Memory is a sleeping god.
And everything that slumbers too long eventually dreams of blood.
Kael awoke with a scream that never left his throat.
The air smelled of hot iron.
Around him, the world had changed: he was no longer in the Broken Sanctuary, nor beside the child.
The ground beneath his feet was a plain of molten stone, and upon it fell a rain of embers that did not burn—but hurt all the same.
He was inside his own mind.
Or perhaps in something worse: within the memory of the fire.
From the horizon, a colossal figure emerged, made of black flames.
It had his face.
His eyes.
His voice.
—Kael Dren —said the reflection—. Do you remember why you lit the first temple?
Kael stumbled back.
—It was… the order of the high inquisitors. There was heresy in the south.
—Lies.
—There was corruption. Forbidden sacrifices…
—Lies.
—It was for the good of the faith!
The reflection smiled—an expression without lips.
—It was for fear.
Kael felt something inside him break.
He remembered the faces.
The voices.
The screams.
And the decision.
He had lit the torch.
He had thrown the fire.
And when the flames rose, he saw within them the face of his wife, holding their son.
The fire had not purified them.
It had erased them.
He fell to his knees.
His hands touched the burning ground, but he felt no physical pain.
It was another kind of fire: the one that's born in the soul when there's no faith left to contain it.
—I loved them… —he whispered.
—And that's why you killed them —the reflection answered.
—I didn't mean to…
—Everyone who burns says the same.
The reflection came closer, and Kael saw in its eyes a younger version of himself: a fanatical inquisitor, pure of gaze and firm of voice, convinced that divine justice walked beside him.
—When did you become what you swore to destroy? —asked the shadow.
Kael did not answer.
The flame embraced him, and for an instant, everything turned white.
He awoke again.
The child was sitting beside him, inside the sanctuary.
An entire night had passed—perhaps more.
The fire still burned upon the altar, but its light was softer now, more alive.
—What did you see? —the child asked.
Kael took a deep breath.
—The day it all began.
—And now you know why you were chosen.
Kael looked at him.
—I wasn't chosen. I was condemned.
—It's the same thing —said the child—. No one is chosen without being condemned first.
Kael lowered his gaze.
His sword lay beside him, and for the first time, it felt lighter.
As if something inside him had cracked—and in that fracture, some of the weight had escaped.
That night he did not sleep.
The child did.
Kael remained sitting, listening to the whisper of the wind through the ruins of the sanctuary.
Each current carried voices.
Not the voices of the dead—
but of those who forgave him.
"We loved you, even when you lit the fire."
He closed his eyes.
He wept in silence.
And he understood that redemption was not a place one reaches, but a path one must walk to the end—even if every step is an abyss.
At dawn, the child awoke.
Sunlight filtered through the cracks in the temple, the first real light in many days.
Kael watched it as if it were a miracle.
The child approached and touched his arm.
—You've changed.
—How do you know?
—Because the fire inside you no longer burns.
—And what does it do, then?
—It illuminates.
Kael smiled faintly.
He couldn't remember the last time he had done so.
As they left the sanctuary, the air smelled of rain.
The world seemed new, though it was still gray.
Kael felt something—a shadow or a promise—following him.
He turned his head but saw no one.
Only a trace of ash floating in the wind, drawing the shape of a woman with a silver veil.
She said nothing.
But her presence was enough.
Kael understood that the past is never buried.
It simply learns to walk beside you.
And as the child walked ahead, singing something in a tongue no human should ever know, Kael followed.
Without prayer.
Without god.
But with something new: the possibility of forgiveness.
And so, the fire began to fade—
not through death,
but through redemption.