Chapter 15: The Voice Beneath the Ashes

The silence of the ruins was deafening.

Kael sat cross-legged atop the ashen stones of the forgotten temple. Faint embers still lingered in the cracks—traces of an ancient fire that refused to die completely. The moon above was a pale, ghostly sliver, barely cutting through the drifting mist.

His breathing slowed.

His mind reached inward.

And then—

"Kael…"

A voice.

Low, broken, yet unmistakably calling his name. It didn't come from outside. It echoed inside his skull, like a whisper etched into the marrow of his bones.

His eyes snapped open. The air around him had thickened, as if the world had been submerged in cold oil.

Again, the voice.

> "Descendant of the Eclipse… why do you linger in silence, when the blood in your veins screams for war?"

Kael's shadow shifted.

It moved without him.

He stood up slowly, eyes scanning the ruins. The wind stopped blowing. Even the flames in the cracks held still—frozen in some warped moment of time.

Then, the earth beneath him groaned.

Ash and stone gave way, revealing a sigil—an intricate black symbol glowing faintly with violet pulses. It burned into existence beneath his feet, ancient letters swirling around it.

Kael's heart pounded. His instincts screamed at him to run.

But something older than fear held him in place.

The sigil flared—bright, violent—and the world vanished.

---

[Vision]

He stood atop a battlefield drowned in shadow.

Black suns burned above. Corpses of gods lay shattered beneath a sky of blood. A colossal figure, cloaked in thorns and eclipse-fire, raised its hand—and the stars themselves screamed.

And beside him—Kael saw himself.

Or something that wore his face.

Eyes pitch black. Veins pulsing with a red so dark it bordered on void. A crown of spiraling bone on his head.

The other Kael turned toward him and spoke in a thousand overlapping voices.

> "You are a fragment, a sliver of the one who once shattered the cycle. You are not Kael Ardyn. You are… the Echo of the Sovereign."

---

Kael gasped.

The vision shattered. The temple ruins returned—but now dimly lit by the same violet light from the sigil.

In his palm, a mark burned.

A spiral of three eclipse rings surrounded by jagged claw-like patterns: the Shadowbound Sigil.

It wasn't just power.

It was identity.

> "The Hollow Star… waits…"

"Follow the Ash-Wind. Only there will you become whole."

The voice faded.

The sigil dimmed.

But Kael stood taller than before.

He clenched his fist, and the shadow around his feet obeyed him for the first time.

A faint smirk touched his lips. So it begins…

---

🌀 To Be Continued in Chapter 16: The Hollow Star Beckons