Chapter 33: Shadows at the Edge of Flame

The skies above Bloodroot Hollow had turned a sickly maroon, as though the heavens themselves had been wounded. Smoke drifted in long, silent trails, carrying the stink of scorched moss and shattered bone. Where the monolith had once stood, now only a blackened crater remained, its edges rimmed with crystallized ash. A scar in the land, bleeding silence.

Kael stood at the edge of it, eyes locked on the hollow space where Elyra had collapsed just minutes before. His blade dripped blood, cultist or otherwise. His expression was unreadable, but his jaw was tight. Every breath he took sounded like it cost him.

Elyra sat with her back against a shattered tree, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around herself. She was shivering—not from cold, but from something colder still. Her dragon, still wounded, lay a few meters away, breathing slow, labored breaths.

"You're sure the Herald vanished?" Kael asked Vespera without looking at her.

Vespera paced in slow circles, violet sparks trailing from her fingertips. Her hands hadn't stopped shaking.

"He didn't vanish," she muttered. "He was taken back. The power we felt... it wasn't him. He was a mouthpiece. A puppet. The god beneath pulled him back when the seal broke."

Kael finally turned. "Then it's loose? The god?"

"No." Vespera crouched, pressing her palm to the ash. "But it's awake. And it knows Elyra now. It sees her."

A long silence. The kind that stretches, taut and dangerous.

Elyra finally looked up. Her voice was hollow. "I saw it. I saw its eye. It spoke to me. Said I carried its spark. That I belonged to it."

Kael moved toward her. Slowly. Like approaching something fragile that might shatter or explode. "Do you?"

That stopped everything.

Vespera froze. Even the air seemed to still.

Elyra met his gaze, her eyes dark and pained. "I don't know. But something in me... answered when it called."

Kael didn't flinch. "If you turn, if it takes you, I'll be the one to stop you. You know that, right?"

She didn't answer. Didn't need to. It was a promise already written into their story.

Vespera broke the tension. "We can't stay here. More will come. Cultists, corrupted beasts, maybe even Vale Watchers."

Kael nodded. "We head east. There's an old watchtower near the edge of the Serpent's Vale. We can rest, regroup, figure out what the hell we do next."

Elyra rose unsteadily. Her dragon stirred, rumbling faintly.

As they moved through the hollow, the air grew colder. The trees wept sap that smelled of iron. Shadows moved at the edges of their vision. Not following. Waiting.

The forest was changing.

By nightfall, they reached the crumbling remains of the watchtower—a leaning stone husk overgrown with ivy and haunted by wind. They made camp within its remains. A meager fire. Sparse rations. No sleep.

Vespera stared into the flames. "There was a prophecy once. A lost spark born of flame. A girl who would either break the gods or bind them."

Elyra whispered, "You think it's me."

Vespera looked away. "I think the gods think it is. And that makes it true enough."

Kael sharpened his blade in the dark. Steel against stone, over and over, like a heartbeat.

Outside, in the far distance, something howled. Not a wolf. Not a beast. A call. A warning.

Or a welcome.