The skies of Emberlands churned crimson like open wounds that morning. The clouds above Virdane Keep hung low and heavy, swollen with something other than rain. Distant lightning flickered without thunder, like silent rage trapped in the heavens.
Within the old stone keep, the halls were unnaturally quiet.
Kael walked along a narrow servant's passageway, worn smooth by centuries of unseen steps. The torchlight danced slowly on damp stone, and the shadows it cast trembled unnaturally—as if mimicking his movements just a second too late.
He was only nine, yet moved with a purpose unfit for his age.
He wasn't going to play.
He wasn't going to the main library.
He was going down.
Deeper.
To where even the servants refused to go.
The spiral stairwell of black stone groaned faintly beneath his steps. The air turned cold, then colder still, clinging to his skin like fog laced with forgotten secrets. In his hand, he carried a small lantern—its blue flame a gift from his mother, said to burn only for the blood of House Virdane.
> "Thirteen nights," Kael whispered to himself. "Tonight... it will speak again."
That voice.
Not human. Not beast.
Something old. Something awake.
The corridor ended in a circular vault sealed by a stone gate. In its center stood a black altar, coated in ancient dust and strands of web. Its surface bore inscriptions not in any current system—but symbols that pulsed faintly as Kael approached.
He didn't touch it.
But it opened.
As if it remembered him.
> [System Fragment Connected…]
[Access: Forbidden Path – Validated]
[Trait Acquired: Shadow-Forged Memory]
[Skill Gained: Veiled Sigil (Lv.1)]
Kael stepped back.
Dark veins of shadow slipped from the edges of the room, not crawling—but reaching.
They touched him.
Entered him.
No pain.
Only cold. And... recognition.
His hands trembled.
Not from fear.
But from certainty.
He had awakened something beyond flame.
Something older.
---
Unspoken Tensions
Above, the family feast carried on without his name.
Lord Therion sat unmoved at the head of the table, wives flanking either side. The eldest sons bragged of power, of titles, of which bloodline bore the strongest class lineage.
None of them knew.
Far beneath their feet,
The system had stirred.
And it had chosen Kael.
---
The next morning, a servant was found unconscious near the lower corridors. Frost clung to her skin. Her eyes stared blankly ahead.
The guards sealed the area. They feared a dungeon breach.
They were wrong.
It was Kael's shadows.
Uncontrolled. Untamed.
That night, he sat alone at his window, watching the distant fires of a harvest celebration in the city below.
He didn't join.
He never did.
> "They fear what they don't understand," he thought. "Including me."
And like always… the voice returned.
> "Not all light saves, Kael.
Not all shadows destroy."
---
STATUS UPDATE – KAEL
[Level]: 9
[Skills]: Ember Pulse (Lv.1), Shadowstep (Lv.2), Veiled Sigil (Lv.1)
[Traits]: Dream-Echo Instinct (34%), Shadow-Forged Memory
[Charisma]: 9 | [Luck]: 11
[Title]: Hidden Flamebearer
---
On that same night, far beyond the stars, Dareth Virdane stood beneath a violet sky and crystal dunes, watching the flames within him burn anew.
Bruised. Scarred.
But alive.
> "Kael… You survived. And the flame… lives."