The First Pact
Smoke clung to his shoulders.
The Furnace behind him collapsed into itself, swallowed by the force he left behind.
Tarn didn't look back.
He walked the under-paths now.Tunnels no god dared step into.Forgotten halls beneath the floating islands.
The whisper followed him.
Not a voice in his ears —A voice in his bones.
He stopped at a broken shrine.
Old. Ancient even to gods.
Half the statues were shattered.The ones left had no faces.
Tarn placed his hand on the altar.
It pulsed.
The whisper spoke again.
"Name yourself."
His voice was rough. Sand against stone.
"Tarn. Of the Ishvalans. Son of Kashira."
The shrine shuddered.
Ash spilled from the ceiling.
The voice laughed.Soft. Cold.
"You cling to a dead name."
Tarn's fists tightened.
"It lives with me."
Silence.
Then the altar cracked open.
Inside it—
A flame.
Small. Black-edged. Hungry.
It floated up, hovered before Tarn's face.
"Take me," it said. "And burn the sky."
Tarn didn't hesitate.
He reached out.
The flame sank into his palm.
Pain.
Fire crawling up his arm.Into his veins.His chest.His heart.
He fell to his knees.
Teeth gritted.
He saw flashes.
Battles. Death. Oceans of blood.
Not his memories.
Someone — something else.
The rage inside him exploded outward.
The stones around him melted.
The air warped.
But he stayed conscious.
Barely.
The whisper faded into words:
"The First Pact is sealed."
"You are not just rage."
"You are the weapon rage creates."
Tarn rose.
Not the same man who entered.
Eyes black as a moonless night.Veins like lava rivers under skin.A faint crown of smoke hanging over his head.
He didn't smile.
He didn't feel joy.
Only purpose.
"Kashira. I will make them remember you."
The under-paths trembled.
And far above —in the silver towers of the gods —
a new terror was born.
And it wore a red crown.