Morning broke slowly, as if the sun itself hesitated to rise after the night they'd endured.
The camp was silent save for the snapping of wood in the fire Berrin kept alive. Aven sat nearby, sharpening his dagger with short, precise strokes, each one a silent expression of what they'd faced. His tunic was stained with dried blood where Mira had stitched him up. He didn't complain, didn't speak. Just sharpened.
Kael stared at the edge of the woods where the Blightborn had disappeared in a plume of ash and light. He half expected it to return—half feared it never would. That would mean it had truly happened. That he had truly done something impossible.
Mira passed him a small cup of tea brewed from elderflowers and pine needles. "It helps with shaking," she said softly.
Kael hadn't noticed he was trembling.
He took the cup with both hands, grateful for the warmth.
"You lit up like a star," she added. "I've never seen anything like it."
"I don't know what I did."
"You survived," Berrin said from across the fire. "We all did. That's something."
Kael drank the tea slowly. "That thing—it knew me. I don't know how, but it did."
Aven looked up. "You think it was waiting for you?"
"No," Kael said. "I think it was drawn to me."
The others exchanged glances.
They broke camp quietly and resumed the road toward Elarion. There was still a full day's walk ahead, but something in the air had changed. Their silence was no longer one of strangers—now it was the silence of shared survival.
A few hours passed before Mira spoke again. "Do you believe in the Old Names?"
"The gods?" Berrin asked.
"No. The Names before that. The ones from before even the Sundering."
Kael tilted his head. "You mean the Names that built the world?"
She nodded. "My teacher says names have power. The right ones, spoken in the right place—they can bind storms, wake forests, even bring the dead to speak."
Aven scoffed. "Sounds like storybook nonsense."
"I heard a Name once," Kael said without meaning to.
Everyone stopped.
He looked at their faces—expectant, wide-eyed. He hadn't planned to share it. He barely understood it himself.
"It came to me during a fever, years ago. After a fire in the woods near my home. I was delirious. My mother said I kept repeating it—'Velkaryn.'"
"Velkaryn?" Mira whispered, as if afraid to say it louder.
Kael nodded. "I never forgot it. Even when I tried to."
Mira reached into her satchel and pulled out a tiny leather-bound journal. She flipped carefully through the pages before holding it out. "Here."
Kael read the passage she pointed to:
'Velkaryn, the Flame Between Realms. Said to be one of the First Four. Gave fire to the sky and sorrow to the sea. Banished during the Sundering by the Threefold Order.'
Kael stared at the page.
"It's just a name," he said, even as his heart thudded.
"No," Mira said. "It found you."
They arrived at a crossroads just before dusk. The stone sign was old and moss-covered, but still legible:
→ Elarion – 8 miles← Varncliff – 5 miles↑ Lornhollow (Ruins) – 1 mile
"We could push to Elarion," Aven said. "We've got light."
Berrin shook his head. "I say we rest. My feet have started a rebellion."
Kael looked toward the ruins. Lornhollow. The name sparked something.
"Let's go there," he said, almost without thinking.
The others hesitated.
"Why?" Mira asked.
"I don't know," Kael said honestly. "But… I think something's waiting."
The ruins of Lornhollow were swallowed in ivy and silence. Nature had reclaimed it, leaving behind only whispers of stone foundations and a few collapsed rooftops. But at the center stood something untouched by time—a circular platform ringed by weathered columns, each etched with glyphs long since lost to any known tongue.
A single archway remained upright at the platform's edge.
Kael approached it slowly.
As he neared, the air grew colder. The sun's warmth dimmed, like clouds had passed even though the sky was clear. His fingers brushed the stone.
And the archway flared with golden light.
The others jumped back. Kael didn't move.
The glyphs blazed. And a voice, soft as wind and deep as earth, echoed through the space between the stones.
"The soul that carries fire walks again."
The others stared, mouths open.
Kael stepped backward, but the light held him. Not painfully—just firmly.
"You are marked, Kael of Brinmere. Flamewrought, Ashborne, Heir of Unlit Fire."
"You do not yet understand."
"But you will."
The light faded. The glyphs cooled. Silence returned.
Kael stumbled back, gasping. His hands were glowing—dimly, like coals at midnight.
"What was that?" Berrin breathed.
Mira shook her head. "An awakening. A place like this… it was meant to test for resonance. They used to call them Flamevaults."
Kael fell to his knees, exhausted.
"What does it mean?" Aven asked.
Mira stared at Kael. "It means the flame chose him."
That night, as stars blinked into the sky, Kael sat beside the broken stones, unable to sleep.
Mira joined him, wrapping a blanket tighter around her shoulders.
"Do you want it?" she asked quietly.
Kael didn't answer right away. "I don't even know what it is."
"I think you do."
He stared at his hands again. "When I was younger, I used to have dreams. Of fire sweeping through cities. Of something in the sky—watching. Waiting. I thought they were just nightmares."
"They weren't."
"No," he agreed. "They were warnings."
Mira looked up at the stars. "My teacher used to say: 'The fire doesn't burn to punish. It burns to reveal.'"
Kael closed his eyes.
He saw the Blightborn again. The burning cloth. The voice at the archway.
He felt the weight of the names. Velkaryn. Flamewrought. Heir.
He opened his eyes and said the words aloud:
"I won't run."
Mira smiled faintly. "Good. Because I think this road only gets harder from here."