The sky was silent. Not in peace — in suffocation.
Kael stood in the middle of what once was his village, now a smoldering crater buried beneath thick layers of ash. The wind no longer whispered. It merely pushed dust across charred bones.
His boots cracked brittle remains as he walked toward what used to be his home. Nothing remained. Not the walls. Not the roof. Only the scent — burnt flesh soaked into the earth like cursed ink.
He knelt. Fingers trembling, he dug through the ash until his hand touched something warm.
A pendant.
Still warm from the fire. Still carrying her scent.
Aneli.
He clutched it to his chest. He could still hear her voice.
"You're not a monster, Kael. Someday, the world will see it too. Someday, you'll be the one to change it."
His throat tightened. She always believed in foolish things. Fairy tales. Legends of the Endborn Flame — a spirit that returns to cleanse the world's cruelty.
She believed it could be him.
He laughed. A broken, bitter sound.
"She was wrong."
He opened his hand. The pendant dropped. Sunk into the ash like everything else.
Behind him, footsteps. Light ones. Delicate.
Ysera.
She stopped a few feet away, watching him with eyes too soft for a world this cruel.
"She didn't deserve this," she said quietly.
"No one does," Kael muttered. "But this world doesn't care who deserves anything."
Ysera knelt beside him. "She believed in you. Even when everyone else feared you."
Kael didn't reply. He stared into the sky. Empty.
"I remember," he finally said. "The last time she laughed. She gave a flower to that village boy — the one who used to throw rocks at me. Just to show him kindness."
His voice cracked.
"She was too gentle for this world."
Ysera touched his arm. "And that's why you can't lose her now. Not here. Not in ashes."
Kael turned toward her. For a moment, his eyes softened — until a scream echoed from deeper in the woods.
He stood up instantly. His eyes dark again. Cold.
"Go back. This isn't your fight."
"You think this is about vengeance," Ysera whispered. "But it's survival, isn't it? You're not just trying to kill them — you're trying to kill the part of you that still remembers love."
He said nothing.
She didn't stop him when he walked into the shadows alone.
The flames behind him burned lower.
But something inside him had already caught fire — and it would never go out.
---
Side "Ashes of Aeternum"
Earlier that day, Aneli had told him the myth again.
"The Endborn Flame only returns when a soul breaks fully — but refuses to die. When someone turns pain into fire."
Kael hadn't believed her.
Now, he did.
Because something in him had shattered completely — and yet, he still stood.
And deep beneath the ash, something stirred.