The flames had burned themselves out, but Kael was awake.
Dawnfire rested across his knees, cold to the touch now, its runes pulsing with gentle rhythms—like a heartbeat falling into sync with his own. At the other end of the camp, Ryn slumbered fitfully under Lysara's and Myrrien's watchful eye, who remained suspicious of him. So did Kael. At least, not entirely. Something in Ryn's tone, in the sound of his silence, had spoken the truth.
And Kael had long since learned to trust the blade.
Because it remembered.
He pressed his hand along the fuller, tracing etchings with a cautious thumb. For an instant—just a flash—his eyes blurred, and the world about him tilted.
He was not in the Vale.
---
He was on a battlefield, long lost to time.
Corpses scattered the ground. Not human. No longer. Twisted creatures—once warriors, now deformed by some otherworldly power—scattered in heaps. In the distance, a black spire oozed light into a red sky.
And at the center of everything, stood her.
The woman from the initial vision.
Silver armor, moonlight hair, eyes blazing with Dawnfire's same light. She held the sword aloft, covered in blood, runes screaming with light.
Kael tried to step forward—but his feet didn't move.
She turned, as if sensing him. As if knowing.
"You're not ready."
The vision shattered.
---
Kael gasped, jerking back to the present.
Lysara was at his side in a heartbeat. "What happened?"
Kael wiped sweat from his brow. "The sword. It remembers more than just the bearers. It remembers… the future."
Ryn woke up. "Then it's beginning," he growled. "The blade is becoming what it was always destined to be."
"What does that mean?" Lysara demanded.
Ryn sat up, folding his cloak around him. "The sword was never designed to end the war. It was designed to survive it. To be the one thing that never dies. When every holder died, it was passed on not only with power—but with memory. A record. A will. A warning."
Kael gazed at the blade, now still once more.
"She knew me," he murmured. "The woman in the vision. She saw me. Spoke to me."
Ryn's face paled. "Then she was one of the Founders. One of the first Flame Forged—chosen by the gods, if you listen to the old tales. If her memory is still alive in the blade… it means your way is no longer your own."
Kael rose, holding the hilt in a white-knuckled grip.
"Then I'd better start making it mine."
---
By sunrise, the company was moving again—deeper into the Scarlands, where once a kingdom called Vael had stood proud before the sorcerer burned it to cinders in a single night.
Their destination: the Hall of Echoes.
A temple constructed by the earliest bearers to hold whispers of the sword's memory. Ryn reported it was entombed in the ruins of Vael's capital. If anything would know Kael what the blade actually wanted—or dreaded—it would be there.
When they traversed the dead plains, the earth became blackened and cracked, trees were charcoal, and the air itself hung heavy with stale pain.
At the edge of a dry ravine, Myrrien stopped.
She pointed ahead. "We're not alone."
From the shadows emerged a pack of creatures—twisted, half-human, with metal stitched into their skin and eyes that glowed like dying embers.
"Wraithforged," Ryn muttered. "The Tower's hunters."
Lysara drew her blade. "Think they're here for the sword?"
"No," Kael said, drawing Dawnfire. The runes on the blade ignited in response. "They're here for me."
The Wraithforged charged.
Kael faced them head-on.
The light howled on the blade.
And as it sliced through the creatures like fire on paper, Kael sensed something odd—
It wasn't him doing the fighting.
The blade was showing his hand how.
Not controlling. Not owning.
Teaching.
---
When the last Wraithforged lay on the ground, burned and shattered, Kael stood over the ashes, gasping.
The others watched wordlessly.
He slowly sheathed Dawnfire.
"We go now," he said. "Before more arrive."
Ryn's voice was low. "You're changing, Kael. The longer you bear it, the more it molds you."
Kael locked eyes with him.
"Then I'd better figure out who I am—before the sword does it for me.