Whispers Beneath the Ashes
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The wind howled across the shattered cliffs of Dreadhollow.
Not a breeze. Not air.
But something older. A memory wrapped in wind.
The ruins steamed beneath Aedric's boots as he walked through what had once been the prison of his soul. Behind him, the last embers of the old world drifted upward like fireflies mourning the stars.
Lyara followed, silent.
Her eyes traced the glowing runes that still flickered on Aedric's skin.
"You know they'll come for you now," she said at last.
"I'm counting on it," Aedric replied.
He didn't look back.
---
They reached the cliff's edge.
Far below, the Ashlands stretched into the distance—blackened forests, cracked earth, and haunted skies. The land was dead. Or sleeping. Or waiting.
Aedric could not tell.
But he knew it welcomed him.
Lyara stopped beside him, her hand brushing the hilt of her dagger. Not threatening. Just instinct.
He noticed.
"You think I'll turn on you?" he asked.
"I think you already have," she said quietly. "Not to me. But to yourself."
A pause. A silence made of weight.
Then Aedric exhaled, and the clouds above flickered with red.
"I haven't turned," he said. "I've chosen."
---
Far below, hidden in the ruins of the old city of Vael'Tirath, something stirred.
A figure—hooded, cloaked in silver-threaded shadow—emerged from the earth. She knelt before a shattered altar, placing a withered scroll into the open mouth of a broken statue.
"The Flame has awakened," she whispered.
The statue cracked in response.
"Then the Pact must hold," came a voice from nowhere.
The woman rose. Her face was ageless. Her eyes were stitched shut with silver threads.
"It won't," she said. "He has the Heartbrand."
---
Elsewhere, in the deep chambers of Caer Thalos, Caelen stood before a war table, surrounded by the Blackguard generals.
They spoke in hushed tones—of mobilizing armies, of sealing passes, of raising the barrier between realms.
But Caelen was not listening.
He stared at the sigil burning in the center of the table: a crimson crown surrounded by seven black stars.
> The mark of the true heir.
"Burn it," he said at last.
The generals hesitated.
"I said burn it."
One of them did, reluctantly. But even as the parchment curled into ash, the mark remained—etched into the wood beneath, seared into the table itself.
Caelen's jaw clenched.
He had killed his brother once.
He would do it again.
---
In the tower high above the palace, Selene stood before a mirror.
Not admiring. Not regretting.
Just remembering.
She touched the crystal hanging around her neck—an old charm, once given to her by Aedric before the world turned dark. It still pulsed faintly with his energy.
She felt the change in him.
Not just rage. Not just power. But clarity.
He wasn't becoming a monster.
He was becoming inevitable.
And that frightened her more than anything.
---
Back in Dreadhollow, Lyara lit a torch and led Aedric down a spiral stair carved into the cliffs. The walls were marked with forgotten runes, singing quietly as they passed.
"I didn't bring you here for the view," she said.
Aedric nodded. "You said the truth was buried below."
She stopped at a sealed door, its edges rimmed with rusted gold.
"Not buried," she corrected.
"Entombed."
---
The door opened to reveal a chamber unlike anything above. No ash. No heat.
Only silence.
And stone coffins.
Dozens of them.
Aedric's breath caught.
He stepped forward and saw the carvings on the lids—Valtoris. Over and over. His bloodline. His family. Their names.
All sealed. All erased.
Except one.
The central tomb.
Its inscription was scorched away. But Aedric knew it. He remembered it. The same dreams that had haunted his nights since childhood had always ended with this tomb.
"It's empty," he whispered.
Lyara nodded.
"Yes. And that's the problem."
---
Aedric turned to her, confusion and fury twisting in his eyes.
"You said this was truth."
She placed her palm on the empty lid.
"This is the truth."
And then—the lid trembled.
Aedric staggered back as wind exploded from the sarcophagus. Not natural wind. Not air.
Whispers.
> Ash-born... Flame-blood... The First shall return... The Flame is not yours...
A voice older than gods poured from the tomb.
Aedric clutched the Heartbrand. But it didn't glow.
It dimmed.
As if it, too, remembered something.
As if it, too, was afraid.
---
Lyara looked at him, eyes wide.
"You're not the first Valtoris to carry the flame," she said.
"And you won't be the last."
The tomb cracked open further. From inside, light poured out—white, searing, unnatural.
Something stirred within it.
And for the first time since taking up the Heartbrand, Aedric Valtoris felt the edge of doubt.
---