The rain had ceased by morning, but Black Hollow was no lighter.
Mist clung to the rooftops like the weight of past sorrow. Kael sat by himself in the forge, the sword laid out bare on the anvil, pulsing softly like a heart that slept. The runes moved when he didn't look at them directly, as if they were writing and rewriting themselves to keep pace with his breath.
He hadn't slept.
He couldn't.
Each time he shut his eyes, he saw flames. Wings obscuring the sun. The woman in silver, her eyes empty and immortal. And always, the voice—not a voice, exactly, but something beneath—writhing in his chest like smoke.
Bearer of Shadowfire.
He ran his fingers over the mark on his arm, shivering. The skin was warm, as if it recalled the heat of the forge. But the pain was gone. Instead, there was something worse: knowledge. The mark was watching. Listening. Waiting.
Kael wasn't certain if it was a blessing or a curse.
He wasn't certain that he cared.
---
"Are you mad?" Marda's voice burst through the fog like thunder.
She stood in the doorway, eyes slitted, lips as thin as a knife. Her cloak was dripping wet, dragging mud across the floor. She'd never knocked a day of her life.
Kael didn't look up. "You felt it, didn't you?"
"I sensed something rip the world asunder, yes," she snapped, hobbling closer. "And I sensed it again when you walked by my door last night, holding that thing like a child holds a snake."
He slowly turned. "You know what it is."
"I know what it desires."
There was silence.
Outside, crows massed on the eaves, watching. Always watching.
"It's not merely a weapon," Kael said. "It's alive."
Marda gazed at the blade, then inclined slowly over her satchel, digging out a handful of dried, wilted herbs. She let them fall into the coals of the forge. A cloud of smoke drifted up—green, pungent—and curled towards the sword.
The runes flickered.
The sword growled.
It was a murmur, soft as a wind that came out of nowhere but present nonetheless. Kael put himself between it and Marda automatically, and felt something stirs within him—something piercing and old, building like the tide.
Marda raised her hand. "It recognizes you. Already. That's sooner than it needs to."
"Why is it doing this?"
"Because you touched it."
"Then I'll let it go," he said, but even as he said it, his hand reached back toward the hilt.
She gave him a look full of pity. "You can't. Not anymore."
---
That night, the dreams returned.
But they weren't dreams. Not anymore.
Kael stood on a battlefield shrouded in dusk. Thousands of warriors lined up against each other, faceless, in armor as dark as oil. Above them, dragons flew—not beasts of flesh, but of smoke and darkness, their eyes glowing with the same fire as Shadowfire.
In the middle was a figure in silver. She turned toward him, and this time her voice was distinct.
"You are not the first, Kael of Hollowforge."
The earth below him cracked. Fire erupted.
"You will not be the last."
---
He awoke with a gasp, the sword in his hand. It had slid from the forge to beside him without noise, without force.
Or had he moved?
The blade throbbed. Not light. Not heat. Something else. Something alive. It beat in rhythm with him. Or, rather, he beat with it.
He heard the whisper once more—not from the blade, but from within.
A storm is brewing.
Kael rose to his feet. The forge seemed too cramped. The world too still. His muscles throbbed once more, but it was a different pain now. Not from toil.
From power.
From transformation.
From becoming.
And somewhere, far to the east, beyond mountains and shattered kingdoms, a sorcerer opened his eyes for the second time in a thousand years.
"The bond is formed," he whispered.
Behind him, in a vast hall of crystal and flame, hundreds of eyes opened.
And began to march.