It started with a whisper.
Not the wind.
Not a voice.
Something else—roots murmuring beneath the surface, like the earth had secrets it wanted to confess.
Aero stood alone beneath the Verdenthorn's pale canopy, sweat running down his spine despite the cool breeze. Mica and Kaeli were still asleep, recovering from the Ashborn siege. But Aero hadn't slept.
Not since the fortress descended.
Not since that man—the living flame—looked into his eyes and called him "child."
Aero placed his hand against the trunk of the Verdenthorn again.
Warm. Always warm.
He pushed his life force into the bark.
This time, it pushed back.
The world around him flickered.
Suddenly, Aero wasn't under a tree anymore.
He stood in a field of ash, skies bleeding crimson. Verdenthorn roots snaked along the ground like veins across a corpse. Mountains in the distance wept flame.
In the center of the field, a boy knelt.
No older than ten. Hair white. Shirt burned to rags.
Aero recognized him.
Himself.
The boy didn't speak.
He screamed.
A raw, broken, soul-curdling scream that never ended, even when his lungs gave out.
Aero reached for him—
And saw the scars.
They were burned into the boy's arms and back. Not wounds. Not injuries.
Glyphs.
Words of ancient magic etched into his flesh.
"WEAPON."
"CONDUIT."
"SACRIFICE."
Aero gasped and stumbled back.
The boy turned slowly—eyes hollow, mouth still open in endless scream.
The words bled from his skin.
Aero was yanked out of the vision violently, crashing back to the real world, gasping for breath. Blood dripped from his nose.
He could still hear the scream.
Kaeli was beside him in an instant. "What did you see?"
Aero didn't answer.
He just whispered:
"I think the tree remembers me."
Later, Kaeli paced their stone chamber. Wind howled outside, pulling smoke through the wooden slats of the wall.
"You're pushing too far," she said. "The Verdenthorn is not a book to be read. It's a graveyard. Each root is a memory. Each knot, a death."
"I need answers," Aero muttered, staring into the fire.
"You'll get nothing but ghosts if you keep forcing it."
"Then maybe ghosts are all I have."
Kaeli stared at him. "Do you remember those glyphs?"
He looked up sharply.
"I saw them, too," she admitted. "Long ago. During the Empire's fall."
"They branded people like livestock," Aero muttered.
"No," Kaeli corrected. "They branded mages. Ones with potential to awaken life-force magic naturally. They called it Verdict Flame."
"Like mine?"
"Exactly like yours."
Aero's hands shook. "Then I wasn't born with this. They did something to me."
"Or to your family," Kaeli said softly.
That night, Aero wandered to the edge of camp.
Mica was there, her back to him, playing with her wind—twisting small blades through her fingers like lazy knives.
"You ever feel like you're just… waiting for someone to finish writing your death sentence?" she asked.
Aero sat beside her.
"All the time."
She glanced at him. "You look like hell."
He chuckled. "Been walking through it."
She leaned back, lying on the sand. "You know... when I escaped the palace, they chased me for five days. Didn't sleep. Didn't eat. But I didn't feel tired."
"Why?"
"Because I was free. For the first time."
She paused.
"But now? I wake up some nights wondering if I should've just let them kill me. If freedom was a fluke."
Aero stared at the stars.
"I think freedom's like fire," he said. "If you don't control it, it eats you alive. But if you do... it can burn down the world."
She smirked. "Spoken like a true fire mage."
"Funny," he muttered. "I've never felt less like one."
Then, the sky cracked.
A sound like splitting bone tore through the air.
Aero leapt to his feet. Mica followed, blades of wind already forming in her hands.
Above them, a tear had opened in the clouds.
White fire poured from it.
Not like last time. This was thinner, quieter—like smoke bleeding from an old wound.
But it hit the ground like a scream.
The earth split open.
Verdenthorn roots shrieked.
A hole gaped wide at the edge of camp.
Aero felt it instantly.
Not heat.
Not flame.
Memory.
"Someone's here," he whispered. "Or something."
Kaeli arrived behind them. "Into the scar?"
Aero nodded.
He jumped first.
They fell into a hollow beneath the Wastes. A tomb, long buried.
The air reeked of scorched feathers and rotted incense.
The walls were carved with glyphs like the ones in Aero's vision.
But they pulsed faintly—alive.
A massive skeleton lay at the center. Wrapped in chains.
Its skull was elongated. A third eye socket gaped empty.
Kaeli went pale.
"That's a court mage."
Mica gasped. "It's still alive."
Aero stepped closer. His hand brushed one of the glyphs—
And everything froze.
He stood once more in the red vision.
But this time, the boy was gone.
Instead, there stood a man.
Tall. Robed in fire. Chains wrapped around his arms like jewelry. His voice was a dagger soaked in honey.
"Do you know why they erased us?"
"Because we found the secret they feared most."
"Life is not a gift. It is fuel."
The man extended his hand.
White flame gathered there.
Aero's life force surged. His veins lit like torches.
The man smiled.
"When you're ready, come to the roots beneath the sun."
"The fortress is only the beginning."
Aero collapsed again.
This time, Mica caught him.
Blood ran from his ears.
"What did you see?"
He didn't answer for a while.
Then, barely a whisper:
"They want to burn the world clean."
"And they think I'm the match."