The dawn never came.
No sunlight pierced the red-black clouds overhead, and no birds sang in the gnarled trees. It was morning—Velzaria had told him as much—but the land seemed stuck in eternal dusk, a place that had long since been abandoned by the sky.
They walked through what had once been a forest trail, though the trees were twisted beyond recognition. Their bark was blackened like charcoal, their branches shaped like claws. Leaves no longer grew here—only brittle, rust-colored vines that crumbled into ash with the slightest touch.
> "This place," Aeron muttered, stepping over the ribcage of some long-dead creature, "it's not the world I remember."
Velzaria didn't stop walking. "It's not. This is Ashfall Vale—a prison of cursed land, sealed away from the mortal realm after the Demon War. No map remembers it. No god dares to look upon it."
Aeron frowned. "Then how are we here?"
She paused now, turning to him. Her crimson eyes glinted through the mist like twin stars in a void. "Because we're dead."
He blinked. "What?"
She smiled faintly. "Not in body. But in fate. You and I… are echoes. Ghosts of a war the world wants to forget. So they buried us here. Sealed this entire region behind divine wards, locked it away like a wound no one wants to admit is still bleeding."
Aeron looked around again. The air here had weight to it—thick with rot, dust, and the faint scent of sulfur. Every breath tasted like regret.
And yet…
He didn't feel afraid.
In fact, part of him felt strangely at home.
> "How long have you been trapped here?" he asked.
Velzaria's expression darkened.
> "Seven hundred years."
Her voice was quiet, but heavy with something deeper than anger. Resentment. Loss. Fury cooled into ice.
> "They sealed me in the Crypt of Silence," she continued. "Bound my soul in thirteen chains of divine law. I could not scream. Could not move. Could not even dream."
Aeron's fingers clenched into fists.
> "Until you came."
She looked at him now, not as a weapon. Not as a tool. But as a lifeline.
> "You shattered the lock when you died, Aeron. Your soul fell through the veil—and in doing so, broke the wards holding me. I don't know if it was fate or cruelty… but you woke me."
Aeron stared into her eyes. He remembered the moment the angels killed him. The betrayal. The fury. The voice that whispered in the dark. Her voice.
> "Then what now?" he asked. "We roam this wasteland until something eats us?"
Velzaria's smile returned—this time, with teeth.
> "No. We take back what was stolen."
She pointed into the horizon.
> "There is a fortress. Ruined. Buried in ash and silence. Once it was my throne. We go there."
> "And then?"
> "Then we raise an army."
The wind howled through the dead trees. Somewhere far off, a monstrous shriek echoed—long, gurgling, and hungry.
Aeron didn't flinch.
For the first time in centuries, Velzaria began to walk toward her throne.
And at her side, her shadow followed—with eyes no longer filled with doubt.
---
The path narrowed as they descended into a ravine shrouded in thick ash.
Snow-like flakes drifted from the sky—not white, but gray and weightless, carrying the stench of fire long extinguished. Beneath their boots, blackened bones crunched. Not of animals. Not of demons.
But humans.
The corpses were ancient, bleached by time and magic. Some wore rusted armor bearing symbols Aeron recognized: the emblems of ancient knight orders, banners of crusader guilds, holy sigils from the old temples.
They had died kneeling. Heads bowed. Swords shattered.
> "A massacre," Aeron murmured.
Velzaria's heels touched the earth with reverence, her expression unreadable.
"No. A sacrifice."
She walked among the dead like a queen visiting her court of bones.
> "These were the kingslayers. Sent by the gods during the twilight of the war. Paladins. Priests. Saints. They stormed my fortress, swearing to tear out my heart and raise my head to heaven."
Aeron knelt beside one skeleton. It still gripped a sword, its fingers fused to the hilt by flame. Even in death, the weapon hummed faintly with residual holy power.
> "What happened to them?"
Velzaria tilted her head. The ash seemed to grow heavier around her.
> "I made them kneel."
There was no boast in her tone. No pride. Only memory.
> "They came with light. I gave them shadow. I let them see every soul they had damned, every village they had 'cleansed' in the name of purity. And then… I offered them a choice."
She knelt beside one corpse, brushing her fingers across its crumbled chest plate.
> "Kneel… or burn."
Aeron stared at her, uncertain whether to feel awe or horror.
