The city burned.
Flames crawled across the skeletal towers, running like veins of molten blood. The Flamebearers did not hurry; their advance was slow, deliberate, but every step remade the ruins. Ash spiraled upward into fire, stone blistered into glass, and the shadows Kael once called his cloak shrank like frightened beasts.
He ran.
The forge inside him roared, demanding he turn and fight, but his instincts screamed louder. He darted through a broken arcade, vaulted across a collapsed bridge, and slipped into the ruins of a vast square where statues lay shattered and blackened. His breaths came ragged, each one stinging with ash.
Then the ground pulsed.
Boom.
The Flamebearers had entered the square.
Kael whirled. They came from three sides, cutting off every escape. The one with the spear stood straight-backed, fire wreathing his weapon like a star torn from the heavens. The woman of chains moved slower, her links whispering as they coiled through the dust, carving glowing scars into the ground. And the cloaked figure lingered last, halo of burning ash spreading wider, smothering every shadow in sight.
The forge writhed, shadows straining against Kael's back like wings desperate to rise. He bared his teeth, his voice raw.
"You'll have to burn more than this to take me."
The chain-bearer tilted her head. Her voice was low, resonant, carrying the weight of judgment. "You are no husker. No hollow vessel. You are a corruption. And corruption is meant to be purged."
The chains lashed out.
Kael dove aside as a link thicker than a tree trunk smashed into the square, the stone hissing molten. He raised his hand, shadows snapping forward to bind the chain, but light seared through them, unraveling his power like cobweb before a torch.
The spear-bearer advanced next, thrusting with impossible speed. Kael barely twisted away, the weapon's fire grazing his shoulder. Agony tore through him, his flesh blistering in an instant. The forge surged, shadows erupting from his back in a violent spasm that hurled him across the square.
He crashed against a broken wall, coughing blood. The halo-bearer's cinders rained down, searing holes through the rubble, forcing him upright again.
Feed! the forge howled. Take their souls, devour them, or die!
Kael staggered to his feet, his eyes blazing violet. He flung his hand wide, shadows whipping outward in jagged spears. The square went dark for a heartbeat—then the Flamebearers burned it away. The chains shredded his shadows, the spear carved through his assault like wheat, and the halo expanded, smothering every inch of darkness until only Kael stood, raw and exposed.
The spear-bearer raised his weapon for the killing thrust.
Kael's chest heaved. His forge blazed wildly, hunger and fury tearing through him. For a heartbeat, he thought of giving in—of letting it consume him completely, unleashing whatever beast lay chained inside.
But the strike never landed.
A hiss cut the air. Chains met metal—not his, but another's.
A figure dropped into the square in a flare of sparks. Cloak swirling, eyes gleaming silver-fire, the woman Kael had met in the ruins stood between him and the Flamebearers. Her hand caught the chain mid-swing, her grip burning with sigils etched into her scarred skin.
The chain-bearer's head tilted. "You."
The woman smiled faintly. "Did you think I would let you keep this one for yourselves?"
The spear-bearer lowered his weapon slightly, but the halo flared hotter, the cinders swirling into a storm. "He is an abomination. You would side with it?"
The woman's smile sharpened into something feral. "I would see what he becomes."
She flung the captured chain aside, the ground splitting with the force. For the first time, the Flamebearers shifted—not retreating, but reassessing, as though weighing whether even their combined might was worth the fight.
Kael stared at her back, his body trembling, torn between rage and relief.
"Why?" he rasped.
She didn't turn. "Because the fire that consumes… also tempers."
The square erupted as the Flamebearers advanced again, chains lashing, spear burning, cinders howling. The mysterious woman raised her arms, her own scars igniting with hidden power, meeting their assault head-on.
And Kael, battered and reeling, realized that for the first time since the forge awakened, he was not alone in the fire.