"To know one's origin is to unearth both the crown and the chain."
— The Oracle of Bones, sealed by the Flamekeepers of Vellhast
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I.
Far beyond the black ridgelines of Gravemount, past the whispering dunes of the Dreadplain and the shattered towers of Harthmoor, there lies a place untouched by time, by memory, and by mercy; it is a place where wind carries no song, where birds dare not fly, and where even the stars, in their infinite watchfulness, avert their gaze — it is here, buried beneath the molten ruins of an ancient sunken kingdom, that the Tomb of the First Fang slumbers, sealed behind veils of reality too thick for mortal eyes and guarded by oaths long since erased from all known scripture.
Reginal did not seek it out for glory, nor for power — for those he already possessed in abundance — but because something deeper, older, and far more insistent had begun to awaken within him; a call that echoed not in his mind, but in the marrow of his bones, in the pulse beneath the sigil that now burned permanently across his chest like a crown branded in fury.
Kammy had seen it in his sleep, in the tangled webs of prophecy and dream-curse that she alone could navigate, her fingers tracing forgotten glyphs as she whispered the same phrase again and again in languages older than the moonlight:
> "He must descend into what he was… to rise as what he will become."
And so, with Milo at his side — ever the shield and ever the storm — Reginal rode beyond the maps, beyond the known world, beyond the kingdoms that still dared to name themselves rulers of lands they'd never truly owned.
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II.
They crossed into the Dreadplain at dusk, where the ground was soft with ash and the air tasted of rust and secrets; their steps left no prints, their words vanished before they reached their lips, and the sun itself seemed to flicker like a dying lantern.
There, at the heart of a dead crater ringed with bones larger than towers, they found it — not a tomb built by hands, but one grown from the earth itself, shaped like a serpent's fang driven downward into the world's skull; its surface was smooth obsidian, humming faintly with vibrations that made Milo flinch and Kammy weep.
The entrance did not open with key or spell — it opened when Reginal pressed his bloodied palm to its surface and spoke, not with voice, but with memory.
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III.
Within the Tomb, time collapsed into something sharp and silent; torches lit themselves as they passed, though no flame flickered, and the walls, etched with runes that moved when not watched, seemed to breathe; the deeper they went, the heavier the air grew — as if each step downward added centuries to their bones.
The halls told stories — murals carved in soulglass and blood-iron — of a figure cloaked in crimson flame, a man with no eyes but infinite sight, crowned not with metal but with jagged teeth of gods long slain; he was known only as The First Fang, and according to the tomb, he was not Reginal's ancestor in blood, but in essence — the first to awaken the Devourer Flame, the first to reject the Sigil Paths, the first to tear power directly from the throat of the world.
> "He was not born," Kammy whispered, her voice barely surviving the weight of the tomb.
"He was made… the same way you are."
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IV.
At the final chamber — a place beyond temperature, beyond direction, beyond the lie of time — Reginal stood before a mirror of living flame; it was not fire, not truly, but something that looked like fire had been wrapped around a soul and told to keep secrets.
In it, he saw himself — but not as he was.
He saw himself crowned in thorns, one hand holding Velkrath, the other raised in peace to a people who knelt not from fear but from choice; behind him stood Milo, cloaked in warlight, and Kammy, veiled in twilight — and above them all, etched into the heavens, was the symbol of the Crimson Fang… not as a weapon, but as a world.
Then the flame spoke.
Not in words.
In understanding.
> "You are the echo… but also the end.
You are what he could not finish — the blade reforged, the hunger refined."
And with that, a shard of the First Fang's essence left the flame and pierced Reginal's chest.
He did not fall.
He awakened.
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V.
When he emerged from the tomb three days later — his eyes darker, his breath colder, his armor now humming with whispers that only the worthy could hear — the world around him had shifted.
Kammy knelt without command.
Milo did not speak; he only nodded, and that was enough.
> "What did you see?" Kammy asked.
Reginal looked at the horizon, where stormclouds gathered and kingdoms prepared to march.
> "Not what I saw," he replied.
"What I am."
> "And what are you now?" Milo growled.
Reginal unsheathed Velkrath.
It no longer shimmered red.
It now pulsed with the color of truth: the black between stars.
> "The last king this world will need."
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TO BE CONTINUED…
Next: Chapter VII – "Ash and Thunder"
The kingdoms unite to stop the House of Embersong before it becomes a new god. But it is too late. The Fang marches.