The candle died.
Not with a flicker, not with smoke, but as if something devoured its flame.
In the library beneath Sorathal, silence rushed in like a scream never voiced. The woman with silver eyes didn't flinch. She had waited a long time for this moment—centuries, if one counted the years she'd been kept in stasis, hidden beneath layers of enchanted sleep and protective runes so old even the stars forgot their names.
Now, as the final lock gave way, the Hollow Door creaked open.
She rose.
Her cloak whispered behind her like spilled ink, and the floor beneath her feet shifted subtly—responding to her presence, obeying her blood. Ancient glyphs lit along the walls of the tomb, revealing forgotten names and unspoken curses carved by trembling hands.
"He who holds the First Crown has broken its spine. He who wears the false light shall awaken the Hollow Flame…"
She smiled. The prophecy was no longer a myth. It was a map.
Behind the Hollow Door, something stirred. A mass of lightless flame, suspended in a crystalline chamber, bound by twelve silver chains. It beat like a heart.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The Hollow Flame was alive.
She extended her hand.
A single word fell from her lips, spoken in a tongue that made the walls groan and the ground crack:
"Awaken."
The chains dissolved into dust.The lightless fire roared—and entered her.
Velmira – One Day Later
Kael could not sleep.
The night after the Council's gathering had been a quiet one, despite all that had happened. No bells, no banquets. Just the breathing city, trying to remember how to feel human again.
But Kael's dreams had other ideas.
He stood once more in the chamber of mirrors.
This time, there were fewer reflections. Many had vanished, cracked, or gone dim. Only three remained: the tyrant, the martyr, and the wanderer.
He approached the mirror of the wanderer—his reflection worn, scarred, cloaked, walking away from a throne into shadowed woods.
But just as he reached for it…
The mirror changed.
The figure inside now bore silver eyes.
Kael jolted awake in his chamber.
Sweat clung to his back. He rubbed his forehead and stood. Outside, the moon hung low and blood-orange, and the old bones of Velmira whispered in the wind.
"Dreams again?" Elira asked from the balcony.
He joined her, his voice hoarse. "They're getting stronger. She's coming."
Elira's jaw tightened. "Who?"
Kael hesitated. Then, "Someone I don't know. But she… knew the Crown. Or what was behind it."
"You think the war isn't over."
"I think…" He looked out toward the mountains in the north. "It's just beginning."
The Gathering of Shadows
Far to the north, across the Veilspine Mountains, the once-lost city of Sorathal was breathing again.
Not with life—but with memory.
The silver-eyed woman walked through the ruined halls as stone thrones reassembled themselves from rubble. She spoke to no one, but things listened—shadows with faces, armor without flesh, the echoes of long-dead kings.
She entered the Hall of Names and summoned twelve beings to her side.
They came, not with footsteps, but with presence.
Some were bound in armor, others cloaked in writhing mist. All knelt.
"My Heralds," she said, voice like starlight striking obsidian. "The Soulbrand fell. The Crown is fractured. And now, the world forgets what slumbers beneath it."
One figure raised its head. His helm was twisted, his face veiled in frost.
"Kael survived," the Warden of Silence rasped. "He wields the reforged blade. The soulflame."
The woman's silver eyes burned brighter. "Good."
"Good?" another asked. "He is a threat to our return."
"No," she replied. "He is a signal. A flare in the darkness. If he has awakened the soulflame, then the Twelve-Locked Gate is already weakening. The others will feel it. Even he will feel it."
She turned to the map etched on the floor—a map older than all kingdoms still breathing.
"Go," she commanded. "Stir the forgotten places. Let the Hollow Light return."
Beneath Velmira – The Emberforge
Kael descended alone into the Emberforge.
This part of the city had been sealed for a century. The forge once birthed blades for the Order of Flamewrights, tempered in dragonfire and sanctified by the Keepers of the Flame. Now it was dark, save for the soulflame in Kael's palm.
He approached the ancient anvil.
The sword had changed again. It no longer pulsed with restless power. It hummed—calm, like it knew what it was.
Kael placed it upon the anvil.
From his pouch, he pulled out the final fragment of the original Crown—one he hadn't told anyone he'd kept.
It was jagged. Still whispered.
Bind me. Rule them. Ascend.
Kael whispered back, "No."
He struck it with the flat of the blade.
Light burst across the forge—filling it, cracking the stone, blowing dust from forgotten corners. But the shard did not shatter.
Instead… it merged.
The blade drank it.
When the light cleared, the sword was no longer black and silver—but white—like forged moonlight. Pure. Quiet. Waiting.
Kael reached for it—and it spoke to him in a voice that was his and not his:
"I am what you were. I am what you fear. I am what you choose to become."
He exhaled. "Then we'll walk together."
The First Sign
The next day, a raven arrived.
Its feathers were bone-white. Its eyes silver.
It dropped a scroll into Kael's hand before dissolving into ash.
Kael broke the seal. Elira stood at his side.
The message read:
"The Hollow Flame walks. The Herald has awakened. Sorathal breathes again. The world will not burn—it will be emptied."
Kael lowered the scroll.
"What does it mean?" Elira asked.
"It means," he said, voice grim, "we need allies."
Meanwhile – In a Forgotten Temple
Across the sea, on the island of Durnmire, a child of ten stood in the Temple of Light's ruin.
She had never spoken before that day. Not a word. Not even at birth.
Now, as the moon turned blood-red, she opened her mouth.
And the world listened.
"The Hollow is coming," she whispered, eyes rolled back. "The light will break. The sword will choose. And the stars will bow."
The monks around her fell to their knees.
One of them turned pale. "The last Oracle has been born…"
Back in Velmira
Kael gathered his cloak.
Elira met him at the gates. Behind her, a small company of riders prepared—mages, bladesworn, scouts, and one silent boy with storm-colored eyes.
"We ride to the Eastern Reach," Kael said. "If the Hollow Flame rises, we need the Runebinders on our side."
Elira mounted. "And if they've already fallen?"
Kael looked to the horizon, where dark clouds twisted unnaturally. He gripped the hilt of the new blade at his side.
"Then we carve a path through the ash."
And as the gates of Velmira opened once more, a wind blew across the scorched plains.
But it did not come from the east or west.
It came from beneath.