"They fear what they don't understand". But what if even I don't understand what I've become?"
Ashen walked alone.Rain clung to his armor in streams. The forest floor beneath his boots hissed softly with each step, steam rising from the heat that never left his body. Around him, the trees leaned unnaturally inward, twisted as if trying to listen. The locals called this place The Whispering Forest. Few dared enter it. Fewer still returned.But Ashen wasn't afraid of the forest.
He was afraid of what he might do in it.His breath was steady. His cloak, ragged and blackened, trailed behind him like smoke. Embers still escaped his skin now and then—small, drifting motes that faded as they fell. At night, his presence looked like a dying star walking through shadow.
He hadn't spoken to another soul in months.He preferred it that way.
He smelled the smoke first—wood, and something sweeter. Something human.Ashen crouched low, pressing his gloved hand to the earth. Still warm. Nearby. A campfire, maybe a mile ahead.He should turn away.Wherever he went, ruin followed. He had learned that. Even the most innocent meeting often ended in screams—or worse, flame.
But the silence of the forest broke his resolve.And something deep inside whispered: You're not alone anymore.
Ashen found the camp in a small clearing, nestled between stone pillars half-swallowed by moss. Someone had set up a crude shelter using branches and torn linen. A fire crackled in the center, surrounded by herbs—protective wards, likely stolen from an old priest's book.And beside the flame, sleeping with a dagger tucked beneath her arm, was a girl.
She couldn't have been more than seventeen. Tangled dark hair. A streak of soot across her cheek. Torn boots. But her hands—her hands were wrapped in silken cloth, as if hiding something.Ashen didn't move.
He should've walked away.But she stirred and opened her eyes."You're him."The moment her gaze met his, he knew she recognized him.
She didn't scream. She didn't run.
Instead, she sat up, rubbed her eyes, and said:
"You're him. The knight with fire in his blood."Ashen's hand hovered over his sword.
"Who told you that name?" he asked, voice low like gravel.
"No one had to. I saw the embers."
He stepped closer, the firelight revealing more of his scorched armor and half-shadowed face. "You should run."
"I'm not afraid of you."
"You should be."
The girl tilted her head. "Why? Because the world hates you? The world hates everything it can't control.Ashen didn't answer.Instead, he turned. Walked into the trees. Left her behind.By dawn, she was following him.Silently at first, stepping in his footprints, matching his pace. She was quick, agile, and too stubborn for her own good.He finally turned and snapped, "Go home."
"I don't have one."
"Then pick a direction and disappear."She crossed her arms. "What's your name?"Ashen's eyes narrowed. "I lost it."
"Everyone says that. Then they remember when it matters most."He paused, then sighed. "Ashen."She smiled. "Lyra."He grunted. "I didn't ask."She grinned wider. "Didn't stop Ashen stared at the symbols glowing across Lyra's palms. They weren't tattoos. Not paint. Not scars.
"They were alive."He knew them well. He had seen them etched into the walls of the vault where the Obsidian Flame had been sealed. Symbols in a forgotten tongue, burned into stone that couldn't crack, not even under siege.Now they pulsed gently beneath the girl's skin.She noticed the way his jaw tightened, the way his fingers curled as if fighting the urge to draw steel.
"I don't know what they mean," Lyra said softly, wrapping her hands again.
"But they appeared when I turned fifteen. The same year the skies turned red."Ashen didn't respond.He simply turned and walked deeper into the forest.And, as always, she followed.
The path narrowed. Roots slithered across the ground like petrified snakes. Branches clawed at the sky above, letting in only faint, flickering light.Here, the forest changed.They passed old statues half-swallowed by the undergrowth—warriors with cracked helmets and empty eyes. Their faces were twisted in agony, as if frozen in their final moments.
Lyra stepped carefully between the stones.
"What is this place?" she asked.Ashen's voice was low. "A graveyard of the forgotten."
"They look like knights."
"They were."He paused before a broken monument, where a rusted sword jutted from a pile of blackened bone."I knew this one," Ashen whispered.
"Sir Malric. He took thirty arrows before he fell."Lyra crouched beside the grave.
"You were his friend?"Ashen nodded once.
"He died thinking I'd betrayed him."The silence stretched long between them.Then Lyra said,
"You didn't."He didn't reply.
Blood in the Leaves.They pressed on until dusk.The forest became darker still, unnaturally so. The birds had gone silent. The wind had died.That's when Ashen smelled it—Fresh blood.He raised a hand, signaling Lyra to stop. She obeyed immediately, crouching low. He moved ahead, footsteps ghost-silent, and emerged into another clearing bodies.A half-dozen of them. Not soldiers—hunters. Their leathers marked with the crimson eye of the Inquisition. Flame-killers. Trained to find anything corrupted by the Obsidian Flame.
Ashen recognized the sigil burned into their armor: the Order of Purging Light. Zealots.All of them, dead.
And standing in the center of the carnage…A child,No more than ten years old. Pale. Hair white as ash. Eyes wide, glowing faintly.He was humming.The trees around him smoldered at the roots.Ashen stepped forward.
