The fires of battle still smoldered, but dawn brought an eerie calm to the blood-soaked marshes.
Kael sat atop a ruined statue — once a Sovereign watchtower, now half-consumed by time and moss. Ashrend rested across his knees, its crimson glow dimming in the cool morning light.
He could still feel the echo of Gharn's death in his bones — not the weight of guilt, but the pulse of something deeper. The Mark on his shoulder had begun to ache again, more fiercely than ever before.
Lyra approached with a scrap of parchment in her gloved hand.
"This was found on Gharn's corpse," she said. "He was carrying it like a warding charm."
Kael took it, eyes narrowing.
The paper bore a symbol — a stylized eye wrapped in flame, identical to the one burned into Kael's shoulder since childhood.
His pulse quickened.
"Where was this drawn?" he asked.
Darric joined them. "A few villagers mentioned an old catacomb beneath the temple ruins. Sealed since the last Sovereign war. Locals think it's cursed."
"Then that's exactly where I need to go."
The entrance lay beneath the shattered altar of Cindermoor's forsaken chapel, half-buried in debris. With Darric and Lyra guarding the surface, Kael descended alone — the air thick with dust and the scent of forgotten fire.
His torch flickered, revealing crumbling stone walls etched with symbols… but not in any language he recognized.
No — this was Sovereign script.
And it reacted to him.
The deeper he went, the more the glyphs glowed softly, as though recognizing his presence. The chamber at the end opened like a wound in the earth — a circular vault with a stone pedestal at its center.
Upon it rested a book.
Bound in crimson scales, sealed with silver clasps, and humming with dormant power.
Kael reached for it.
The moment his fingers touched the cover, the Mark on his shoulder ignited — not with pain, but revelation. Flames danced behind his eyes. Voices filled his mind. A battlefield. A crown of fire. A scream in the dark—
—Sister.
The name echoed, half-formed. The image of a girl — red-haired like him — standing before a burning tree, eyes filled with terror.
And then darkness.
Kael stumbled back, gasping.
The book fell open.
Its pages spoke of the Crimson Brand, a divine curse forged by the First Sovereign to shatter fate itself. A brand given only to one born under the Veil's shadow — one destined to either save the world, or burn it in glory.
Kael's hands trembled. The text mentioned two bearers — twin heirs to the Sovereign Flame. One male. One female.
His voice cracked in the silence.
"…She's alive."
He gripped the book tightly, fire surging beneath his skin.
Whatever the truth was — about his past, the Mark, or the Sovereigns — it was buried deeper than he'd feared.
And he would burn through any lie to reach it.