The cold night air struck Kael's face as he stumbled out of the passage. The world above spread wide and desolate, a plain of ash under a broken moon. Black grass bent in the wind, brittle as bone, and scattered stones jutted like the ribs of a corpse.
Rayne followed, her fire dimming to embers at her fingertips. She held her dagger low but ready, eyes scanning the horizon. The silence out here was heavier than the echoing tunnels below.
Kael braced against the chill, the mark on his chest still pulsing. The whispers of the Oathbound lingered in his head, even though the ash warriors had not followed them into the open.
Rayne's gaze cut toward him. "You fought like something was driving you. And it wasn't just your sword."
He met her eyes, but words tangled in his throat. Because something is. Because there is more in me than you know. He however, forced out another lie. "The Vale presses on us all."
She didn't look convinced. Her jaw tightened. "No. This is different. You bent under their vow, Kael. As if you carried it yourself."
Her words bit deep, sharper than any revenant's chain. He looked away scanning the plain. In the distance, jagged pillars of obsidian rose like shattered towers. The wind carried a low hum, as if the land itself remembered old oaths.
They walked in silence for a time, boots crunching on ash-strewn earth. Kael's mind churned. He remembered again the tremors of his youth and his mother's urgent whispers. Do not let your father see. Promise me, Kael .
Why hide sickness from his father unless it was something else? Unless it was not weakness but proof. Proof of blood he was never meant to show.
Rayne broke the silence, her tone edged but quiet. "My clan burned because of oaths like theirs. Men who bound themselves to thrones and kings until nothing human remained in them. That's why I fight. That's why I can't trust anyone bound by blood I don't understand."
Her words were aimed at the night, not him. But each one pressed against Kael like a blade. He wanted to speak, to explain, yet he had nothing to give her but fragments of memory and questions he couldn't answer.
The wind shifted. A distant howl carried across the plain, rising and breaking into silence. Rayne stopped, her eyes narrowing. "Not revenants. Something else."
Kael tightened his grip on Veindrinker. The hunger inside him flared again at the sound, sharp and unwelcomed. He pressed it down, the way he had pressed every fever before.
Rayne looked at him then, really looked, her fire casting a glow over his face. "You're trembling."
He tried to steady his hands. "It's the Vale."
Her expression hardened. "Or it's something you're still not telling me."
Kael had no answer. The truth clawed at his chest, but speaking it would break the fragile ground they walked on. So, he stayed silent. And her silence after was heavier than the ash underfoot.
Above them, the moon shifted behind clouds. The plain stretched on, dark and waiting. Somewhere ahead lay the next trial, the next truth.
Kael wondered if he would survive it before Rayne's mistrust burned into something worse than chains.
The wind carried the smell of burned stone as they moved across the plain. Ash cracked beneath their boots, the sound too loud in the silence.
Rayne walked a step ahead, dagger in hand, fire playing faintly across her fingers. She didn't look back.
Kael felt the space between them like a wall. He wanted to bridge it, to explain to her what had shaken him in the passage. But what words could he use? That the whispers called him heir? That the hunger inside him sharpened each time she bled flame into the dark? She would see it as betrayal before truth.
"You should have told me," Rayne said finally, her voice low.
"Told you what?"
She stopped. Her fire burned brighter, throwing shadows across her face. "Whatever it is you're hiding. The way you fight. The way you falter. Those revenants called to you, Kael. They knew you. That doesn't happen to strangers."
Kael met her state, his throat tight. "I don't know what I am. Not fully."
"Then that's the problem." She turned away before he could answer, her words final.
The silence stretched. Kael's chest burned with the urge to speak, to deny, to beg her to trust him. But he held it down.
A sound split the stillness, claws scraping across stone.
Rayne whirled, fire flaring. Shapes broke from the ash a hundred paces ahead. They were wolf-like beasts, their hides blackened, eyes glowing with ember light. Their bodies looked burned and half-scorched, yet they moved with a predator's grace.