"What happened here, boy?"The child turned. Smiled.
"I sang a song," he said in a voice too calm, too cold.
"They didn't like it."Ashen narrowed his eyes. "What are you?"The boy cocked his head.
"I'm not alone."Then his mouth opened wide—and flame erupted from his chest.Not normal fire but obsidian fire.Ashen moved fast.He tackled the boy, dragging him back just as the ground exploded beneath them. A spiral of black flame burst from the soil, forming a twisting vortex of heat and shadow.The boy screamed—not in pain, but in laughter.Ashen tried to shield him, but the energy pushed back like a storm. Lyra ran into the clearing, her eyes wide.Ashen shouted,
"Lyra! Stay back!"But the flame turned toward her—drawn to the runes beneath her skin.They lit up.And the fire obeyed her.It stopped. Suspended midair, frozen like glass. The boy blinked. Confused.Ashen turned to her. "How did you do that?"Lyra shook her head, stunned. "I didn't mean to."The flame vanished.The boy collapsed, unconscious.Ashen lifted him gently. His skin was hot—but he was still alive.And then… something changed.Ashen felt a pull. From deep inside.A whisper in a voice not his own.
"Three marked. Three gates. You have found the second".He staggered, dropping to one knee. Lyra rushed to him.
"What's happening?"
Ashen looked at her, eyes blazing. "We need to move. Now."
They left the clearing behind, taking the boy with them. Ashen wrapped him in a cloak, suppressing the heat with wards drawn from memory.
As night fell, they found a cave—hidden behind a waterfall where the whispers of the forest couldn't reach.Inside, they lit a small fire. Lyra slept against the wall. The boy murmured in his dreams, twitching.Ashen sat alone, watching the flame.His thoughts churned.A child born with Flame. A girl marked with ancient runes. A dead order that still hunted them.He had spent six years trying to forget what he saw in the vault.Now it was following him.
No…
It was calling him back.And this time, the fire didn't want destruction.It wanted rebirth.That night, Ashen dreamt of the Flame.Not the warlock. Not the vault.
But something beneath it. Something older. A voice of embers, whispering through bone and fire:
"The girl bears the mark.
She will open the second gate.
She is the key.
And you… the lock".Ashen awoke choking on smoke—but the fire was cold.Lyra sat nearby, staring at him.
"You were screaming."He wiped his face. His fingers came away glowing orange.
"You shouldn't be here," he muttered.
"Too late."She unwrapped her hands then.And Ashen froze.There, etched into her skin, glowing faintly like buried coals, were the same runes from the Obsidian Flame vault.Not copied. Not painted.Branded.
"You've outrun fire, Ashen. But have you ever tried to outrun fate?"The boy awoke before dawn.Ashen was already seated across from him, sword unsheathed and resting on his knees.
"Name?" Ashen asked.The boy blinked. "Don't have one."Ashen frowned. "Everyone has a name."
"Not me. They never gave me one."
"They?"
"The masked ones. The ones who burn the gifted."Ashen's eyes narrowed. "Inquisition."The boy nodded.
"They kept me in chains. Said I was cursed. Said my blood wasn't mine. But the fire kept me warm. It taught me songs."He smiled faintly. "I sang one yesterday. It broke the chains."Ashen studied him. He wasn't lying—but he wasn't fully human, either. Something inside him pulsed with dark energy. Flame-born, but not by nature. By ritual.
"From now on," Ashen said after a pause, "your name is Riven."The boy looked up. "Like... breaking?"
Ashen nodded. "Because that's what they did to you. But names can be rebuilt."Riven smiled for the first time. It was faint, but real.
Later that morning, while Riven slept, Lyra sat beside a stream near the cave mouth, absently tracing a rune in the dirt.Ashen watched her.
"You controlled it," he said finally. "The Flame."
"I didn't mean to."
"But you could."She hesitated, then unwrapped her hands again. The runes shimmered with a quiet glow.
"They've been growing," she said. "At first, just my palms. But now... here."She pulled down the collar of her tunic, revealing a line of runes climbing her collarbone and neck like vines.
"They itch. Burn sometimes. Especially when I'm angry."
Ashen stepped closer. His voice was gentler now. "What happened when you turned fifteen?"She closed her eyes.
"They came for me. The same masked men. My village gave me up. Said I brought sickness. Crops failed. Sheep were stillborn. I didn't understand it then. But I ran. I've been running ever since."Ashen looked down at her hands.
"And the fire never hurt you?"
She shook her head. "It listens."That chilled him more than any fire ever could.They left the cave by noon, heading east toward the ruins of Hollow Vale—a shattered temple Ashen once visited before the war.
But they weren't alone.From the treetops, silent and pale, a band of cloaked warriors watched their every move.Hunters not of beasts, but of marked ones.At their lead: a woman with white-blonde hair and an iron mask, her eyes glowing faintly blue.
"The girl bears the Second Mark," she whispered.A subordinate nodded.
"Should we engage?"
The woman tilted her head, calculating. "Not yet. Let the cursed knight lead us to the next gate."She smiled beneath her mask.
