The wind howled across the northern steppes, carrying more than snow—it carried the scent of smoke, and with it, the whisper of a name that had no place in mortal mouths.
Kael.
The keep of Vharok no longer stood. Its stone towers had melted into obsidian spires, jagged and cruel. Fire danced along its battlements, not red, but black and violet—flames that burned without heat, devouring shadow instead of wood.
At the center stood Kael.
His armor had changed. No longer scavenged steel and torn cloth, but obsidian plates etched with veins of flame. His eyes glowed faintly, twin embers behind a mask of calm fury. The First Ember pulsed within him, quiet now, but watching.
He stood atop the ruined rampart, Void Fang resting across his back, and looked to the south.
"I smell them," he murmured. "The next ones. Pretenders."
A whisper answered from the sword. "Three Thrones still stand. All must fall."
Kael nodded.
Then he raised his hand.
From the ground, a tide of flame erupted—not to destroy, but to build. Towers of black stone rose, bridges of ember-glass extended across ravines. Vharok was no longer a ruin. It was his stronghold.
The first bastion of the Dominion of Embers.
And he was not alone.
The mercenaries who had not fled now served him—not from loyalty, but from fear and awe. They knelt in the ashes, their eyes hollow but burning with the same flicker of flame that had entered Kael. The First Ember had marked them too. Lesser sparks, true—but enough.
He would need them.
War was coming.
**
Far across the continent, in the floating citadel of Halrynn, the Skybound Seers watched the north in silence. Their vision pools boiled, overrun with smoke.
"He has awakened it," the eldest Seer rasped. "The Ember has returned."
A second Seer turned, fear in her voice. "Then the accords are broken. The balance shattered."
"No," said the first. "The game has simply changed. Find the others. The gods won't stay silent much longer."
**
In a deep jungle tomb, a figure in golden chains stirred.
Eyes opened, glowing with radiant light.
"Shadow... and flame," it whispered.
Then it smiled.
"He lives."
**
And in a distant village, a young girl—blind from birth—fell to her knees as her vision burst open in fire.
She screamed, but not in pain.
Only revelation.
"The Godslayer walks," she said, voice trembling. "And the stars burn in his wake."
**
Back at the obsidian fortress, Kael stepped into the grand hall that had once been the keep's throne room. He raised Void Fang and etched a sigil into the black stone: a burning crown pierced by a sword.
"Let them come," he said quietly.
"I have only just begun."