The Shardspine Mountains thrust up like broken teeth into the dawn.
Sera tightened the straps of her cloak as the wind howled across the cliffsides. Her little band — a dozen brave hearts, each with a spark of Red Hollow burning bright — trailed behind her, their breath clouding the freezing air.
They had left the warmth of the Emberfields.
Nothing grew here.
Here, even fire shook with fear.
Still, they pressed forward.
For the world depended on it.
---
Days turned into weeks.
They found remnants of the ancient world buried in the mountains — ancient towers hidden beneath the snow, broken statues half-drowned in glaciers.
Hints that something had been here once, a long time ago. and had been forgotten.
At night, the wind carried strange sounds:
Whispers, as if a thousand voices whispered just out of earshot.
Some of Sera's fellow travelers started to dream.
> "I saw eyes," one mumbled beside the fire, trembling in spite of the warmth.
"Like stars. but wrong."
Another awoke shrieking, claiming to have seen a shadow hand reaching out for him from the storm.
The further north they went, the denser the air became — heavy with something ancient and starving.
Sera was awake late into each night, staring into the fire, feeling the unease gnawing at the edges of her mind.
---
Then, one evening, they found it.
In the middle of a devastated valley stood a spire — darker than obsidian, higher than any mountain.
It radiated a terrified cold, so deep that their fires weakened merely approaching it.
The spire pulsed.
And with each pulse, Sera felt the fire within her stumble.
This isn't natural," she whispered.
"This wasn't forged. It was grown."
The ground beneath them trembled and split.
From the icy earth, shapes began to rise.
Twisted forms of ice and bone, bound together by chains of black flame.
The first Wraithborn.
---
The battle was chaos.
Sera's team fought bravely, their swords imbued with embersteel fire, but the Wraithborn did not fatigue.
For every one that fell, two more seemed to tear from the frozen ground.
Sera shouted a retreat, drawing her people back toward the mountain pass.
They fled in disarray — and the spire pulsed again — a dreadful bellow rent the skies, and snow fell from the cliffs.
At the spire's peak, a crack opened, as if an eye was opening.
An old, angry presence had awoken.
---
Sera and the survivors barely returned across the mountains.
She collapsed at the gates of Red Hollow, her skin frostbitten, her heart pounding in terror.
Rael caught her as she fell, summoning healers.
When she could finally speak, her voice was hoarse:
> "It's coming," she croaked.
"Something worse than the Ash King.
Something older.
We must be ready."
---
That night, across the Emberfields, the flame shrines flickered.
And in the distant darkness beyond the mountains, the black spire's pulse quickened.
---
Far away, under a shroud of stars, one figure watched the mountains from a high ridge.
Kairo.
His cloak of living flame undulated in the cold wind.
His golden, burning eyes slit as he watched the new darkness spread.
He breathed deeply, feeling the hunger of the world again.
> "So," he breathed into the darkness,
"It starts."
The flame on his hand flared higher.
Kairo turned to face the Shardspine.
And began to walk.