"And then… we take the Flame."
That night, Ashen couldn't sleep.His dreams were fire again—visions of a massive, black door beneath the earth, pulsing with symbols. A whisper in his own voice, but deeper, echoed in the dream:
> The three bear the marks. The locks awaken.You are not cursed, Ashen.You are a key.He woke gasping.Riven sat nearby, watching. "Your fire's leaking again."Ashen looked at his arms—glowing beneath the skin, cracks of light tracing his veins.He stood and walked away, deeper into the trees.Lyra followed.
"You're not well."Ashen leaned against a tree. "The more I use the Flame, the louder it gets."
"It talks to you?"
He nodded. "It offers me power. Promises I can protect you. But I know the truth. Every time I accept, I lose more of myself."Lyra stepped closer.
"Maybe you're not losing. Maybe you're changing."Ashen turned, eyes blazing. "And what if the change turns me into something I can't come back from?"She didn't flinch.
"Then I'll be there. To pull you back."He looked at her—really looked—and for the first time in years, the fire dimmed.
At dawn, they reached the broken bridge of Hollow Vale—a crumbled stone arch over a chasm where the old temple ruins waited below.But they never made it across.A scream split the air.Ashen drew his blade. Riven flared with heat. Lyra's runes blazed—And from the trees came the Hunters.Ashen shouted,
"Fall back!"But it was too late.
The masked leader landed between them, blade crackling with runes, and whispered: "We are the Wardens of the Last Flame. You carry what should have stayed buried."Ashen raised his sword. "You don't know what you're dealing with."
"Oh," she smiled beneath her mask. "We do"Then she pointed at Lyra.
"She is the gate."And Ashen's world went to flame again.
"Some gates don't open with keys. They open with sacrifice."Steel rang out across the forest.Ashen's blade clashed against the masked leader's runesword with a sound like grinding bone. Sparks exploded between them as she moved with impossible speed—faster than any normal human.She was marked too.Ashen realized it too late.This wasn't just an inquisitor.She was a Flamebound.Around them, the forest erupted into chaos.Riven unleashed torrents of black fire from his palms, burning a ring between them and the dozen cloaked Hunters. Some fell screaming, others hurled runes to deflect the blast.Lyra stood still at the bridge's edge, frozen as the runes on her skin flared so bright they lit the ground beneath her feet like day.The masked leader whispered,
"You don't know what you're carrying, girl."Ashen snarled. "Touch her and you'll see what I'm carrying."He drove his sword down—but the woman vanished in smoke and shadow.Ashen turned just in time to see her reappear behind Lyra—blade drawn back.
He shouted—
"LYRA!"But she had already moved.Instinct, or fate.She raised both hands and caught the sword bare-handed.The weapon hissed against her palms. Runes met runes and the earth split.
The crumbled bridge collapsed beneath them.Ashen, Lyra, Riven, and the masked leader all plunged into darkness—falling into the ancient temple ruins beneath Hollow Vale.Stone gave way to shattered pillars. Dust choked the air.Ashen landed hard, bones screaming. He pushed himself up in time to see Lyra standing at the center of a circular chamber.Her body was glowing.The runes had spread. They covered her arms, her neck, her chest.And the floor beneath her—responded.Ancient runes lit up in a ring, forming a blazing symbol none of them could read.Ashen dragged himself toward her.
"Lyra! Don't move!"But it was too late.The first gate opened.A massive ring of stone slid open at the chamber's center, revealing an abyss of swirling flame—and something inside it, breathing, watching.Ashen felt it even before it emerged:A being of pure obsidian fire. Not alive. Not dead.Bound. Until now.The masked leader stood, blade raised again. "She is the vessel! We must end it—"
Ashen roared, unleashing a wave of flame from his body, brighter than anything before.His control snapped.
Fire poured from Ashen's chest and eyes, enveloping him in living flame. His armor cracked. His body screamed.But the gate responded.Not with fear with recognition.A voice filled the chamber—not spoken, but felt.
> The Lock and the Flame.
Bound again.Riven collapsed, whispering,.
"It's him. He's the true one…"Ashen dropped to one knee, clutching his head. The fire wanted to escape. To burn everything. He saw visions—cities burning, oceans boiling, skies split by shadow.Then Lyra reached him.Placed her hand on his face.And whispered, "Breathe."He did.And the fire stopped.When Ashen awoke, the chamber was still glowing, but the gate had closed.The masked leader was gone—escaped or dead, he didn't know.Riven sat nearby, quiet for once.
"She saved you."Ashen turned to Lyra, who was slumped beside the gate, breathing shallowly.Her skin had stopped glowing.The runes were gone.All of them.Ashen knelt beside her.
"What did you do?"She smiled weakly.
"Gave it back. It didn't belong to me."Ashen gripped her hand. "You could've died."
"I still might."
"No."His voice shook for the first time.
"No. Not again."She coughed.
"You can't protect me from it," Ashen. The Flame chooses who it wants."He looked back at the gate.And for the first time, it wasn't just a curse.It was a warning.