The road beyond Viremyr was empty.
Not in the usual sense — not the silence of wilderness or the solitude of travel. It was a deeper emptiness. A hush that hung in the air like breath held too long. Kaelen felt it with every step. The Ember pulsed against his chest, slower now, heavier. As if it were waiting. Watching.
They made camp beneath the eaves of a thornwood grove that evening, far from the fractured vale. Aelric spoke little. He seemed to sense it too — a shift in Kaelen that hadn't come from battle or spell, but from something more insidious.
From within.
Kaelen sat apart from the fire, knees drawn up, sword resting beside him in the grass. He turned the Crown of Viremyr over in his hands. It no longer shimmered, no longer danced with shifting shapes. It was quiet. Still. Like something mourning its own end.
Four Crowns.
He had carried them through desert ruin, twilight siege, drowning tides, and a kingdom lost to time. And still, the road stretched ahead. Still, the Hollow King gathered power.
Kaelen had thought he was ready for this. When he'd first left Thornmere, he imagined himself a reluctant hero — a blacksmith's son pressed into a story too large to deny. But now…
He wasn't sure he was just Kaelen anymore.
That night, he dreamed.
Not of fire.
Not of towers.
But of a field of ash.
He stood barefoot in a dead meadow. The sky was a bruised violet, and snow fell in slow, lazy spirals. In front of him were the Nine Crowns — each perched atop a twisted iron spike. Beneath them, the skeletons of kings lay entwined with roots.
One by one, the crowns turned toward him.
Not physically. But with presence.
With accusation.
"You carry our legacy," said a voice like smoke.
"You wear it lightly," said another.
"You burn too brightly," said a third. "And you do not know why."
Kaelen reached for his sword — but his hands were aflame. He looked down and saw the skin cracking, ember-red beneath, as if something beneath his flesh no longer wanted to hide.
The sky shattered like glass.
He awoke with a start, drenched in sweat, his hands trembling. The fire had long since died. Aelric slept nearby, a dagger still tucked beneath his fingers.
Kaelen rose and stumbled to the edge of the grove.
The Ember burned hot at his chest. He pulled the cloth aside and looked at it — really looked.
It no longer resembled a stone.
It pulsed with molten veins. There were patterns now — ancient glyphs he couldn't read, but recognized. They shimmered when he breathed.
And something inside him stirred.
He fell to his knees. Clutched the earth.
"I'm not ready," he whispered.
But the Ember did not care. It beat like a war drum.
The days that followed only deepened the divide.
Kaelen found himself growing… distant. Not from Aelric, exactly — but from everything. He moved through the world like a shadow half-tethered to flesh.
He began seeing things.
Reflections that didn't match his movements. Glimpses of golden light flickering behind trees. People staring a heartbeat too long before averting their gaze.
The Crowns whispered when he slept. Not in language — in emotion. In memory. He woke with tears on his cheeks and didn't know whose they were.
One evening, as they crossed a hollow plain beneath storm-lit skies, Aelric finally snapped.
"You haven't said ten words in three days," he said. "Not unless it's about directions or monsters."
Kaelen didn't answer.
Aelric rode ahead and turned his horse, blocking the path. "You're shutting down."
"I'm focused."
"No," Aelric said. "You're unraveling."
Kaelen met his gaze. "I don't know what I am anymore."
Aelric said nothing. Just waited.
Kaelen dismounted and walked a few paces away, his boots crunching over frost-bitten grass. Then, quietly:
"I carry fire that speaks in my sleep. Crowns that dream of old wars. A sword that shouldn't exist. I see ghosts. I hear ruins. And I feel—"
He pressed a hand to his chest, fingers curled against the Ember.
"I feel something inside me growing. Something ancient. It's not evil. But it's not mine."
Aelric approached. "You think the Ember's replacing you."
"No," Kaelen said softly. "I think it's revealing me. And I don't know if I like what's underneath."
That night, the Ember spoke.
Not in voice. In vision.
Kaelen stood at the edge of a great forge — larger than mountains, its fires stoked by starlight and sorrow. Shadows moved through it — smiths of flame, casting shapes from broken worlds. At the center stood a throne made of Crown-fragments, and on it sat a man of golden flame.
He had Kaelen's eyes.
The figure looked up. "The Hollow King isn't the only one who was sealed."
Kaelen shook his head. "No."
"Yes," the figure said. "The Crowns were not made to rule. They were made to bind. You are not a savior, Kaelen. You are a lock. And the world is starting to remember the door."
Kaelen screamed.
And woke.
At dawn, he told Aelric everything.
The dreams. The visions. The fire under his skin. The sense that he wasn't walking toward a crown — but toward a revelation too large for mortal mind.
Aelric didn't flinch.
"I knew something was off," he said. "Didn't think it was quite that off."
Kaelen looked away. "You still want to follow me?"
Aelric grinned faintly. "You're my friend. Besides — I never trusted destiny. But I trust you."
And for the first time in days, Kaelen smiled.
Just a little.
They rode east.
Toward the next ruin. Toward the fifth Crown.
Kaelen no longer felt alone.
But he did feel changed.
Not a vessel.
Not a savior.
Something older. Something waking.
And deep within him, the Ember flared — not in hunger, but in recognition.