"You can bind fire. You can bury gods. But blood… blood always remembers."
The road to Gravemire was nothing but bones and mist.Ashen walked ahead, hand always on his blade. Riven said little, but his eyes constantly scanned the fog-covered hills. And Lyra—Lyra was quiet. Too quiet.Her new flame didn't burn like Ashen's.It pulsed.It watched and sometimes, in the corner of his vision, her shadow moved when she didn't.They arrived at Gravemire by dusk.The city once held a fortress—Lightborne stronghold, a beacon in the eastern wilds. Now it lay broken and drowned in swamp, its towers crooked like dying trees. The land wept black water.Ashen stopped at the edge.
"This is where the blood ran first," he said.Riven looked up.
"You mean the battle?"Ashen shook his head.
"I mean the ritual."
The fortress gates still stood—but they opened not with keys, nor strength.Ashen approached the door and cut his palm.Blood dripped on the stone.It drank it like wine.The gates opened inward with a groan like a dying god.Inside,but darkness also—chanting.Low,inhuman and also ancient.Lyra stopped cold
"There's someone inside."
"No," said Ashen. "There's something inside."They passed broken corridors, flooded halls, and finally entered the Sanctum.There, beneath the altar where Lightborne once swore oaths, stood a man in rusted armor or what remained of one.He turned.His face was mostly gone—burned, scarred, skeletal. But his eyes…Ashen froze.
"Varic."The man smiled, lips black with dried blood. "You remember."
"I saw you die."
"You saw me change."Riven stepped back. "What is he?"Lyra whispered, "He's still bound."Varic raised a hand, and red runes glowed beneath his skin. "I held the Flame. Before you. I gave it up. But I did not die. I became its chain."Ashen stepped forward. "Why are you still here?"
"To warn you," Varic said, voice low. "You are not its wielder. You are its pathway. The Flame has no master. It only has doors."
"And what does that make you?" Ashen asked.Varic drew his sword—curved, black, and dripping blood.
"The one who locks them."
Ashen and Varic clashed in the Sanctum, steel against cursed steel.But Varic didn't want to kill Ashen—he wanted to test him.
"You never finished your rite," Varic snarled.
"You were never bound. Just chosen. And you don't even know why."Ashen parried, flames roaring from his blade.
"Then tell me!"
Varic's eyes burned.
"Because you were born in the fire, Ashen. You didn't survive it. You came from it."Lyra cried out from behind the altar—blood dripping from her nose again.Riven tried to reach her—but shadow-bound chains burst from the ground and dragged him back.
"You want truth?" Varic roared.He dropped his sword and walked toward Ashen.
"Then take it."He pulled off his gauntlet—and drove his clawed hand into Ashen's chest.Ashen screamed in pain—but in awakening.Memories poured into his mind.He saw flames.He saw a temple beneath the sea.He saw his mother—a priestess of the Flame—screaming as masked men dragged her away.He saw himself—a child—thrown into fire and the Flame did not burn him.Varic's voice echoed:
"You are not its enemy, Ashen.
You are its son."Then the pain returned and also did the power.Flame exploded from Ashen's body—searing Varic back.Riven broke free. Lyra gasped, her shadow retreating and Ashen stood, flame coiled around him like wings, blood still dripping from his hand.Varic knelt, broken—but smiling.
"The Second Gate is done," he whispered. "Now you must choose."
Varic offered him a dagger—small, black, rune-etched.
"The Blood Pact binds your life to hers," he said.
"So long as she lives… you will burn."Ashen looked at Lyra.She had fallen to her knees, trembling—glowing like an ember struggling to breathe.
"What happens if I take it?" Ashen asked.
"You live," Varic said.
"And if I don't?"
"She dies. And the Flame will go free."Ashen looked down at the dagger.His hand burned.His heart—worse.He made his choice and drove the dagger into his own palm.
"We burn together."
The pact sealed.And the world shook.