The monastery burned behind them.
Not from vengeance. Not from rage.
But as a funeral.
For the nameless.
For the devoured.
For the thousands who had whispered prayers to gods who fed on them in silence.
Mica stood by the edge of the cliff, her crimson scarf billowing behind her like a banner of rebellion. Her eyes didn't water, but her fingers twitched—each spark of wind in her palm a memory of chains, collars, and screaming nights.
Kaeli poured her final glyph into the flame. It shimmered—an ethereal eye dissolving into smoke, sealing the last of the Court's influence from escaping.
Aero stood alone. Watching.
The flames reflected in his eyes, but he wasn't seeing them.
He was watching something else.
The energy inside him had begun shifting. No longer chaotic. No longer a caged wildfire. Now it pulsed with rhythm. With pattern.
It mimicked the heartbeat of the land.
Every dying flower he passed bloomed again in seconds.
Every corpse twitched in the dirt.
He heard the bones of the monastery itself. Cracking. Whispering. Yearning.
"Breathe. Feed. Reclaim."
He didn't flinch.
He listened.
They traveled westward.
Through dunes of singing sand. Through forests where the trees pulsed with memories of the first age.
Through ghost towns where no shadows ever moved, and nothing had slept in centuries.
It was here that Kaeli found the first mark.
Etched into the stone of an old temple, buried half in earth.
The glyph read:
"Let the sky bear witness to the fall of flame."
Kaeli froze.
Mica looked between them. "Translation?"
Aero knelt, fingers brushing the edge of the glyph.
"The Court… had enemies."
Kaeli nodded. "The Skybound Sect. Lost in the purge. They were wind-walkers. Star readers. Life-force seers."
Mica's breath caught. "My people."
That night, Aero couldn't sleep.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the mirror. The Thirteen. Their blank smiles. Their voices.
"You carry us well."
He jolted awake.
Kaeli was sitting near him. Sketching again.
"You're unraveling," she said quietly.
"Good," he muttered.
"No," she whispered. "Not good. You're starting to become a vessel. It's how they start. The whispers. The surges of power. The forgetting."
Aero clenched his fists.
"I'm not them."
Kaeli didn't flinch.
"I know."
He exhaled. "Then why does it feel like… I'm not just burning anymore?"
She stared at him. "Because you're becoming something new."
Two days later, the storm came.
It wasn't weather.
It was war.
They saw the dust cloud before they heard the screaming. A caravan of slavers, armed with firebrands and steel beasts, descended on the cliffside.
Children in chains.
Mothers gagged.
A banner flew above them: The Sigil of Emberclaw. One of the Wasteland's seven war clans.
Mica's eyes went still.
Aero looked at her.
"You know them?"
"I escaped from them."
Her voice shook like a bomb waiting to explode.
"They killed my sister. Sold her for less than a loaf of bread."
Kaeli spoke. "There are too many."
Aero didn't blink.
"We're not running."
They struck that night.
Fast. Surgical. Quiet.
Mica led the charge, dancing through the air on slashes of wind, her daggers humming like singing vipers. She didn't kill at first. She disarmed.
Then she remembered her sister's name.
And she tore them apart.
Kaeli worked the shadows, binding limbs with silent threads of sealing magic, erasing screams with a flick of her wrist.
Aero walked through the fire.
He didn't run.
He walked.
Every chain snapped when he passed.
The flames of the caravan turned white.
Slavers fell to their knees, clutching their heads, screaming about visions of cities burning and the sky bleeding.
Aero's hands glowed with veins of light-force.
He didn't burn their flesh.
He burned their souls.
When it was over, the caravan was dust.
The freed slaves wept in silence, too stunned to even speak.
Mica found a little girl curled in the corner of a wagon. Pale. Bruised.
She smiled. "You're safe."
The girl asked, "Are you a god?"
Mica didn't answer.
Behind her, Aero stood—eyes dim, chest rising like a beast tamed by silence.
Kaeli whispered to him, "You're changing."
"I know."
"Do you want to?"
"…No."
But he looked down at his hands.
Then why does it feel so right?
They buried the dead. Fed the survivors.
And moved on.
The girl with silver eyes refused to leave Mica's side.
She told them her name was Elin. She had no parents. But she could see threads of power when she closed her eyes.
"Like colors," she explained. "You glow white. She glows green. But he…"
She pointed at Aero.
"He glows like the end of the world."
That night, Aero finally spoke to the flame inside him.
"I don't want to be your weapon," he said aloud.
No response.
He tried again.
"I'm not the Thirteenth. I'm not your chosen."
He clenched his fists.
"I'm not anyone's anymore."
The flame whispered, not in words, but in feeling.
"Then burn your own name into the sky."
At dawn, Aero stood at the top of the cliff with Mica and Kaeli beside him.
The caravan survivors below cheered.
Aero raised his hand.
And the sky parted.
A single beam of pure white light erupted from his palm and struck the heavens.
It left a trail behind—a scar.
A message.
Written in light:
"WE ARE ALIVE."
The First Court would see it.
The world would remember.
And the flame would no longer burn in silence.