteen – Flamebound
Chapter Eighteen – Flamebound
Author: Hop-Grip
last update2025-08-13 23:03:38

“Rash!” Aelira’s voice cut through the haze. Her face swam into view, eyes wild, arm scorched up to the shoulder but alive. “Lysa,” Rashford rasped.

“I pulled you back,” she said. “Just barely. You were gone for minutes. Maybe hours.”

He looked around. The sky was clear again but the earth bore a scar: the crater where the Vault had been now pulsed with faint embers and something like breath. Kaelion crouched nearby, covered in ash. “You cracked it from the inside. How?”

“I refused the King,” Rashford said. “And I chose someone else.”

Aelira stiffened. “What happened to him?”

“I don’t know,” Rashford admitted. “But I don’t think he died.”

He opened his hand. A single shard of obsidian the Mad King’s crown rested in his palm, still warm, still humming.Later That Night – Campfire on the Ridge.

Lysa slept under heavy wraps, her breath shallow but steady. Her Soulbrand flickered softly, like a guttered candle. She hadn’t spoken since Rashford pulled her from the Hollow. Aelira watched her
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  • Chapter Twenty-Five – The Crownless Throne

    Back in the Palace,The throne glowed beneath Rashford’s hands, Symbols lifted into the air twelve rising, one faltering. He stepped back,“I won’t sit on a throne that demands obedience.” The palace shook.“You reject your inheritance?” the voice said.“I redefine it,” Rashford replied. “The Thirteenth won’t be a prison. It’ll be a path.”He lifted the Final Flame and struck the mural, The thirteenth symbol split in two, Half branded, Half wild. A new sigil formed: not bound by lineage or prophecy.Lysa gasped. “You created a new flame class.”Kaelion’s eyes narrowed. “That’s... impossible.”“No,” said Rashford. “It’s unwritten.”Elsewhere, In the Ash Between Realms. The Masked One watched the new symbol pulse across dimensions. He turned to the Faceless Giant.“He didn’t claim the throne.”“No,” said the giant. “He built a new one.”The Faceless leaned closer,Then we kill him before others try the same.A new symbol now pulsed across Rashford’s palm, Not the Thirteenth, Something beyon

  • Chapter Twenty-Four – The Empire Beneath Flame

    The Thirteenth Brand had gone quiet, But Rashford hadn’t. His sleep came in seconds now snatched between breaths and every dream was the same: a throne made of melted Soulbrands, and the Masked One offering him a seat. “We don’t rise to rule,” the Masked One whispered each night.“We rise to remind them: power doesn’t need permission.”When Rashford awoke, the mark pulsed like a heartbeat, He no longer trusted sleep. The aftermath of the attack had revealed more than just bodies. Beneath the collapsed floor, the Scribes uncovered a second vault. One even they hadn’t known existed.It was sealed with a lock none of them could open. Until Rashford touched it, The stone whispered: “Welcome, Thirteenth.” And split open, Inside: a map.A city that didn’t exist anymore, But had never fallen, Cindralis. Lysa traced the old coordinates. “This can’t be right. Cindralis was wiped off the record two centuries ago.”Kaelion studied the glyphs around the border. “No... It wasn’t destroyed. It was

  • Chapter Twenty-Three – The Brandless War

    Volhara – Eastern Gates. They arrived to find the city locked down. Flame banners had been replaced with black sheets, Scribes wore armor. One met them at the gate a silver-haired woman with a glass eye and a whip of light around her wrist.“You bear the mark,” she said to Rashford, He held up his palm, She flinched. “Then the Brandless have seen you too.”Inside the Archive Vault. Beneath Volhara, through seven flame-sealed doors, Rashford was led to a room of living stone. In the center: an ancient tome. Bound in skin. Whispering. The Scribe spoke. “There was a Thirteenth once. Just one. Centuries ago. He unlocked a part of the world we tried to erase.”Kaelion narrowed his eyes. “And the Brandless?”“They were his children. Beings forged from stolen flame. Souls without Soulbrands. Immune to prophecy. Immune to fate.”Lysa touched the page. “And now they’re coming back.” The tome screamed. At the edge of the world, A fleet of shadowships broke the sea. Their sails bled black fire.

  • Chapter Twenty-Two – Ash Ritual

    Back in the shrine, The boy collapsed, Ash poured from his mouth. The crown-shard cracked,“I just wanted to be... remembered,” he said. Lysa knelt beside him. “You are,” she said softly.He smiled one last time, Then faded. Ash covered everything, The shrine had collapsed inward after the ritual. No stone stood on stone. Bones had vanished into dust. Only the altar remained cracked, smoldering.And carved into its face: A new sigil, One no one recognized,Not from any codex, Not from any known flame. Kaelion stood over it, sword drawn. “Thirteen,” he muttered. “There were only twelve known Soulbrands in recorded history. Twelve classes. Twelve paths.”Rashford stared at it. The sigil shimmered, resisting identification—twisting each time they tried to name it. Lysa knelt beside the altar. Her hand hovered above the mark, not touching. “He left it behind. His memory. His will.”Aelira frowned. “You mean... this is his Soulbrand?”Lysa shook her head. “No. This is mine. The one I would’v

  • Chapter Twenty-One – Blood of the Unwritten Flame

    Present,Lysa stared at her hand like it wasn’t hers anymore. “I was chosen for the Unwriting. But they never completed it. Something... interrupted the ritual.”Aelira’s eyes widened. “You mean”“I was meant to be a vessel,” Lysa said. “But I escaped it. Somehow. Someone else didn’t.” Rashford stepped closer. “The child…”“He’s the failed echo of what I was supposed to become. The flame didn’t vanish it split.”Kaelion cursed under his breath. “Then that boy’s not just powerful. He’s... incomplete.” Lysa nodded. “And he wants to finish the ritual through me.”Elsewhere, A Burning Shrine, The Echo Child sat among ruins, his back to a pyre of bodies, He whispered to the flames, “I saw her. She’s close. Her memories are waking.”He held a black shard half crown, half mirror. “Soon, we’ll be whole again.”The fire hissed like a voice: But if she refuses you…?The boy smiled, Then I’ll take her soul like I was meant to.”Back at camp, Rashford stood at the edge of the tent, Final Flame in

  • Chapter Twenty – The Echo Child

    The road to Talvren was gone, Not blocked, Erased. Rashford stared at what remained: a flat field of ash stretching to the horizon. Wind swept across it, lifting dust that shimmered red with soulfire residue. They’d ridden for two days to get here.Kaelion’s voice was grim. “This isn’t destruction. This is memory removal. The place forgot it existed.”Aelira crouched and pressed her fingers to the ground. Her Soulbrand pulsed. “Someone Hollowborn did this.”Rashford said nothing,Because the coin wasn’t gone anymore. It was in him.Lysa stayed behind, She wasn’t well enough to ride, and her brand was still unstable. She’d said it clearly before they left: “If I follow you now, I’ll burn before we reach him.”So she waited, deep in trance, guarded by Thren and a circle of Windborne. She searched the Hollow alone now, And it was searching her back. Out on the ash road,The wind carried laughter.Rashford drew the Final Flame as a figure appeared ahead a boy, no older than ten, walking bare

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