The Crater
Three days after the Deadspire cracked open, a traveler found the remains.
Not of Kael.
Of the tower.
Obsidian rubble stretched in a perfect circle. Trees blackened for miles. Air thick with soot. At the center: a crater still steaming, pulsing with faint heat.
And in the middle?
Nothing.
No body. No sword. No proof of Kael's survival—or his death.
But the fire hadn't faded.
That was what terrified everyone.
Rhena's Dream
Rhena didn't sleep. Not properly.
She dozed, mind haunted by silhouettes in smoke. In one dream, she stood on a burning bridge. Kael faced her, cloaked in embers, holding the Darksword like a torch.
"You were meant to lead," he said.
She shook her head. "You never trusted me to."
"I trusted you not to need me."
Then he stepped backward—
—and vanished into the flames.
When she awoke, her skin was hot. She pulled her blanket away and gasped.
The Flamebrand across her collarbone was glowing again.
But Kael was gone.
So who was awakening it?
Myrrhold's Rebellion
It began with bread.
A merchant refused to pay taxes. A baker refused to kneel. A street urchin threw a stone at the wrong guard—and lived.
By dusk, the Flameborn boy stood atop the city's dry fountain, raising a torch.
"He is not dead!" he shouted. "He's become the fire in us!"
The crowd roared.
Aureon watched from the rooftops, unmoving.
This wasn't Kael's rebellion anymore. It wasn't even about the throne.
It was a movement born of ashes.
The worst kind.
The kind no sword could kill.
Solen's Trail
Solen had expected corpses.
Instead, he found flowers.
Laid across blackened roads. Draped over old barricades. Blooming from cracks scorched by Kael's power.
He knelt beside a violet petal and touched it gently.
"Not death," he murmured. "Renewal."
He looked east.
"Clever."
He reached into his belt and pulled free a sliver of silver fire.
The Darksword's echo.
Not the real blade—but a piece of its wrath. Harvested during one of Kael's last duels.
Solen swallowed it.
And when he opened his eyes, they burned white.
The Fire Beneath the Castle
In the deepest cellars of the capital, a man clawed at the walls.
They called him Harun the Hollow. Once a general, now a prisoner.
He'd been the first to turn on Kael.
Now, even in chains, he heard the whisper:
"I forgive you."
He laughed.
Then cried.
Then laughed again.
The guards above grew uneasy.
That night, the walls of the prison cracked.
The next morning, Harun was gone.
And where his chains had been…
A scorch mark, in the shape of a crown.
Rhena's March
She didn't wait for the clans.
She didn't wait for Aureon.
She didn't wait for anyone.
Rhena strapped her blades to her back, donned armor old as the war, and rode south—toward the crater.
Toward Kael.
She didn't expect him to be there.
But she expected something.
She passed smoke trails. Camps with fire-shaped banners. Children whispering her name.
She passed through fear.
And came out the other side as something else.
Not a commander.
Not a sister.
Not even a warrior.
A myth.
The Sword Reforged
Beneath the crater, the heat didn't fade.
It matured.
A figure crouched there. Silent. Still.
Kael.
His hands were blistered. His chest marked with runes the Darksword had burned into him.
But he held something new.
A shard of the original blade. Drenched in blood. Bound in memory.
He pressed it against a stone anvil—the last surviving relic of the Forge Temple.
And whispered:
"I am not your weapon anymore."
The shard resisted.
Then surrendered.
And the Darksword remade itself—not in shadow, but in light.
Flame danced along the metal. Gold twisted with onyx. The blade hummed like breath in the dark.
Kael didn't smile.
But he stood.
And the earth trembled.
Rhena Sees Him
She crested the crater's edge at dusk.
Her horse stopped.
She did not.
She walked to the heart of the ruin. To the glowing light.
And found Kael.
He stood with the new sword in hand, wearing no armor. No crown. Just the marks of fire on his skin.
Their eyes met.
Neither spoke.
Until she whispered, "You died."
"I had to," he said.
"For what?"
He looked at the sword.
"For this."