Chapter 12: Tower of Ash and Flame

The closer they got to the tower, the less the air resembled anything from the living world.

Heat pulsed from the cracked earth in slow, painful breaths. The sky overhead had no clouds, just a dull crimson glow like a wound that never healed. Flames burst from fissures with no sound, flickering like memories instead of fire.

Starflare kept one hand on Elian's shoulder as they moved. The boy hadn't spoken since they entered the Burned Veil. His eyes glowed faintly, the same rhythm as the sealed mark on his palm. He didn't seem afraid. Just... distant.

Nightblade led the group across the final ridge, crouching low as the tower came into full view. It rose from a crater of molten stone, surrounded by spires that curved inward like they were bowing to it. The black walls shimmered, sometimes solid, sometimes smoke. A thing both built and remembered.

Wren whispered, "There's no door."

"There never is," Nightblade muttered.

He stepped forward, searching for a seam. None appeared.

Instead, the tower opened for them.

It didn't move with hinges. It breathed, exhaling a slice of darkness into the heat. A doorway appeared in the wall, long and narrow. Behind it, nothing but black.

"Stay close," Nightblade said.

They stepped inside.

Immediately, the heat vanished. The tower was silent. Cold. The walls pulsed like veins. Shadows moved without sources. The air felt heavy, like they had stepped into the lungs of something ancient and angry.

Elian stopped walking. "He's here."

Starflare looked around. "Where?"

"Everywhere," Elian whispered. "And he knows I'm coming."

They passed through corridor after corridor, each one more surreal than the last. One was filled with clocks that ticked without hands. Another had mirrors that reflected their fears instead of their faces. In one room, the floor was covered in feathers soaked in ink.

"This place isn't made of stone," Wren said softly. "It's made of him."

At the end of the final hall, they found the chamber.

It was vast, circular, and lit by a single flame suspended in the center of the room. The flame wasn't red or gold. It was white. Blinding. Pure.

And beneath it stood Revenant.

He looked unchanged from the last time Starflare saw him. Tall, pale, eyes black as oil. His armor seemed to move on its own, like shadows clinging to muscle. The mark of the Eye was gone from his brow, replaced by a crack that glowed with inner fire.

"You've come," he said, smiling faintly. "And you've brought the vessel."

Nightblade stepped forward. "You won't take him."

Revenant laughed. "You think this is about taking? This was always about returning. The world above is weak. Soft. Bound by law and cowardice. But this place remembers. This place obeys power."

Elian moved forward on his own.

"No one wants you," he said quietly. "You're a ghost who couldn't let go."

"I am the flame that survived," Revenant replied. "And you are my torch."

He raised one hand.

The mark on Elian's palm erupted with light. The boy screamed and fell to his knees. Smoke poured from his mouth. His body shook as if caught in a storm.

Starflare ran to him, but an invisible force threw her back against the wall.

Wren shouted, reaching for his weapon, but Revenant flicked a finger and the boy was frozen mid-step, held by magic older than language.

Nightblade attacked.

He moved faster than sight, blades slicing the air. Revenant blocked the first, dodged the second, then countered with a wave of flame. Nightblade vanished into smoke, reappeared behind him, and drove a blade toward his spine.

It stopped mid-air.

Revenant's body rippled, turning into smoke for a heartbeat, then reformed. He backhanded Nightblade across the chamber. The masked hero crashed into a pillar.

"You're still playing by mortal rules," Revenant said.

Starflare pushed herself to her feet. Her hands lit with light, brighter than any she had conjured before. She hurled it at Revenant with a scream.

The light struck him.

He staggered.

Then he laughed.

"Do you think light can burn what was born from it?"

He waved his hand. Fire raced across the chamber, swallowing everything.

And then Elian stood.

He walked into the flame. It parted around him.

His eyes blazed gold.

"You don't control me anymore," he said.

Revenant turned.

"You were meant to carry me. To rise with me. Why resist?"

"Because I've seen who you are," Elian said. "You don't want to build. You want to erase."

"I want to make the world clean again," Revenant said.

"At what cost?" Elian asked.

Revenant hesitated.

And in that hesitation, Elian struck.

He raised his hand, and from his palm, a second symbol appeared. Not the Eye. A spiral of chains. The mark of binding.

Kevara's spell.

Elian pressed the mark forward.

It struck Revenant in the chest.

The god screamed.

The chamber trembled.

Revenant's body cracked, light spilling from his skin. His voice turned into many, overlapping. He staggered backward, toward the white flame.

"You will regret this," he whispered.

"I already did," Elian said. "But I'm choosing something else now."

The flame swallowed Revenant whole.

The tower groaned.

The spell broke.

Wren collapsed.

Starflare ran to Elian, catching him before he fell.

Nightblade stood slowly, clutching his ribs.

"He's gone?" Wren asked.

Elian shook his head. "No. Not gone. But chained again. Deep. For now."

Nightblade looked at the flame.

It still burned.

But quieter.

"I don't think we'll ever be free of him," Starflare said.

"No," Elian replied. "But we don't have to be. We just have to be strong enough to keep choosing."

They left the tower.

The Burned Veil began to fade around them.

Ashwing waited where the veil split open.

"You have walked into death and returned," he said. "Few do."

Nightblade nodded. "The price was paid."

Ashwing tilted his head. "You'll feel the gaps eventually. The memories you lost."

Starflare looked at him. "Will we get them back?"

"No," Ashwing replied. "But you will grow new ones."

He turned away.

And the veil closed behind him.