When old wounds open, new fires are born.
The cold seeped into the stone walls of their hideout. Despite the low-burning fire and the clatter of Kael's sharpening stone, there was a stillness in the air. Everyone felt it — something heavier than fear. A reckoning.
Ash sat at the center of it all, cross-legged on the floor, a map stretched before him. His hand hovered over it, not to mark an attack or draw lines — but as if touching the city might let him feel its pulse.
"You've fought in a war before," Darius said suddenly, standing in the doorway.
Ash didn't look up. "Many."
"You don't move like a street rat. And your tactics…" Darius stepped inside, shutting the door behind him. "They're not improvised. You trained under someone. Somewhere."
Ash exhaled slowly. He stared at the flame.
"I wasn't born here," he said. "I was trained in the highlands, in the Wraith Legion."
Kael froze mid-stroke. Silna turned her head sharply from across the room.
"That's a myth," Kael said. "The Wraith Legion disappeared during the Collapse."
"We didn't disappear," Ash replied. "We were erased."
He didn't speak often about the past. Not because it hurt too much — but because it made people look at him differently. Like he didn't belong in this world of gutters and firelight.
But tonight, he told them.
Of how he once wore black iron, not rags. How he had commanded men on fields slick with blood, not back alleys and rooftops. How his name had once meant something before it was buried.
"They told us we were weapons," Ash said, his voice low. "Sharp enough to cut through armies. Disposable enough to be forgotten."
"What happened?" Silna asked.
"I disobeyed," Ash said simply. "I chose to save people instead of executing a retreat order. My reward was exile. My brothers died. And those who survived swore I had betrayed the code."
The room fell silent.
No one spoke. Even Kael — always quick with words — stayed quiet.
Later, Ash stood outside, the city stretching wide beneath a starlit sky. Fires burned in the distant noble districts, golden towers rising like thrones of flame.
Darius joined him.
"You're still fighting the same war," the old soldier said.
Ash's gaze didn't leave the horizon. "I never stopped."
Meanwhile, in the depths of Lowend, two members of Ash's crew were ambushed.
The Black Fangs struck fast — no warnings, no mercy. One was left dead. The other returned barely breathing, covered in blood.
Ash crouched beside the wounded man, his jaw tight. The message had been clear.
Darius knelt beside him. "They're closing in."
Ash looked up. His voice was calm. Too calm.
"Then we make them regret it."
Preparations began at dawn.
Darius took command of drills. Silna gathered intel. Kael organized weapon caches.
Ash moved among them all, a silent fire behind his eyes. He spoke less now, but when he did, people listened.
Because they didn't just see a survivor anymore.
They saw a leader.
That evening, a rider approached the city gates — dirty, shaking, bleeding from a stab wound. He bore a single message:
"Velron is marching. He means to wipe the slums clean by force."
Ash read the letter, then passed it to Darius.
"So be it," he said.
"We were born in the ashes. We'll rise from the fire."