She looked up at him, eyes like eclipses.
> "Do you think I'm a monster?"
He didn't answer immediately.
Part of him wanted to say yes. To call her evil. To scream that slaughter wasn't justice.
But another part—darker, older, buried deep inside—understood.
These weren't innocents. These were the same holy men who had murdered his friends, who had called him a heretic for sparing lives, who had cheered as the gods lit the pyres.
> "No," he said finally. "I think you did what they forced you to do."
Velzaria's gaze lingered on him for a long moment. Her lips parted slightly, but whatever she meant to say, she swallowed it.
Instead, she rose.
> "We're close."
She led him deeper into the valley, past toppled statues and fractured gates. At the far end of the ravine, half-buried in volcanic stone and skeletal roots, was a towering obsidian arch.
Even ruined, it radiated power.
Aeron stepped closer, but the moment he crossed beneath the arch, a jolt of pain lanced through his mark, searing across his chest like fire.
He gasped, dropping to one knee.
Velzaria caught him immediately, her touch grounding the agony.
> "The seal still remembers you as a foe," she whispered.
> "But I thought I was bound to you," he growled.
> "You are," she said, placing her palm against his mark. "But this place—this throne—it still serves the old contract. We must overwrite it."
Her fingers dug deeper into his chest. Not through flesh—but through soul.
> "Brace yourself, Aeron."
> "For what?"
> "For rebirth."
The runes beneath the arch exploded with black flame.
His vision blurred.
And the fortress called.
---
The black flame swallowed him.
Aeron's scream was silent—his voice ripped away by the ancient magic tearing through his soul. He was floating again, weightless, but not in a void this time.
He was falling—through memory.
Visions came in violent flashes, burning his mind like brands pressed against flesh:
—A younger Velzaria, wreathed in warfire, standing atop a mountain of angels. Her horns still blood-slick, her wings tattered but proud. Her face… not cruel, but merciless.
—A council chamber in flames, where demon lords cowered before her throne. One of them—a beast with seven eyes—dared to defy her.
She ripped out his heart with a glance.
—A child, no older than ten, offering her a wilted flower on a battlefield. She knelt before him, whispered something, and sent him away just before the holy bombardment began.
—Her back turned as an assassin's blade pierced her spine.
And she turned—smiling.
Then came the final image.
Velzaria, in chains of burning light, her body broken, her eyes hollow. Twelve archangels stood around her. One raised a blade.
She didn't beg. She only whispered:
> "You will regret leaving me alive."
The visions shattered.
And Aeron—gasping, shaking—opened his eyes.
He stood now inside the Heart of the Fortress.
The throne room.
Once, it had been a cathedral of shadows—vaulted ceilings, obsidian pillars veined with crimson crystal, braziers of dark flame casting dancing shapes across ancient murals. Now, it was in ruin. Vines of bone and ash strangled the stone. A massive throne sat cracked but unbroken at the far end—its design cruel, elegant, inhuman.
And on its steps stood Velzaria.
Waiting.
Aeron stumbled forward, still dazed. "I saw you…"
> "I know," she said. "The fortress shows only truth. It's bound to my blood—and now, to yours."
He looked at his chest.
The mark had changed.
No longer just a sigil—it had grown roots across his skin, etched into him like a second soul. And in his mind, he could feel the fortress now.
Its ancient sorrow.
Its hunger.
Its loyalty.
> "What am I becoming?" he whispered.
Velzaria descended the steps.
> "You are no longer just a man," she said. "You are my second shadow. My knight. My executioner."
She raised her hand.
Black fire bloomed from the floor around them. A circle of runes ignited beneath Aeron's feet. Power flooded his limbs—raw, violent, beautiful.
> "With this bond, the fortress is yours to command," Velzaria declared. "Its walls shall rise again. Its gates will open. Its armies—what remains—will kneel."
> "And what of the world beyond?" he asked.
Velzaria's smile returned. Soft. Terrible.
> "We will burn our names into the sky."
The ground trembled.
Outside, the trees bent inward.
The throne pulsed.
And deep within the earth… something awoke.
A rumble like a sleeping god exhaling shook the valley.
Aeron stepped beside her, the fire reflected in his eyes.
He did not feel holy.
He did not feel afraid.
> He felt ready.
---