The sun barely touched the earth as Kael entered the path toward the mountains.
Mist clung low to the ground, curling around his boots like something alive, reluctant to release him from the world below. Behind him, the child slept within the hollowed shell of a ruined home, bundled in scavenged cloth. Kael had left food, water, and a single phrase written on a piece of bark:
> "Live. I'll return."
He didn't know if it was a promise he could keep.
But it was one he would die trying to.
---
The trail wound upward like a serpent's spine, coiling through blackened woods and ash-laced stones. As Kael climbed, the red glow grew stronger, painting the clouds above like wounds across the sky.
Then, the whisper returned.
Fainter than before. But closer.
Not words.
A memory.
---
Flames. Screams. The sky split open.
Kael blinked. It wasn't his memory. He'd never seen this place before, and yet it burned behind his eyes as though carved into him.
He staggered forward, breath short.
Each step on the mountain felt heavier now. Not from fatigue.
From judgment.
---
By midday, Kael reached a ridge.
From there, he saw it—a temple built into the cliffside, half-destroyed, blackened by flame. Statues lay shattered across the steps. Symbols had been carved into the stone, and burned over again with something darker. Crude. Violent.
And at its center stood a man.
Tall. Robed in crimson and bone. His face was covered by a black veil, but Kael felt the man's gaze pierce straight through him.
"You are not welcome here," the man said, voice like rusted steel.
Kael drew the broken blade. "Neither are you."
The veiled man tilted his head. "Yet here we both are, standing in the ashes of gods neither of us prayed to."
---
Without warning, fire erupted around the stranger's feet.
Kael leapt back as the stone beneath his boots cracked from the heat. He raised the blade—not to block, but to test.
To call.
And the sword answered.
A burst of scarlet flame exploded from its edge—wild and raw, but alive. The veiled man staggered, clearly not expecting the weapon to react. Kael didn't wait.
He lunged.
Steel met fire. Sparks howled in the air.
But Kael's movement wasn't polished. It wasn't graceful.
It was desperate. Feral.
And somehow… effective.
The man retreated, cloak smoldering.
"You've been touched by the Flame Below," he hissed. "You don't even know what it means, do you?"
"I don't care," Kael growled.
"Ignorance," the man muttered, vanishing into smoke, "is the first step toward becoming a monster."
Kael stood in the stillness again.
His heart pounded. His blade steamed. His hands trembled.
Not from fear.
From power.
---
As night fell over the mountain, Kael entered the ruined temple.
Inside, murals lay broken, but one remained: a painting of a man with burning eyes, standing before a chained god. And beneath it, written in the old tongue:
> "When the heavens fall silent, the flame will speak."
Kael stared at it for a long time.
The blade at his side throbbed once. Not in warning.
In recognition.