"The sky did not fall. It was pulled down—piece by piece.
by those who feared what flew above it."
....
The Aetherwood Valley was not dead—it merely whispered in tongues too old for men to remember.
Ash stood at the edge of the petrified forest, where trees of white obsidian jutted skyward like frozen screams. The morning sun cast long shadows through their crystalline trunks, painting the snow with fractured light. Every step into this place felt like treading into memory.
Behind him, Kael sharpened his frost-tempered blade with quiet purpose, while Selene crouched beside a blackened root, her fingers brushing against its charred bark. The forest had once been alive. But the Ashborn War, generations past, had burned its soul to the bone.
"We shouldn't linger," Kael said, eyes narrowing at a distant shimmer. "There are still things that crawl beneath this valley."
"Good," Ash murmured. "Let them come."
He hadn't slept since the Mirror Sage's warning. He saw versions of himself every time he blinked—some triumphant, others monstrous. He had touched too many futures, and now the present felt like a thin thread stretched between them.
As they pressed deeper, a low hum filled the air.
It wasn't wind. It was song.
Faint, almost beautiful—like a dirge hummed by ghosts.
Selene froze. "That melody. It's a Choir of Binding."
Ash frowned. "Like in the catacombs beneath Veilstone?"
She nodded. "But this one's older. Stronger. It's not just meant to bind—it's meant to awaken."
The forest opened suddenly into a circular clearing. In the center stood a stone altar scorched black, runes etched into its base in the ancient flame script. Around it, figures knelt—silent, robed in red and ash-grey. Dozens of them.
Cultists.
But not Hollow Flame.
These bore no brands on their skin. No masks. Only ash-streaked faces and glowing eyes. Their lips moved in unison, humming the song that bent the very air.
Kael stepped in front of Ash. "They're not moving. Not yet."
Selene's breath caught. "They're not alive."
And she was right.
One of the kneeling figures had a broken neck, twisted unnaturally. Another's chest bore the imprint of a spear. Yet they sang.
Ash's shard burned faintly against his chest.
"They're a memory," he whispered, horrified. "Someone left their will behind—embedded in the land itself."
A crack of thunder echoed above. The sky darkened unnaturally as clouds spiraled in. From the altar, a figure rose. He wore a crown of scorched iron and a cloak of ember-threaded cloth. His skin shimmered like cooling coal, and his eyes were pits of molten light.
"The Ember King," Selene whispered. "A shard-wielder… from before the Shattering."
"Welcome, heir of flame," the figure spoke—not to Ash alone, but to the shard in his chest.
"You carry the last fire. The final memory of what we were before the world forgot."
Ash stepped forward, cautious. "Why are you here?"
"To test your will. To see if the fire remembers what it was forged to burn."
The sky ignited.
Bolts of ember-lightning arced from the heavens as the cultists rose in unnatural unison, still humming. The altar cracked, spilling molten fire into the soil. Trees began to glow from within, awakening like fire spirits long dormant.
Kael and Selene drew their weapons.
But Ash stood still.
The Ember King extended a flaming hand. "There are older enemies than the Queen of Sorrow. The Nameless God stirs. And in your hands burns the only flame it cannot consume."
Ash stared at him. "What do you want from me?"
"To remember. To ignite."
Then the cultists charged.
Kael met them in a storm of frost and steel. Selene summoned illusions of burning glass that shattered in mid-air, lacerating phantoms from all angles.
Ash felt the shard sear into his chest as he stepped into the fire.
And welcomed it.
Flames erupted from his palms—not red or orange, but white, burning with truth. His very presence became an incineration of lies. The cultists screamed—not from pain, but from revelation—as their borrowed lives burned away in waves of cleansing light.
The Ember King watched, impassive, until the last of them crumbled into ash.
Then he smiled.
"Good. You will need that fire."
Ash dropped to one knee, the light dimming around him. "What… was that?"
The king's form began to flicker. "A trial. One of many. You are not yet ready to wear the Crown, boy. But you will be… if you survive what comes next."
Selene rushed to his side, eyes wide with concern. "Your shard. It's changed."
Ash looked down.
Where once had rested a simple crimson fragment, now it shimmered with flickers of white and silver. It pulsed—not just with power, but awareness.
Kael scanned the edges of the clearing. "We need to move. Something else is coming."
And indeed, across the vale, a new presence stirred.
Black wings on the horizon.
A shadow with a human face.
Ash rose, teeth clenched. "Let them come. I'm done running."
But even he did not see the second flame ignite.
Far behind them, atop the cliffs of the Shardpeak, a sigil flared—one of Sovereignty.
The Queen of Sorrow was watching.
And smiling.
---