The Heir of Veiled Realms

Chapter 6: The Path That Burns

The forest was burning behind them.

Not wild flames, but something worse, controlled fire, unnatural, serpentine. It slithered across bark and root like a living thing, devouring silently. The familiars, those feathered watchers, ignited midflight, their screeches echoing across the trees as they were consumed.

Kael didn’t look back. He couldn’t. Selune dragged him by the wrist, pulling him through brush and vine, her enchantments glowing across her skin like glowing tattoos. The Runic Pathway had opened, but only for a moment. And the Ravenblades were already closing in. The path beneath them wasn’t made of stone or dirt.

It was living wood, hollow and woven, pulsing with ancient energy. As they ran, the walls twisted and reformed, doors vanished, trees parted, stairways unfolded from bark.

“This path is alive,” Kael gasped.

“It was made by druids during the Flame Wars,” Selune said, breathless. “It hides the desperate. Tests the worthy.” Kael slowed. “Wait—tests?”

Before Selune could answer, the pathway split in three. Each tunnel led into darkness. Each pulsed with a different light: red, blue, and white. Selune froze. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Kael stepped forward. “Which way do we go?” Selune studied the lights.

“The red tests strength. The blue tests memory. The white” she hesitated “tests self.”

A screech echoed behind them. Riven's voice shouted in the distance: “No more running, little candle!”

Selune turned to Kael, urgency in her voice. “We have to split up.”

“What? No”

“They’ll chase whoever takes the white path. It's the most dangerous. But also the hardest to track. The other leads should curve back to the same endpoint if we’re lucky.”

Kael’s grip tightened on Emberwrath. “Then I’m taking the white.”

Selune met his gaze. “You’ll face yourself in there, Kael. Not just your fear. Your truth.”

Kael looked into the glowing white tunnel. Then stepped inside.

The tunnel was silent. Oppressively so.

Then came voices, not from around him, but within.

“You’re not chosen. You’re a mistake.”

“Dustvale spit you out like a broken toy.”

“You think one sword makes you more than an orphan?”

“You will burn everyone who helps you. Just like your parents.”

Kael stumbled through memories, real and false.

His mother’s dying face. The orphans crying in the night. The monks turning away.

The burnt ruins of the temple. Selune walking away, eyes cold. He dropped to his knees.

“Stop—stop—STOP!”

Emberwrath pulsed in his hands. And the voices ceased.

“You do not silence truth,” the sword whispered. “You carry it. Shape it. Burn it… or let it burn you.”

Kael looked up. And saw himself.

A boy no older than twelve, before the pain, before the fire. “I’m not you anymore,” Kael whispered.

“You’re still me,” the boy replied. “You just forgot what I wanted.” Kael clenched his fists. And stepped forward. He embraced the boy. The path lit up.

While Kael walked the white path, Selune sprinted through blue light, and her own memories.

A boy bleeding out in her arms. A vow made in a collapsing tower. The moment she branded herself to protect a life already lost. And the figure who once called her daughter… before casting her into exile.

Tears stung her eyes. She didn’t fight the visions. She walked through them. Accepted them. And emerged stronger.

Kael and Selune reunited at the mouth of the Sanctum. It stood carved into the roots of a massive, petrified tree, a temple of stone and silence wrapped in vines. Neither spoke at first. They simply hugged. Not as survivors. But as people who had walked through parts of themselves they didn’t want to see again.

The Sanctum was guarded by monks draped in grey leaves and bark-dyed robes. Their eyes were white, not blind, but unnervingly perceptive. They examined Kael with quiet reverence.

“You carry Emberwrath,” one said. “The sword that remembers.” Kael nodded.

“And the flame that mourns,” the monk added. Selune whispered, “That’s a title… from the old days.”

The monks led them inside, where runes pulsed across the walls and healing chants filled the air like music.

“You are not the first to come broken,” a monk told Kael. “But you might be the first to leave whole.”

That night, a monk led Kael to a chamber deep beneath the Sanctum, where a sealed brazier burned with black flame.

“This is the Unbound Ember,” the monk said. “A source of fire not meant to destroy… but to remember. It shows truth of the sword, of yourself, of what came before.” Kael approached it. Visions burst behind his eyes: A war between nine lords and a flamebearer. A betrayal inside a sacred temple.

A newborn marked with a sigil… hidden by a dying woman. A sword shattered, and reforged with a dying breath. Then a name echoed: Kaelen Dray. The boy who should not have lived. Kael stumbled back, gasping.

“Who am I?” he whispered. Outside the Sanctum, shadows gathered. Riven stood on a cliff above, blood trailing from his fingers. Behind him, Kera herself stepped forward. The Ravenblades had arrived.

But Kera did not attack yet. She smiled down at the glowing temple. “Let the boy learn,” she whispered. “Let him grow.” Her blade hissed in its sheath.

“Because when he breaks, I want to see how far he falls.”