The wind changed as they moved north.
Gone were the familiar trees of Marrowick's forest. In their place rose twisted pines and jagged stones, the land growing colder with each step. The sky grayed. The sun rarely showed its face now.
Kael walked ahead, silent, his eyes fixed beyond the horizon.
Liora trailed behind, trying not to shiver. The dragon blood in Kael must have dulled the chill—but she was only human. She pulled her cloak tighter around her.
"Tell me about Vareth Tal," she said after a while.
Kael didn't stop walking. "It was a city built into the spine of the world. Fire beneath, snow above. A fortress, a palace… a tomb."
"Is it where you ruled?"
He nodded. "My throne was carved from obsidian and bone. It overlooked the Valley of Wyrms. Every mountain bowed to it."
Liora raised an eyebrow. "Modest."
Kael gave the faintest trace of a smile. "I was a god to them once. Or so I thought."
By midday, they reached a frozen stream that curled like a silver serpent through the rocks. They stopped to drink—cautiously. Kael scanned the trees constantly now. The deeper they went, the stronger the wrongness in the air grew.
Then he saw it.
A stone marker, half-buried in frost.
He brushed away the snow. An ancient sigil lay beneath—etched with claw, not chisel. Dragon script.
"Home."
Kael stepped back. "We're close."
Liora knelt beside the marker. "You sound uncertain."
"I am." He looked away. "There may still be things living in Vareth Tal. Things loyal to what I was."
She stood and faced him. "If you fear they'll reject you, why go?"
Kael met her eyes. "Because Nytheris won't stop. And I need strength. Even if it's buried in my past."
Flashback: The Throne Room of Vareth
Tal Kaelrith stood tall in the heat of his prime.
The obsidian throne burned against his back. Before him, a mortal ambassador knelt, begging for mercy. The man's voice trembled.
"Please… not the children. We surrender. Let them live."
Kaelrith's golden eyes were cold.
"You poisoned our rivers. Built your walls across sacred flame. You were warned."
He turned to his generals, dragons in humanoid form, wreathed in heat and pride.
"Reduce it to ash."
The man screamed as they dragged him away.
Kaelrith watched with no feeling. He believed justice was fire. That peace only came after total submission.
Only now, in his mortal skin, did he understand the look in the man's eyes.
Present Day – At the Gates of the Dead they reached the edge of a sheer cliff by evening.
There, nestled in the jagged mountainside, were the Ruins of Vareth Tal.
Sprawling towers of black stone jutted from the snow, partially collapsed, buried in frost and silence. Bridges hung in tatters over empty chasms. Statues of dragons lay shattered, wings torn off, faces weathered by time.
It was a graveyard. And yet… it still breathed.
Kael stepped forward.
The wind howled—and a sudden roar shook the mountain.
Liora grabbed her staff. "That wasn't the wind."
Kael's face darkened. "No. That was a wyrm."
"Yours?"
He shook his head.
"No. I never let them live this long."
A shape moved in the dark ruins—massive, slithering, wrong. Eyes like molten tar watched them from the broken cathedral.
Then it spoke.
"The fallen king returns. Shall we offer you a crown of bones?"
Kael's voice dropped to a growl.
"I came for fire. Not thrones."