They left before dawn.
Kael rode behind Lira on a narrow ember-steed, a creature bred in the volcanic highlands: all muscle, fire-tempered hooves, and glowing veins beneath obsidian-black fur. It hissed steam with every breath.
Four more scouts followed, silent and alert, each armed with fire-forged steel and emberbolts. They rode east, toward the broken valley that once housed dozens of flame sanctuaries—now a graveyard they called the Vale of Ash.
The wind whispered of death. Not decay. Erasure.
Kael could feel it through his skin.
The closer they drew to the vale, the fainter the fire in his soul pulsed. As if the land itself rejected heat. Or feared it.
By midday, they reached the edge.
What should have been rolling hills and forest paths was now a field of blackened bone. Trees stood like statues of soot. Birds did not sing. Even the insects had fled. In the far distance, the remnants of a temple could be seen—half-buried, roof collapsed inward like a broken mouth.
Lira halted.
"This is wrong," she muttered.
One of the scouts, a pale-eyed man named Solen, dismounted and knelt. He brushed ash from the soil.
Then frowned.
"No bodies," he said. "Just impressions. Like they were… peeled away."
Kael dismounted too. The air buzzed in his ears. He stepped toward the fallen temple, pulled by something unseen.
As he neared the ruins, the fire in him surged.
Do not enter.
It is not yours yet.
He froze.
The voice was Ashira's. Faint. Grieving.
He turned back—just as the world shattered.
A scream split the sky.
Not human.
Not beast.
Something ancient and hollow, as if the very soul of the valley had cracked. Shadows leapt from the temple's remains, swirling in impossible shapes. Frost-mist rolled in like smoke from the underworld.
Lira shouted, "Fall back!"
But it was too late.
From the temple's ruin, they emerged:
Pale Choir priests—robes made of woven bone, skin stretched tight, eyes frozen solid. They didn't speak. They sang.
Low. Dissonant. Terrible.
Solen collapsed instantly, hands to his ears, blood trickling from his nose.
Kael's fire flared in protest—but flickered against the weight of that melody.
Lira drew her blade. "Kael!"
He turned.
One of the Choir stepped forward, mouth sewn shut, yet still singing.
The frost crept toward Kael's boots.
He could feel it sinking into him, not just in flesh—but in memory.
It wanted to erase him.
He screamed—and the flame answered.
The fire exploded from his chest like a living thing, casting the nearest Choir priest backward in a torrent of heat and fury. His skin glowed like bronze heated in a forge. His eyes burned gold. For a moment, he was not Kael.
He was Ashira's wrath.
He moved without thought, fire trailing behind every motion. Lira stared in awe as his flame carved a circle of molten ground around them.
One by one, the Choir fell back, their song faltering.
Kael stood in the silence that followed, gasping.
The frost had withdrawn.
But so had his strength.
He collapsed.
And in the silence, the last remaining priest whispered—his mouth unsewn by fire:
"You are marked.
She is coming."
Then vanished into the mist.