The sky above the Ashplain churned with violet clouds. Thunder growled behind the mountains, and a low wind howled like a warning. Kael's arm hung limp in a sling Sirena fashioned from her cloak. He was pale, bruised, but conscious. Every breath felt like fire.
They had made camp near the ruined bones of a skyfall titan an ancient beast turned to stone. Emberlight flickered from Sirena's small flame, casting ghostly shadows across the rocks.
"You shouldn't move yet," she muttered, placing a thin leaf soaked in crimson sap across Kael's wound. "Even the Warden showed mercy. That means something."
Kael forced a smile. "Mercy? Looked more like amusement."
Sirena didn't laugh. "He could have killed us both. But he didn't."
Kael stared into the fire. "He said I passed the First Gate. That the legacy is mine."
"What legacy?"
Kael reached into his satchel, pulling free the fragment of Vel'tarion. The blade shimmered faintly, almost alive.
"Whatever's inside this," he said. "It wants me to remember."
That night, Kael dreamed.
He stood in a sea of flame. A tower rose above him, cracked and burning, its peak stretching beyond the clouds. At its base knelt a woman of gold and glass, her eyes blind with light. Runes surrounded her, locked in orbits.
"You are not yet worthy," she said, her voice echoing in Kael's bones.
"But you will be."
---
He awoke gasping, his body stiff and soaked in sweat. Sirena was already packed and waiting. "We move now. The Ember Gate is a day's march."
They climbed through black ridges and sulfur valleys. The land was scorched nothing grew, and the rocks glowed faintly beneath their feet. The silence was heavy, broken only by the hiss of the wind.
By sunset, they reached it.
The Ember Gate was carved into a cliff face, thirty feet high, and marked with glowing sigils older than the kingdom itself. The stone looked half-melted, as if the gods had shaped it from living flame.
Kael stepped forward. The mark on his arm flared.
The runes answered.
A booming chime echoed across the cliffs. The stone began to move splitting down the center, revealing a spiral stairway descending into orange-glowing depths.
Sirena hesitated. "Are you sure?"
Kael nodded. "We've come too far to turn away now."
They descended.
---
Inside the Ember Gate, heat wrapped around them like a living thing. The walls pulsed with molten light, and deep beneath their feet, the sound of metal striking metal echoed.
"Someone's down here," Sirena whispered.
They reached the bottom. A wide cavern stretched before them, filled with glowing forges, suspended walkways, and chained guardians forged from obsidian and bone.
At the center stood a forge of black flame and before it, a figure in a gold-forged mask.
"Prince Kael of Velmora," the smith said. "You have come to reforge your fate."
Kael stepped forward. The shard of Vel'tarion in his hand pulsed.
"Then let it begin."