Chapter 20

Chapter 20: One Will Burn (Extended Version)

Kael didn't sleep.

Even with the sealing, even with Riven beside them in the sanctuary tower, they felt like a vessel cracked just enough for something else to whisper through the fractures.

And that something had a voice now.

A shape.

A presence behind their thoughts, pressing inward like fingers against a mirror.

"I'm you," it had said.

But not like the Other.

Not lost or ancient.

This one was sharp. Modern. Watching Kael through their own eyes, not as an invader but as a coiled future that had once been chosen.

And now it wanted out.

Riven stirred beside them, one arm slung over Kael's waist, runes along his collarbone fading softly. He hadn't spoken since their return from the Temple.

Kael sat up, careful not to wake him.

The tower window faced east. Smoke still drifted from the horizon, where Orrenfall's border lights should've glowed. The twins had been taken beyond the warded territories, into lands Kael barely remembered from old maps.

They clutched the scroll again, reading the line for the hundredth time:

"Two threads severed. One chain begun. The prophecy will unravel by the next moon."

Was Laeth the one who would die?

Was Kiel the liar?

Or was it worse?

A shadow stepped from the corridor.

Aeris.

Still in her blood-marked robes, her face hollow from spellwear. Her eyes met Kael's with solemn clarity.

"We need to talk," she said simply.

Kael nodded.

Riven stirred. "I'll leave you two."

"No," Kael said. "You stay. You're part of this."

Aeris folded her arms, lips pressed tight.

"They were taken to the Ruined Fold. That much I know. I've traced the ley-lines. But that place is different now. It… bends. Warps memory. You could lose yourself trying to cross it."

Kael stood, fire rising in their chest. "Then we go together. I won't leave them."

Riven stepped forward. "We need to prepare. The Fold eats magic. We'll need physical weapons. Anchors to reality. Something to bind ourselves to this timeline."

Kael looked to Aeris. "You have something in mind."

She hesitated. "The Ritual of the Flamebound."

Kael's brow furrowed. "I thought that was outlawed."

"It was," Aeris said. "But only because it works."

The ritual chamber had been sealed for a hundred years.

Deep beneath Relewyn Keep, past the root crypts and the tomb of the last Timewitch High Matron, the Flamebound chamber shimmered with old magic.

It was circular, etched in emberstone, with five pillars one for each element of oath.

Love. Loyalty. Truth. Sacrifice. Wrath.

"We bind you with all five," Aeris said. "So that when the Fold bends your mind, these threads will pull you back."

Kael stepped into the circle.

Each pillar flared as they touched them in turn. With every flame, a face emerged in their thoughts:

Laeth's steady gaze.

Kiel's golden grin.

Thorne's quiet protection.

Aeris's fierce resolve.

Riven's tortured devotion.

The final pillar Wrath flared last. And in its fire, Kael saw a different face:

Their own.

But darker.

Smiling.

"Do you still want this?" Aeris asked.

Kael nodded. "I need them back. Whatever it costs."

The flames consumed the chamber. Riven drew his blade and pressed it to Kael's palm.

"Speak the vow," he said.

Kael looked him in the eye.

"I vow to burn for them before I let them burn for me."

The blade cut.

Blood hit the runes.

The ritual was sealed.

They left at dawn.

Kael, Riven, and Aeris.

The last defenders of the Veinborn soul.

They crossed the whispering pines where shadows fled daylight, skirted the lake where merbloods once sang, and stepped onto the fractured roads leading to the Ruined Fold.

The first sign they were near was the light wrong light. The sun glitched in the sky, skipping like a broken film. Trees moved when you didn't look. And voices whispered truths no one should know.

Riven held fast to Kael's hand.

Aeris drew time wards around their feet.

"We're here," she said. "One step further, and the Fold owns your memories."

Kael stared into the shimmering fog ahead.

"I'm not afraid."

And stepped through.

The Fold devoured sound.

Inside, there was only silence and reflection.

Everywhere Kael looked, they saw possibilities.

A version of Riven who never hurt anyone.

A version of Kiel who never shifted.

Laeth, but with wings.

Aeris dead.

Thorne crowned king.

Kael… alone, always alone.

They stumbled.

"Kael!" Riven's voice punched through the mist. "Stay with me."

Kael blinked.

Their own voice laughed from behind them.

"You're not strong enough to save them. But I am."

It was the new presence.

The one they had accidentally created.

It stepped from the fog. A Kael in red. Crimson eyes. Smiling.

"You sealed the god, but you made me. And I can do what you're too soft to do."

Kael raised their blade. "I'll kill you if I have to."

Other-Kael grinned. "You can't kill a choice."

The Fold snapped.

And the world changed.

They stood in a throne room of bone.

The Prism Order surrounded them.

Kiel and Laeth were chained in magic.

The high priestess stepped forward, removing her mask.

Kael gasped.

It was Cassian.

Their old friend. One who had disappeared years ago.

Cassian's eyes glowed with starlight. "I told you. One would lie."

Kael's knees buckled.

Cassian smiled. "And one will burn."

He raised his hand

The floor ignited

And Kael screamed as fire poured through their chest, awakening something they swore they had sealed.

The god.

The Other.

The Red Kael.

All of them at once.

And then, with a voice that wasn't entirely their own, Kael rose.

"You want a god?"

Their skin cracked with light.

"Then kneel."

The flames exploded outward. Cassian staggered back. The acolytes collapsed, screaming. Chains shattered from Laeth's wrists, Kiel's shoulders blazed with sigils but something was wrong.

Kael's vision blurred.

And they saw it Kiel's soul-thread, snapping.

He was smiling. Even as his body crumpled. Even as the light left his eyes.

"Kael," he whispered. "Worth it."

And then silence.