"Where no crown sits, ten thrones rise. And from them, only ruin."
—Ancient proverb from the Frost Courts
.....
The wind carried the scent of scorched pine as the trio descended into the Aetherwood Valley, a place once rumored to be sacred—where the winds whispered ancient spells and the leaves shimmered faintly with residual magic. Now, the forest had changed. Smoke drifted between the trees, and the shadows seemed to lean toward them.
Ash's hand hovered near his shard. Its warmth pulsed gently through the fabric of his tunic, like a heartbeat echoing not his own, but the world's.
Kael sniffed the air, grim. "Something burned here. Recently."
Selene crouched low, fingers brushing a patch of scorched moss. Her eyes darkened. "This wasn't a wildfire. This was ritual fire. Controlled. Directed."
A distant shriek tore through the quiet. Not animal. Not human. Something... forgotten.
Ash stepped forward, but a sudden ripple passed through his senses—a familiar tremor in the weave of the world.
"The shard's reacting again," he muttered. "Like in the mountain pass. Something's close."
They emerged into a clearing surrounded by broken obelisks, each etched with sigils from a forgotten tongue. And in the center stood a single figure, back turned. Cloaked in ash-colored robes, smoke curled from his shoulders like the veil of a dying pyre. In one hand, he held a blade wreathed in translucent flame. Not fire, but something older—aetherbrand.
Kael's blade was drawn in a heartbeat. Selene reached instinctively for her crystal fan.
Ash stepped forward, but before he could speak, the figure turned.
He wore a mask shaped like a phoenix's skull, blackened and cracked. But it was the aura around him that made Ash's breath catch—a resonance not unlike his own shard. Faint, but there.
"You carry the flame," the stranger rasped. "But you do not yet bear its weight."
Ash narrowed his eyes. "Who are you?"
"A remnant," the man replied. "An ember of what was burned. One of the Ashborn."
Selene inhaled sharply. "The cult that served the Hollow Flame. I thought they were gone."
"We were. And are. But fire never dies. It merely waits."
The Ashborn raised his sword. Not to strike, but to reveal. The aetherbrand flickered, showing a vision in its glow: a young girl with eyes like molten glass, standing before an altar of bones, flame weaving through her hair—Selene.
"No," Selene breathed. "That... that was a dream."
"It was memory," the Ashborn said. "And prophecy. You are marked by the Hollow Flame, Seer of Glassfire."
Ash stepped between them. "Leave her out of this."
But the Ashborn only turned his masked gaze on Ash. "You walk the Path of Flame, but do not yet understand its voice. You would lead others? Then burn first. Burn clean."
Without warning, the obelisks blazed to life—each igniting with spectral fire. The trees groaned as the clearing itself warped into something... older. A trial ground.
A duel was beginning—not of flesh alone, but will, and belief.
Kael lunged, but was thrown back by a wave of heat. Selene's spell fizzled, warped by the twisting currents of magic. Only Ash stood firm.
The Ashborn moved like smoke and ash, sword carving sigils into the air, each blow ringing with memories of long-dead flames. Ash countered instinctively, shard flaring with every parry, every dodge. But he was being pushed. Tested.
"You carry a piece of the Crown," the Ashborn said, voice rising. "But can you become it?"
Ash roared as the shard responded—not just with fire, but with understanding. The flame that had once obeyed now listened. And then—it asked.
What will you burn?
For a moment, Ash hesitated. And in that heartbeat of doubt, the Ashborn struck.
Pain seared across Ash's chest as the aetherbrand scraped against his shard's aura. Sparks flew, and Ash dropped to one knee.
But his fingers touched the ground—blackened earth, still warm with ancient sacrifice. And he understood.
"Fire doesn't just destroy," he whispered. "It remembers."
He stood, flames rising from his back like wings. A phoenix not yet born—but seen.
His next strike wasn't a weapon—it was revelation.
The flames surged, not to kill, but to unmask. The Ashborn staggered, cloak burning away to reveal not a man, but a hollow shell. A construct. An echo left behind.
Ash held his ground as the Ashborn knelt, mask cracking, breaking open to reveal...
Nothing. Smoke. A voice.
"Then you may yet carry it. But the next fire will not be a trial. It will be a choice."
And the Ashborn vanished into cinders.
Silence fell once more. Only the burned ground remained, and a fragment of a phoenix-feather talisman where the stranger had stood.
Ash picked it up, heart racing.
Selene approached carefully. "You saw something in the fire, didn't you?"
Ash nodded, staring at the scorched earth. "I saw a city burning. And me—lighting the pyre."
Kael clapped him on the shoulder. "Then let's hope you choose which city wisely."
But none of them saw the figure watching from the treeline, cloaked in frost and bearing a sigil of broken ice. A new player had entered the game.
One who did not believe the flame should rise.
---