The cold within the mountain fortress was unnatural.
Even with the hearths lit and enchanted braziers scattered across the halls, Kael felt the chill in his marrow. Not the kind of cold that came from stone and winter—but from eyes, and silence, and waiting.
The others watched him like he didn't belong.
And maybe he didn't.
They were soldiers. Mages. Survivors of a world he'd never known. Each bore the weight of a history Kael was just beginning to touch. And in their eyes, he wasn't a leader. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
Thalen had introduced him as the Hollow Heir, and that title hung around Kael's neck like a chain.
"So this is the boy who burned a Warden to ash," a deep voice said.
Kael turned to face the speaker: a broad-shouldered warrior with skin like burnished iron and hair shaved down to stubble. He leaned against a stone column, arms crossed, studying Kael like a blacksmith judges flawed steel.
"They say the fire bent to your will."
Kael straightened. "I didn't mean for it to."
"That's worse," the warrior said flatly.
A sharp laugh came from behind him. A woman stepped forward, tall and sharp-eyed, her armor stitched with ancient runes that glowed faintly with sapphire light. Her fingers drummed against the hilt of a dagger at her hip.
"If he can't control it, he's a danger to us all."
"And if he can," Thalen said, emerging from the corridor behind them, "he might be the only chance you have left."
The warrior grunted. The woman said nothing.
Kael met their gazes. He didn't know these people—yet somehow, their judgment cut deeper than any sword.
"Let him train," Thalen continued. "Let him fail. But give him that chance.
The warrior said, "If he loses control again—"
"Then we'll know," Thalen interrupted. "But not before.
He turned to Kael.
"Come. There's something you must see."
The chamber was buried deep beneath the fortress, behind three locked doors and a corridor lined with cold iron.
Thalen led him down with a torch in hand, even though Kael suspected the old mage didn't need it. The air grew colder with each step, the silence denser.
Finally, they reached a great iron door etched with nine symbols—crowns of varying shapes, each different in its power. One glowed faintly: the Hollow Crown, shaped like a ring of thorns, etched with flame.
Thalen pressed his palm to the symbol.
The door opened with a hiss.
Inside lay a vault carved from obsidian. No furnishings, no shelves. Just a single pedestal—and on it, a tome bound in dark leather, chained at its corners with silver links. The pages whispered to themselves in a tongue Kael didn't know, but somehow understood.
"The Chronicle of Embers," Thalen said. "Written by the Hollow King himself before his fall. It holds the truths of your legacy… and the path ahead."
Kael stepped forward. The air crackled around the book. His fingers trembled as he reached out and laid a hand on the cover.
The whispering stopped.
And a single voice bloomed in his mind:
"You are not yet worthy."
Kael recoiled.
Thalen's expression didn't change. "It's bound to the line. Only those who've awakened their Flame may open it."
Kael frowned. "I used fire—"
"You survived instinct. That's not the same as mastery."
Kael clenched his fists. "Then teach me."
Thalen studied him. "I will. But understand this—flame bends for no coward. It reveals who you are. Every weakness. Every fear. Every doubt."
"I'm not afraid."
Thalen's eyes flickered. "You will be."
Training began the next morning.
Kael woke before the others. His sleep had been fractured—haunted again by dreams of the past that wasn't his. A sword plunged through a thousand shadows. The Hollow Crown resting on a mountain of ash. A girl standing in a sea of bones.
Thalen had told him not to fight the dreams. That they were memories, fragments of the crown's previous bearers bleeding into his mind. But that didn't make them easier to endure.
The fortress had a courtyard carved into the stone cliffs, where sunlight rarely touched. The others trained there daily—sparring, channeling magic, meditating, enduring.
Thalen joined Kael at the center, surrounded by chalk runes etched into the ground.
"We start with fire," he said.
"I figured."
"Not the way you think."
Thalen raised a hand. A flame sparked in his palm—steady, elegant, motionless.
"Fire is not rage. Not chaos. It is discipline. Balance. The Hollow King could burn cities without lifting a blade—but only because he understood this truth: the more control you have, the more power flame gives you."
Kael nodded slowly.
"Close your eyes," Thalen instructed.
Kael obeyed.
"Breathe in. Focus on the heat inside you. Not anger. Not pain. Just warmth. Let it rise. Don't force it—feel it."
Kael reached inward.
At first, there was nothing. Just the familiar ache of exhaustion, the dull weight of fear. Then—slowly—he felt it.
A spark. Deep beneath his ribs, pulsing like a heartbeat.
He reached for it.
Too quickly.
It flared, then snapped like a rope drawn too tight.
Flame burst from his hands, uncontrolled and wild. It scorched the runes around him, leaping up in jagged tongues. He cried out and dropped to his knees.
When he opened his eyes, Thalen was standing calmly in the center of the fire. Unburnt.
The old mage waved his hand, and the fire vanished in an instant.
Kael coughed, breath ragged.
"You rushed," Thalen said. "The fire is not a weapon—it is a promise. One that will devour you if you don't learn to listen."
Kael gritted his teeth. "Again."
Thalen smiled faintly.
"Yes. Again."
The days blurred together after that.
Training.
Pain.
Failure.
Small victories.
Kael learned to shape the flame into orbs of light. Into blades of heat. Into shields that shimmered like molten glass.
But he still couldn't open the Chronicle of Embers.
And the dreams grew worse.
One night, he stood on a battlefield of blackened sand, corpses he didn't recognize littering the ground. He turned and saw her again—the pale-haired girl with storm-gray eyes. She stood atop a mound of broken thrones, Kael's crown in her hands.
"You will burn the world," she whispered. "And I will be the one to end you."
He awoke screaming.
It was on the thirteenth day of his training that the scouts returned.
Thalen summoned the others to the war chamber, a circular room with a table carved in the shape of the continent. Kael stood among them now—tired, scarred, no longer quite the boy who had fled Wyrm's Hollow.
"The Inheritors have reached the Eastern Vale," said Aran, the iron-skinned warrior. "Three battalions. No banners. No mercy."
"They've burned three villages already," added Veyra, the blade-wielding mage. "They're drawing a circle—closing in."
Kael's gut turned to ice.
Wyrm's Hollow lay west of the Vale. If the Inheritors marched there…
"I have to go," he said.
Thalen turned to him. "You're not ready."
"They'll kill my mother. My sister. Everyone."
"And if you go now, you die. Then they die anyway. You must awaken your power first."
Kael slammed his fist into the stone. "Then tell me how!"
Thalen paused. Then said, "There is one place left. One trial that may awaken your flame fully."
"Where?"
"The Tomb of Ash. Where the first Hollow King fell."