Ash drifted from the sky like slow-burning snow.
It clung to dead branches, blanketed black stone, and settled softly into the boy's hair. He stood at the edge of a mountain path, barefoot, smoke-wreathed, and silent. The wind whispered low and dry, tugging at the loose fabric wrapped around his frame—some kind of cloak, torn at the edges, as if scavenged from a battlefield.
He did not know where he was.He did not know who he was.
But he knew this: something inside him was burning.
Not fire in the physical sense—though a faint flicker did twist at his fingers—but a deeper heat. A pressure in his chest, like a scream that had never been let out. A grief so old it had forgotten its name.
The boy blinked up at the sky. There was no sun. Only a blood-orange glow beyond the clouds, as if the world itself were smoldering from within.
Then—A sound.Not from outside, but from inside his mind.
[SYSTEM BOOT SEQUENCE ENGAGED...]ERROR: Identity fragment missing.Designation: "Kael" assigned.Vital signs: Unstable. Ember Sync: 4%.Cognitive lockdown: Partial. Memory retrieval suspended.Begin reinitialization? [Y/N]
The boy staggered, clutching his temple.
A pulse of heat rippled down his spine, like a forge bellows gasping to life.
"…Kael," he echoed, voice raw from disuse. It didn't feel like his name, but it also didn't feel wrong. Just… incomplete. Like a word waiting for the rest of the sentence.
He swallowed the iron in his throat."…Yes."
Acknowledged. Welcome back, Kael.
A glow spread across his right hand. Lines etched themselves into his skin like molten circuitry—sigils spiraling from palm to forearm. They didn't burn. Not exactly. But they remembered burning.
Kael clenched his fist.
The fire responded.
It curled around his knuckles like a living thing, warm but barely under control. He could feel it trembling—like it, too, had just awakened from something long and terrible.
Then—
A thunderous rumble split the air.
From far off—past the valleys of ash and across the charred ridges of the horizon—a column of flame erupted into the sky. Not a natural fire. This blaze carried shape. Intention. A pulse echoed outward from the blast like a heartbeat, and Kael felt something deep inside him answer.
His knees buckled.
A thousand images surged through him in an instant. A battlefield drowning in screams. A face he couldn't name, weeping blood. A voice—his own—whispering:
"If I fall again… do not let me rise."
Kael gasped. His body jolted as if shocked back into reality.
The flames vanished from his hand. The sigils dimmed, leaving his skin unmarked. But the ache—the weight—remained. The System spoke again, its voice eerily calm.
First Protocol activated: "Emberkind Resurgence."Objective initialized: Descend the Ashspine.Locate Memory Relic 01: "Grave of the First Flame."Caution: Hostile echoes detected in proximity. Combat functionality locked until Ember Sync ≥ 10%.Proceed with caution, Kael.
He didn't move right away.
The world below the mountain range was dead. Blasted forests. Rivers turned to smoke. Broken cities drowned in their own shadow. But something waited in that silence. A memory. A promise. Maybe even a version of himself that still made sense.
Kael looked at his hands.
They were shaking.
But not with fear.
Resolve, perhaps. Or anger. Or some mixture of both.
He took one step forward. Then another. Each footfall dislodged flecks of ash that spiraled in the still air.
Behind him, the path ended in nothing.
Before him, the ruins waited.
And the fire stirred once more.