Chapter 3 – Disabled and Forgotten
The bells of Eldareth tolled the hour of dusk, their echo rolling through mist-drenched streets like the sigh of a dying god. From the window of a decayed inn at the city's edge, Kael Draven watched the villagers drift past—men who once saluted him, women who once whispered his name with reverence. Now their eyes slid over him as though he were smoke, a relic of a tale too old to matter.
His left arm hung heavy and useless, bound in worn leather. The sinews that once drew swords and lifted banners had withered, the mark of his sealed crystal lying cold against his chest beneath rough linen.
Outside, a butcher laughed boisterously. "There he sits again—the ghost of the commander!"
Another voice joined, cruel and sharp. "Aye, the same who once commanded legions! Now he commands flies."
Their laughter rose like the crackling of fire over dry wood. Kael closed his eyes, willing himself not to hear, yet every syllable clawed its way beneath his skin.
He reached for the mug beside him—stale ale, bitter as regret—and drank. The liquid did nothing to dull the ache. When he set the mug down, the wood beneath his fingers trembled ever so slightly; his strength was failing even for small defiance.
From the stairwell came soft footsteps. The innkeeper's daughter, Mira, appeared, balancing a tray. Her hair was the colour of chestnut bark, her eyes bright with the pity she dared not show.
"You've not eaten all day," she murmured. "Mother says you'll waste away if you keep this up."
Kael gave a faint smile that did not reach his eyes. "Tell your mother I have already wasted—just not in the manner she fears."
She hesitated. "They speak cruelly of you, my lord. You should not listen."
"I have grown used to cruelty, child," he said, voice low. "It is loyalty that still startles me."
She placed a bowl of stew before him. "Then perhaps, in time, loyalty will return."
He said nothing. When she left, the silence thickened until only the faint hum of the hearth remained. He stared into the flames, their orange tongues flickering like the banners of old campaigns. Memory bled into vision—riders charging under his command, his own voice cutting through chaos, Seraphina's eyes gleaming from the ramparts.
Then came the last battle, the betrayal, the curse that stripped him of power. His hand rose involuntarily to the amulet beneath his shirt—the sealed crystal that had once been his source of strength. Once it had shone with the brilliance of molten silver. Now it was dull, lifeless, like a heart turned to stone.
Kael drew it out. The metal was cold as winter steel. "You were the heart of my armies," he murmured, "the forge of my will. Why now do you slumber while I rot?"
No answer came—only the whisper of the wind through broken shutters.
He laughed softly, without mirth. "Perhaps the gods themselves have forgotten my name."
The door creaked. An old villager entered to refill his mug. The man's gaze lingered too long. "You used to ride with kings," he said, shaking his head. "Now you sit with beggars."
Kael met his eyes, calm and unflinching. "Even kings sit with beggars when fortune tires of them."
The old man snorted and left muttering, but Kael caught the words *'cursed commander'* drifting back to him.
He turned once more to the window. The night had deepened, the mist coiling low along the cobblestones. Lanterns flickered, ghosts of amber light in the gloom. And then, faintly, he saw it—the crystal at his breast glimmered. A whisper of radiance, weak yet unmistakable, pulsed once beneath the fabric.
Kael froze.
He drew the pendant forth, breath shallow. The glow died, leaving darkness once more. For a moment he thought it trickery of the mind, a reflection of candlelight. But deep within the crystal's core, a second faint shimmer stirred—as though something imprisoned had shifted in uneasy slumber.
"Mira," he called, voice rough.
She hurried up the stairs again. "My lord?"
He held the crystal aloft. "Do you see aught?"
Her eyes widened. "It glows! By the Saints, it truly—"
"Say nothing of it," he interrupted sharply, clutching the gem close. "Not to your mother, not to the villagers. Do you hear?"
She nodded, frightened by the sudden steel in his tone. "Aye, my lord."
When she was gone, Kael sat long into the night, eyes never leaving the faintly breathing light within the crystal. For years it had lain dead—until now. What had awakened it? Pity? Destiny? Or the echo of his own despair?
He leaned back, exhaustion claiming him, yet sleep refused to come. Outside, thunder rolled over the distant hills, and somewhere in the storm's voice, Kael thought he heard a whisper—a promise or a warning, he could not tell.
As the villagers mock him and the world forgets his name, Kael's sealed crystal stirs for the first time in four years. A pulse of light, faint yet alive, hints that his fall is not final—that something ancient within him remembers.
The storm broke before dawn.
Thunder growled like some ancient beast roused from its centuries-long slumber, and rain came in torrents, lashing against the panes of the small inn where Kael Draven sat in solitude. Lightning flared across the horizon, illuminating the desolation of Eldareth's outer districts—crumbling spires, shuttered windows, and the lonely echo of water in the gutters.
Sleep had fled him entirely. His mind, once sharpened by the discipline of command, now drifted like a ship with broken sails. Yet through the haze of exhaustion one thought remained—the crystal had pulsed.
He sat before the dying fire, its glow casting long, trembling shadows across the floorboards. Upon the table lay the pendant, its faint luminescence breathing like a living thing. The light ebbed and flared, delicate as a heartbeat.
Kael reached out, fingertips brushing its surface. A shock of warmth seared through his skin—not the chill of magic long dead, but something *alive*, ancient, hungry.
He drew a slow breath. "You remember me," he murmured, voice hoarse. "After all this time."
