Beneath the Ash and Stone

He licked the blood from his lip and chuckled under his breath.

"Zayn, persant."

"What they do to you Zayn,"

He asked: "Why are you here?"

She hesitated. Then shrugged. "To find you. You're in danger. They've put out word for your capture. Said you 'attacked' the twins."

Kael'thar scoffed. "I broke them. That's not the same."

She almost smiled. Almost.

Then her tone turned serious. "Come on. You can't stay here. If they find you again…"

He looked at her, this strange, stubborn girl, who kept risking herself for someone she didn't even understand.

.

A flicker of something dangerous and rare in his long, bitter life:

Hope.

He stood up slowly, groaning at the pain, and nodded.

"Lead the way, girl."

"My name is Lira."

"...Fine. Lead the way, Lira."

And for the first time since returning to the world, Kael'thar followed.

The fire cracked softly, its glow painting the walls of the ruined chapel in trembling gold. Rain whispered outside, but inside, it was warmer now—faintly.

Kael'thar sat on the cold stone floor, his back against a crumbled pillar. One arm draped over his knee. The other hung limply at his side, bruised and swollen from the beating.

Lira knelt beside him with a small cloth and a chipped bowl of warm water.

He watched her in silence as she wrung out the cloth.

"You really don't have to do this," he muttered, eyes half-lidded, voice coated in exhaustion and irritation.

"You're bleeding," she replied simply.

"So?"

"So shut up and let me clean it."

She dabbed at the dried blood on his cheek. He winced but didn't pull away. Her touch was light, but deliberate. He could see the way her hands trembled slightly.

"You're afraid of me."

"I'd be an idiot not to be." She dipped the cloth again, biting her lip. "You beat up two kids and ran into the night like a storm."

He scoffed. "They deserved worse."

"That's not the point." She paused, brushing hair from his forehead gently. " You have been acting funny. And that scares me."

She chuckled dryly' you were this sweetest and kindest guy, I have ever met, he'd never hurted a fly."

"Maybe that's were the problem started." He scoffed 

She rolled her eyes continue cleaning his wounds.

He stared at her. For a long time.

No one had touched him like this in millennia. No one had dared.

He remembered the last time he was wounded in battle—his body so massive and terrible that entire temples were built just to tend to him. He'd ruled over death like a god.

Now?

He was a boy… being nursed by a girl… in a broken chapel.

And somehow, it hurt more.

"Why are you still helping me?" he asked suddenly, his voice lower now.

She didn't answer at first. She finished wiping the blood, then started wrapping his wrist with a strip of cloth from her satchel.

" Oh Zayn, we have been friends for years dummy." she hit him gently on the head. But the pain wasn't gentle.

That name again.

Zayn.

.

Kael'thar wanted to reject it. Tear it off. Scream. But he said nothing.

Kael'thar looked down at his wrapped hand.

She continued, almost whispering now. "I still remember what you wanted."

"Which was?"

She looked him dead in the eyes. "To matter." she squinted.

That stopped him.

Completely.

For all Kael'thar's power, all his kingdoms and wars and spells—he had never once thought about mattering. Just conquering. Destroying. Dominating.

But this boy…

This fragile soul...

Maybe he had.

And that was something Kael'thar couldn't mock.

He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes for a moment.

"You're not as stupid as you look."

She rolled her eyes. "And you're not as terrifying as you think."

They sat in silence for a while—one healing wounds, the other wondering if he was starting to grow a heart in someone else's chest.

Night pressed in like a quiet storm, heavy and absolute. The ruined chapel lay in silence, its stones soaked in cold and shadow. A few dying embers blinked beneath the hearth, barely giving warmth. Lira slept curled beneath her threadbare cloak, her breaths slow and even.

But Kael'thar couldn't sleep.

He sat motionless, his back to the wall, staring out a shattered window. Moonlight painted thin lines across the broken floor.

And then it struck—like a blade drawn across his mind.

A vision.

 Not Zayn's either. But his.

Endless stairs carved into a mountain of silence.

A door hidden in mist, guarded by no lock, no handle, no voice.

A hooded figure standing beneath a tree that bore no leaves, whispering a name he had not heard in centuries:

"Ashen Temple."

He inhaled sharply. His fists clenched.

He knew that name.

Once, long ago, he had sent armies to burn the Ashen monks from the folds of the earth. They had kept secrets—powerful truths he could not control, could not bend. And so he tried to erase them.

But they didn't fight back. They disappeared.

No war. No blood. Just absence.

And now, here he was.

In need of the very wisdom he tried to destroy.

Kael'thar rose slowly, eyes locked on the distant horizon beyond the chapel ruins. Somewhere out there, hidden behind veils of myth and memory, the monks still watched the world. Waiting. Whispering.

Could they undo this curse?

Could they explain why he, the mightiest of overlords, had awoken in the body of a boy who was broken long before Kael'thar arrived?

The thought wrapped around him like chains.

Behind him, Lira stirred slightly in her sleep.

He turned his gaze back to the window.

He wasn't sure how he'd find the Ashen Temple. No one ever was. That was the nature of it. But something in his blood—ancient and proud—knew it was still there. Hidden between the folds of time and breath.

And for the first time in ages, he whispered something he had never imagined he would say:

"I need them."