Verath didn't sleep.
Even at night, the city pulsed faintly with echoes — distant footsteps that never reached their destination, whispers without mouths to speak them, dragon statues watching with eyeless sockets. The fire in the temple had gone cold. The wind felt wrong.
Seren stood near the broken balcony, arms crossed, staring into the black horizon. Below her, the old roads of the Ash City twisted like veins, leading to nowhere and everywhere.
Something was coming.
She felt it in her blood — in the mark on her shoulder that now pulsed steadily, like a warning drum. It burned hotter than before. Sharper. Hungry.
Kael appeared behind her, silent as always.
> "It's time," he said.
> "You feel it too," Seren replied.
He nodded.
They didn't wait. They left the temple quietly, sparing only a nod to Eryndor, who stood like a statue in the center of the chamber, eyes closed, hands clasped over the scroll she had given them.
> "You may not outrun fate," she whispered as they passed. "But you may choose how it finds you."
They moved fast through the lower ruins.
Kael led through narrow alleys and collapsed passageways, always ahead, always sure of the path. He didn't speak. He hadn't since the vision. Not about what he saw in the pool. Not about the name he whispered in his sleep: Aelira.
Seren didn't press.
But she saw the stiffness in his posture. The way his hand never left the hilt of his sword. Something was haunting him. And it was getting closer.
A growl echoed through the broken city.
Not human.
Not beast.
Something worse.
> "Keep moving," Kael said. "We're not alone."
They passed a collapsed fountain, bones twisted through the stone like roots. A shattered cathedral loomed in the distance. Seren glanced at it—and froze.
> "There's someone there."
A figure stood at the base of the cathedral steps. Cloaked. Tall. Radiating cold.
> "That's not someone," Kael said darkly. "That's a Nightwrought."
Seren's blood ran cold.
> "What is it?"
> "A vampire cursed by the gods. A soul too black for death to claim."
> "It's watching us."
> "It's waiting."
The figure didn't move. Didn't speak. It simply raised one hand — slow, deliberate — and pointed at Kael.
And then it whispered, voice like chains dragging across stone.
> "Found you."
Kael shoved Seren behind him just as the ground cracked.
A scream erupted from beneath their feet — high and horrible. Ash exploded upward, and a creature burst from the earth like a corpse reborn.
It was tall, cloaked in darkness, its skin tight and gray over bone, its eyes a glowing red slit.
Seren tried to summon her flame — but it flickered, unstable. Her breath caught.
> "You know it?" she asked.
Kael stepped forward, face pale, eyes locked on the creature.
> "His name is Rhael. He was my brother."
Seren's heart stilled.
> "What?"
> "Before he drank the Blight. Before he tore out our father's heart and burned half the vampire kingdom."
Rhael smiled — a cruel, dead thing.
> "Kael, Kael," he said. "Still pretending to be a man. Still dragging your guilt around like armor."
Kael didn't flinch.
> "You shouldn't be alive."
> "Neither should you. But here we are. The son of the Blood King and the fireborn girl. How romantic."
His eyes slid to Seren. "You smell like prophecy. Like fire and ruin."
> "Touch her," Kael warned, "and I'll end you."
Rhael laughed. "You couldn't end me then. You can't now."
> "I wasn't protecting anyone then," Kael growled. "Now I am."
Rhael moved fast.
Kael moved faster.
Steel clashed with darkness in a blur of sound and violence. The old road cracked beneath their feet. Statues shattered. Shadows bled.
Seren backed away, heart racing, struggling to summon her flame. Her mark burned hotter — but the power didn't come. Not like before.
Come on, she thought. Come back.
Kael shouted, thrown across the square.
Rhael turned toward Seren, blood dripping from his claws. "You're not ready," he said. "But I can make you ready."
He lifted his hand — black magic swirling like smoke.
Seren screamed—
And the fire answered.
Not from her hands.
From her shadow.
A blast of golden flame exploded upward, striking Rhael in the chest and hurling him back into the broken cathedral doors.
He roared — in pain, in rage, in recognition.
Seren stood, shaking, glowing faintly. Her hair was aflame at the edges. Her eyes, for just a moment, turned gold.
Kael rose beside her, limping but alive.
> "What was that?" she gasped.
> "That," he said, breathing hard, "was you."
Rhael crawled from the rubble, burned and laughing.
> "She's awakening," he said. "Oh, this will be fun."
> "We'll end you next time," Kael warned.
> "You'll try." Rhael vanished into the mist like smoke on wind. "And you'll fail. Just like always."
They left Verath in silence, following the old blood path north.
Behind them, the city burned faintly — not with flame, but memory.
Seren walked slower now.
Heavier.
Kael stayed close. Not touching. But near enough to feel.
> "Your brother—" she started.
> "Is lost," Kael finished.
> "Can he be saved?"
> "Would he want to be?"
They walked for miles beneath a blood-red sky, the first sign of the coming eclipse.
The scroll in Seren's bag felt heavier now.
> Thorn meets Fang.
Blood moon rises.
Crown shall burn.
She looked at Kael.
He looked back.
And in the silence between them, something began to grow — not yet love. But faith.
And in a world burning, that was something.