The crystal brightened, a tremor rippling across the wooden table. Then, as if in answer, a low hum filled the room—barely audible yet resonating in his bones.
Kael's pulse quickened. He looked toward the door, half expecting the villagers to burst in, drawn by the strange sound, but the storm masked all. He was alone. Alone with something that should have been impossible.
He clenched his fist, summoning the old command, the one that once bound flame and steel alike to his will.
> "Ignis cordis… obedire."
Nothing.
The light within the crystal flickered, then dimmed, as though mocking him. The air grew cold again, silence pressing heavy. Kael's breath trembled with disappointment and disbelief.
"You awaken to torment me, then," he muttered bitterly. "To remind me of what I once was."
But the moment he turned away, the crystal pulsed once more—stronger this time. A dull red glow spread across its surface, veins of molten light threading through the cracks like veins beneath skin. The table shook. The dying fire flared, roaring back to life in a burst of gold and crimson.
Kael stumbled back, his chair crashing to the floor. "By the gods…"
The hearth's flames reached toward him as though recognizing their master. The room filled with heat—not the gentle warmth of a fire, but the fierce, consuming essence of *power reborn*. The pendant burned against his palm, not in pain, but in communion.
A voice—soft, indistinct, like wind through distant halls—whispered through his mind.
> "Rise… Kael Draven…"
He froze, heart pounding. "Who speaks?" he demanded. The voice did not answer, yet the whisper carried familiarity—a fragment of his own essence echoing back from the void that had once consumed it.
A vision followed.
The battlefield.
The dying sun bleeding over ash.
His men crying out as shadows devoured them.
And Seraphina, standing amid ruin, her face turned away as the light left his hand and the curse sealed itself within the crystal.
Then—all at once—it shattered. The vision, the sound, the pain. He was back in the inn, the fire dimming, the glow fading again to a soft, pulsing amber.
Kael dropped to his knees, gasping. Sweat glistened on his forehead; his hands trembled, yet not from weakness. For the first time in years, he *felt* the whisper of strength returning—raw, untamed, and dangerous.
He looked down at the crystal lying in his open palm. "You awaken… but why now?"
Outside, thunder answered.
A knock came at the door.
"Lord Kael!" It was Mira's voice, strained with fear. "Are you well? The villagers say your window burns like a forge!"
Kael turned, eyes gleaming faintly with the afterglow of firelight. "Stay back, Mira. It is nothing."
"But—"
"I said *stay back!*" His tone was sharp, commanding—the voice of the commander returned, if only for a breath. The girl fell silent, footsteps retreating down the hall.
He rose, muscles aching but alive. The storm had lessened; the rain's fury softened into rhythm. He approached the window, gazing out upon the drenched fields and the sleeping city beyond. The crystal's light mirrored faintly in the glass—a symbol of what he had lost and what might yet be reclaimed.
Kael pressed his palm against the cold pane. "If you awaken, old friend," he said softly to the crystal, "then perhaps the curse was never death… but slumber."
A tremor ran through his arm, a surge of heat pooling in his palm. He lifted his hand away—and to his astonishment, a faint ember glowed upon the glass where his fingers had touched. Not illusion. Not memory. **Fire obeyed him once more**, however weakly.
He laughed then—a sound brittle, half-mad, half-exultant. "So be it! The world called me broken. Let it tremble when I rise again!"
But as his laughter faded, doubt crept in. Power returned seldom without price. The voice in his mind, faint but insistent, whispered again.
> "Return… to where it began…"
Kael frowned. "Where it began? The field of the lost? Or the tower of binding?"
The crystal pulsed once, answering neither, yet its rhythm seemed impatient—alive, aware, calling him toward something unseen.
He strapped his cloak about his shoulders, the old warrior's instinct stirring beneath the years of rust and despair. His sword still hung upon the wall, more ornament than weapon now, yet he took it nonetheless. The weight of it steadied him.
Before leaving, he turned once more to the hearth. The flames had subsided, burning now with quiet reverence—as though bowing to him.
"Sleep," he murmured to them, and the fire dimmed instantly, leaving only embers. Kael stared at his hand, awe flickering through his exhaustion. The command—unintentional, instinctive—had been obeyed.
He could feel it now: not strength as before, not yet, but *recognition.* The bond between man and power, once severed, now tentatively mended.
He stepped into the corridor, boots echoing softly upon old wood. Mira peeked from behind the stairwell, eyes wide. "My lord… the villagers say it's a bad omen. That you've called spirits."
Kael paused. The rain had ceased, and silence stretched between them. "If I have called spirits," he said finally, "then let them know—I am not the man they left to die."
She lowered her gaze, uncertain whether to fear or pity him. But something in his bearing had changed—the quiet dignity of defeat had given way to a fragile, simmering authority. The commander had not yet returned, but neither was he gone.
When he stepped out into the dawn, the air was cold and pure. The storm had washed the sky clean, leaving streaks of rose and silver on the horizon. Kael lifted the hood of his cloak, the crystal's faint light hidden beneath the folds of fabric, and walked toward the east—toward the forgotten ruins beyond Eldareth's borders.
Behind him, the first light of morning broke upon the soaked earth, and for a heartbeat, the reflection in a puddle showed not a crippled man but the faint silhouette of fire burning behind him, trailing in his wake.
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Kael's crystal awakens, rekindling a fragment of his lost fire and hinting at a destiny that refuses to die. The whispers call him back to the place "where it began." Whether salvation or doom awaits there, even the gods have fallen silent.