"Vale hounds," Rayne muttered. "They hunt anything that breathes."
The largest grower, its jaw dripping ash and fire. In a blink the pack charged.
Kael stepped forward, Veindrinker alive in his hand. The blade pulsed red, eager. His hunger spiked with it, sharper than before, as if the hounds' blood would be fire on his tongue. He clenched his jaw until his teeth ached.
Rayne met the first hound head-on. Her dagger slashed its throat while her flame burst into its chest, scattering it in a spray of cinders. Kael swung at another, his strike clean, too strong. The beast split in two, ash bursting around him
The pack pressed harder. Chains of fire coiled faintly around their legs, the same sigils Kael had seen on the Oathbound. These hounds were oath-tied too, bound to hunt until nothing remained.
One leapt at Raynes back. Kael moved without thought, so fast in that moment he was a blur, cutting it down mid-air. The beast dissolved into smoke, but Rayne caught the moment and spun, her eyes catching the unnatural glow in his.
Her expression froze. Suspicion deepened.
"Rayne," he started.
"Don't," she snapped, her fire flaring around her. "Fight now. Speak later."
The last three hounds circled, growls rattling the ground. Kael and Rayne stood side by side, their blades and flame striking in rhythm. The fight ended in a storm of ash, the pack collapsing into nothing.
Silence fell again. Rayne wiped her blade, her gaze refusing his. "You're not telling me the truth. And if you don't, Kael.... the Vale will show me."
She walked ahead, fire still in her hand, leaving him with the echo of her words and the hunger gnawing deeper than ever.
The plain stretched empty under the fractured moon. They walked in silence, their shadows long across the ash.
Kael kept pace behind her. Every step carried the weight of what she had said. 'The Vale would show her.' She was right. The trials tore away secrets. How long before his fell bare?
Rayne slowed, finally turning to face him. Fire glowed faintly in her palm, painting her features sharp against the dark. "If you expect me to fight beside you, Kael, then stop holding back the truth."
His chest tightened. He thought of the whispers, the fevers, his mother's trembling han pressing bitter draughts to his lips. He thought of his father's cold indifference, the way the man never looked at him as a son but as a burden.
"I don't know the truth," he said, voice low. "Only pieces. Shadows. And I don't know if I want to know the rest."
Her eyes softened for a moment, then hardened again. "That's not good enough."
The wind shifted. Kael caught the faintest tremor in her expression, not anger, not entirely, something deeper. The suspicion was there, but beneath it, a glimmer of something else. Fear.
He took a step closer, words breaking past before he could stop them. "I would never harm you."
Her jaws tightened. "And yet, every time you falter, I see something inside you that doesn't match those words."
He stopped. She held his gaze, firelight flickering between them, shadows moving across the plain. For a heartbeat, it felt as though something unseen bound them together, a pull that went beyond mistrust, beyond the Vale.
Kael's breath caught. His hunger stirred, fierce and sudden, rising at the sound of her heartbeat. He clenched his fists, fighting the urge to draw closer.
Rayne's fire dimmed. She looked away, breaking the tension. "You should rest while you can. The Vale doesn't grant many chances."
Before he could answer, the ground shuddered. A deep rumble rolled beneath his feet, scattering ash into the air.
Rayne spun, her dagger flashing. "Not hounds. This is something bigger."
The earth split ahead, a jagged crack ripping through the plain. From the fissure rose a shape of stone and flame, its body a mass of shifting rock, chains glowing across its limbs like brands. A guardian, bound to oath and ash, its roar shaking the air.
Kael staggered back, the mark on his chest burning as if in answer.
Rayne cursed under her breath, fire flaring high. "The Vale is not finished with us."
The giant lifted its chained arms, molten eyes locking on Kael.
Blood of the Hollow. Kneel.
Kael's blade thrummed in his grip. Rayne's fire blazed beside him. Together they faced the monster rising from earth.