They were fugitives now.
Kael could still hear the echo of boots crashing down stone staircases behind them, but the screams and chaos from the council chamber were already fading as he and his group plunged deeper into the Citadel's understructure—a forbidden maze of dust-choked tunnels and collapsed archives long abandoned after the War of Severance.
Every breath Kael took tasted like rust and old blood.
He gripped Eira's hand tightly as Vireya led the way with a flickering torch shard, her eyes scanning every shadow like it might grow fangs.
Arion followed behind, blade drawn and still shaking.
> "This is insane," Arion muttered. "We just declared war on the entire city-state."
Kael didn't respond.
Because deep inside… he knew Arion was wrong.
They hadn't declared war.
> The city had declared war on them.
---
They stopped near a rusted bulkhead marked in a language none of them recognized—fractal glyphs coiled like veins over its surface. The metal moaned as Kael pushed it open, revealing a chamber swallowed by roots and silence.
Eira collapsed to the floor, her breath ragged.
Kael dropped beside her, trying to steady her trembling limbs.
Her skin burned cold, pale with flickering glyphs just beneath the surface like phantom veins.
> "It's getting worse," she whispered. "Since the Trial… I hear Him clearer."
Kael's voice was hoarse. "Can you control it?"
"I don't know if I want to."
Those words stung more than he expected.
---
Elsewhere, in the shadowed ruins of the old cathedral district, the Emberborn knelt before a cracked mural of the Devourer devouring a dying sun.
A hooded figure stood in front of them. Priest-Judge Alvren, draped in blackened ceremonial cloth, raised a relic shard carved with Kael's name in the old flame-script.
> "The boy lives," Alvren said. "He walks the ashes with the Voice beside him."
> "The prophecy returns."
The acolytes murmured.
> "The Reforged Flame will rise. The Citadel will burn in holy fire. And Kael Varn will cleanse the Devourer's throne."
---
Back underground, Kael and the others found shelter inside an old maintenance chamber sealed behind hydraulic vaults. The light was low. The only sound was the thrum of old energy lines buried beneath the steel floors.
Vireya paced. "We can't stay hidden long. We need a plan."
Kael looked up. "The Outer Enclaves. We leave the city and rally support."
Arion blinked. "Leave? In the middle of a lockdown?"
Eira stirred. "There's a smuggler path through the underfoundries. It bypasses the sentry grid."
Kael stared at her.
"You've… been here before?"
She nodded, slowly. "When I was younger. When I didn't know who I was."
There was silence.
And then Kael spoke the words they all feared to say:
> "We're not coming back, are we?"
---
Back in the Citadel's upper chambers, the council was not idle.
Marshal Verdan ordered every gate sealed and every access corridor scanned. Drones flooded the sky. Bounties were issued. For Kael, for Eira, for anyone caught aiding them.
But the fear was deeper than they admitted.
Because some among them had seen the signs.
The cracked sky. The failed seal. The glyphs reborn.
And now… whispers in the slums. Fires burning in spiral patterns. Children chanting Kael's name in strange tongues they had never been taught.
> The Emberborn were spreading.
And their sermons were growing bolder.
---
A Glimpse of Tomorrow
As Kael drifted into uneasy sleep, a dream seized him.
He stood atop a burning tower, cloak torn, hands bathed in ash and light.
Around him—armies. Marching.
Some human.
Some… monstrous.
All of them chanting his name.
Behind him stood Eira, but her eyes were empty silver. Her face unreadable.
And in front of him—on a throne of devoured stone—sat the Devourer.
He smiled with Kael's own face.
---
Kael woke gasping, sweat freezing against his back.
Eira sat across the room, eyes open, glowing faintly.
> "You saw it too," she whispered.
> "Didn't you?"
---
Just as they prepared to move, a scratching sound echoed through the air vent above them.
A small drone dropped from the grate—damaged, sparking.
Kael picked it up.
Inside its cracked screen was a single recorded message, in a distorted voice:
> "They're not just hunting you."
"They're copying you."
"There's another Kael. Another Eira."
"And they're heading toward the Gate."